Bartenieff Fundamentals and Improvistation 26/10/11

Today, we didn't continue with learning the fourth principle of the Bartenieff Fundamentals we looked at improvising with the three principles that I have previously wrote about; breath, core-distal and head and tail. As well as improvising we practiced movement sequences that we had done in previous weeks and then adding these three principals to them, we practiced them separately but then tried to think about them all at the same time. We then split into groups of three and each one of us took one of the principles to focus on as the rest of our peers watched and observed how the quality of the movement changed within each of the three.

When just focusing on breath I observed that the sequence flowed more than without the breath. Instead of just getting to a place and stopping then moving onto the next step, using the breath made it flow through the movement added a sense of continuity to the sequence and also added more dynamic.  This was especially on one of the parts where we have chance to take a deep breath in and then exhale in one go this adds a sense connectivity between all the parts of the body to move as one and also makes it a bit of a surprise factor.


When observing the person concentrating on the principal of the core-distal, this also adds more dynamic because whenever there is a movement it comes from the core so shows more strength behind the movement and also it makes it more aesthetically pleasing because there are bits where we can really stretch out with all our 6 limbs and reach out and then places where we can curl up in a ball around the core.


Head and tail gives the sequence more fluidity and movement a softer feeling behind it, for me personally I find this principle the hardest, there is a lot to think about and with it being about the spine I feel that I don't have very much movement in my spine so even when consistently trying to improve, there will never be much movement in my back as to some of my other peers. I feel this gives me a dis advantage but if I can work my range of movement to my best and always putting effort in then this shouldn't hinder me any way.

Improvisation and Contact Improvisation

Improvisation is supposed to be the spontaneous creation of movement material for choreography but it can also be used as a warm up or to relax, improvising is quite a freeing exercise to do as it allows you just dance without thinking of technique or whether or not what your doing is right. There is no such thing as right and wrong in improvising even when given a starting point or a score to work from. Improvising is what ever feels best for you, what you think is right its your body and what you think might be completely different to one of your peers in the group.Its about doing what you personally what you want to do and what you have been told to do.
Improvising can also consist of contact improvisation, Steve Paxton began to develop the idea of contact improvisation, he trained for three years with merce Cunningham and then when on to perform works by Yvonne Rainer and Trisha Brown. Paxton had a contribution to the formation of the Judson Dance Theatre, this was an informal group of dancers, the dancers and the founders were extremely interested in experimental movement who reject the ideas of modern dance and therefore inventing the precepts of postmodern dance. Contact Improvisation is a way of experimenting with gravity, friction and also kinect movement. contact Improvisation can be explored with two people of a group of people, finding different connections between different people, lifts and experimenting with different places to place your weight and people, interesting balances its about being spontaneous with people and also trusting people. Contact Improvisation can be performed and explored with people that have never danced before, Paxton came to this idea from working with Cunningham and his idea of chance choreography, the idea that any movement can be dance no matter what. It doesn't have to fit with the music it can go against it or not go with the music at all and have no relationship.

...together with other Judson choreographers

such as Steve Paxton, Douglas Dunn, and Trisha Brown. However analytic

and austere these participants' independent work may have been, when they began

to improvise together, the invention and variety of their dancing knew no bounds.

Following (or disobeying) the slightest of plans for the evening's show, the Grand

Union performers would perform set choreography, improvise skits, quote stock

characters and movement idioms, extemporaneously devise new characters, and

comment meta-theatrically on these activities as they were happening. According

to Banes, "a social as well as an aesthetic world invaded the stage": 

Monten, J. (2008) ‘Something old, something new, something borrowed…: eclecticism in postmodern dance’ in Bales, M. & Nettl-Fiol, R (eds.) The body eclectic: evolving practices in dance training.  Urbana ILL: University of Illinois Press. 
I feel that one of my main weaknesses throughout the whole of university has been improvising, I don't have the confidence to do it and even when I start to get lost into the moment I think that I start just doing what I do all the time, always going back to my old habits and never finding new material. By using bartenieff fundamentals as a starting point for an improvisation gives me something to work from, something to think about, having a starting point helps me but its hard to not go back to old habits. Paxton wanted to break down the barriers between dancers and non-dancers, he wanted it to be a free expressive way of moving and to not focus on the aesthetics of the movement.
In my opinion I think improvising as a dancer is harder than improvising as a non-dancer, as a dancer I automatically think what does this look like or what do other people think about what I'm doing? I am too self conscious about my movement and should have confidence, it doesn't matter what improvising looks like its about what happens and not thinking about it before I do it. As in our degree at the moment we are doing more and more improvising and while I don't look forward to it to start off with, when I get into the "moment" I do quite enjoy it and lose myself in the movement. To be able to improve on this I could do it in my own time and just play some music and dance and see what comes out of it, I think if I did this it would help me when improvising in a group and give me confidence in what I do, not thinking or taking notice of others around me or letting their movement influence mine, stay true to my own ideas.
I need to take into consideration improvising is a great tool for choreographing allows you to come up with movement that is original rather than something you have seen elsewhere or go back to my old habits and place them in the choreography. Using the bartenieff fundamentals as a starting point for improvisations gives me something to work from and concentrate on which wont allow me to go back to old habits, thinking about the head and tail relationship will make me move differently than to what I'm used to as this is not something that I automatically do, it will give a different quality to my choreography making it flow as I see this as a more slow, gentle way of movement which is the opposite to what I normally do as I'm normally quite a fast mover. Also incorporating breath into my choreography will help with the dynamics, again this is something that I don't normally think about but over the past 3 years at University it is something that I have being trying and consistently trying to incorporate.


We study the Bartenieff Fundamentals in one of our technique classes which adds some variety to our other technique classes, its not about being perfect its about exploring different ideas and how it feels for me personally whether I think this would work or not, seeing how it changes the movement. Its really helping me at the moment also with choreography its allowing me to be individual and with this my choreography will not become like a technique class.

Release technique 25/10/11

Release technique covers a number of different techniques, it is a kind of umbrella term. This technique is based on the use of breath and also weight, being able to release your weight into the floor. this makes it a more heavy way of dancing and although you need the control obviously to dance, when you watch someone dancing it looks so natural to move in that way.

The technique has strands of different techniques with in it, such as the Alexander technique, feldenkrais technique as it is also very much focused on the alignment as well as the breath. Using these techniques gives it a somatic approach as well, where the aim is to have a feeling of an internal experience of the body as well as being able to see an analytical outside view of the movement. Somatics in dance is becoming more and more common, I have personally only recently heard of this and when I have been taught it I can very much see the relevance to it in contemporary dance and especially in release technique.

Somatics and dance
somatics and dance are now becoming more and more integrated together, a lot of dance courses at universities are using somatics to help the dancers when coming to technique. Somatics is a sense of mind-body centering, the idea that they both work together and not against each other. When in class this morning a correction was given to me to use the breath more. When I did this I found it helped with the movement, helped me get deeper into this movement and also make it look better from an outside view.

In class this morning we were doing the exercises that have become a set routine, from doing this I am starting to be able to improve from week to week. from looking at my past blog that I wrote about this class one of my goals was: To use my breath more as this will give me a deeper movement quality and allow me to really get into the positions that are needed for this technique. From learning about somatics in one of my lectures today this will help me to improve on this. One main thing I need to remember is on the final phrase of this class, I need to remember to breathe all the way, it seems that I almost hold my breath all the way through I think this is because I am under pressure whereas if I used my breath it would add different dynamics as well as giving me time to think about whats coming next as I will be  more relaxed.

The very first exercise we do in class is very relaxing and just involves getting in tune with our body, feeling our weight fall into the floor and getting a sense of gravity, after researching somatics. The idea of somatics in a dance context is to

          " remove dancers from a typical space-time-effort constraints and physcological demands of a dance class. A somatic learning environment often begins with quieting the mind-body "chatter" in order to focus attention on the body's sensory stimuli (from breath, muscle tension,contact the body with the floor etc)"

http://www.iadms.org/associations/2991/files/info/somatic_studies.pdf accessed on the 25/10/11

This is exactly what we do in the very first exercise, there is no counts no sense of having to be correct in technique it is just about becoming centred and allowing your body to get used to the way of moving and get ready for class. This is all becoming clear now as I have researched it further, This is something that really interests me so an additional blog will be uploaded about somatics in more detail.

I now know that out of my 3 goals that I have previously listed, I need to focus on the breath one the most as I know when I improve on this everything else will follow, obviously corrections with technique will still need to be made but I feel that if improve on breath this will help me not only in release technique but in every technique that I study.

Looking into the Spine In More Detail

As I don't have much movement in my back, I have been looking into different techniques to help this that relates to the Bartenieff Fundamentals idea of the 'yeild and push' and "reach and pull". These two ideas help initiate movement in the spine, and looks at where it comes from. One of the exercises that we did was to lay in the child pose and push our head against the floor, reaching away to create a curve in the spine. Another technique that looks into helping with posture and back pain etc is the Alexander technique. This isn't a dance technique as such but it looks into posture and the correct posture. Peggy Hackney says a healthy spine should have a bend in it at the base of the spine is this correct?
I want to look into different techniques on how to increase movement in my back, the principal that we looked at of alignment has really interested me and made me want to look into it more detail.

Alexander Technique

This technique has been around for over a 100 years and was created by an actor Fredrick Alexander who suffered from voice problems and had general health issues.  The technique can help anyone to increase there range of movement in the back neck and head, from athletes to management of disability. it is simply about learning to strip away old habits that cause distortion in your body and learning new techniques on how to over come these and through gradual improvement and classes to be able to do this without thinking.

The Alexander technique is used to control back pain, it is a holistic therapy rather than a dance therapy, there is a lot of movement in this technique but it also focus' on a lot of thinking. The technique looks at self-improvement for back pain and any other muscular pain. It wants to re-establish the relationship between the neck, back and head, the core of your body in which your limbs are supported by and also provides the structural support for your breathing and internal organs. People may prefer a holistic way to help their back pain instead of a physiotherapist session or steroid injections etc. It aims to build and re-discover a balanced mind.You can normally see the relationship in the back neck and head the best in young children. this is because they just move naturally and don't think about the movement. In most children as well they don't have any stress to cause tension and injuries in the back un-like adults.

The focus of the lesson is the neck, the format of the class is trying to find different ways to move from a sitting position to a standing position and aimed to change the direction in which your neck and head go without you having to think about it. The idea is to be able to lengthen your neck in a "forward and up" position, this reminded me of the exercise we did in the bartenieff fundamentals class the principle of alignment. The "forward and up" position is designed to make subtle movements that affect your whole spine and get the whole spine moving just like the child pose exercise I have explained.

Showing the right and wrong posture. The right posture and correct position focuses on the neck going "forward and up" as in the second diagram

The technique helps dancers such as myself and other performers by increasing stamina, free up spontaneity and also it could help with stage fright. Relating it to myself  I could increase and improve improvising, rather than thinking about what is coming I can just free up my mind and let my body take me. It can also to help to get rid of poor habits occurred over time and dance training throughout the years and also develop a wider knowledge of your body. As a Musician their instrument is their tool and they  know it inside and out so as a dancer, my body is my tool so I should know everything there is to know about it.

The Alexander technique also influence other techniques such as the Feldenkrais method.

Feldenkrais Method
 
This method is also based on the idea to help gain more movement in the body not just necessarily in just the spine but in the whole body. It helps to realise our potential more fully It is and exploration of body/mind movement and working together, working on an exploration of self discovery as well as movement enquiry. Feldenkrais wanted a more flexible mind rather than a more flexible body, he believed you couldn't have one without the other. The method can potentially improve permenatly our posture, balance and co-ordination. This method uses gentle touch, movement and directed attention to increase your own self-awareness of your body, what its suppost to do? what does it feel like when something isn't right etc.It helps to explore easy fluid movement and balance which is the natural feeling of the body.  This method aims to deepen your sense of movement and focus' on your brain as the core of the movement, this comes form a quote "I think therefore I move" Thomas Hannah.

A lot of dance techniques go against this idea, such as ballet. Ballet tries to make us completely upright and doesn't use the breath and the release of the body to help the movement easier whereas some contemporary techniques embrace this because it is the natural body movement to use breath and to relax.

In the movement classes precisely structured movement exercises and explorations which involve thinking, imagining, movement and also sensing. The lessons are not intense movements they are comfortable movements that gradually improve your movement capability. There are two ways of learning the felderkrais method and these are : awareness through movement and also functional integration. Functional integration is more often than not a one on one session with a trained teach manipulating your body in order for you to feel the movement correctly whereas the awarnesss through movement classes are normally a group class with an instructor telling you what to do this allows for self exploration and allwoing you persoally to feel what feels right and comfortable for yourself or not.

I will continue to look and different techniques on how to help movement in my back because I know this is one of my main downfalls and weaknesses. I would love to be able to improve on this so I will continue to research this in more depth.

Bartenieff Fundamentals- 19/10/11

This is the 3rd lesson we have had on the Bartenieff fundamentals, which consequently means we are on to the third principle of the technique, alignment.
In the past we have worked on exploring breath within movement and how this can assist you not only in this technique but in every technique, every step that I do. Look at whether it helps, how it adds dynamic to my movement and the opposite effects whether we hold the breath when under pressure or if we relax and breathe does this help? We have also looked at core stability, the strength and how using this also assist us when moving, how curling everything in and stretching everything helps again with the dynamics.
 These are interesting principles to look at and remember when choreographing, if I ever get stuck or a block and I need to change some movement to give it a different look or dynamic I can remember these ideas and ask my dancer/dancers to move in a certain way focusing on one of them and look to see how this changes the movement and whether this gives me any more movement material to work with.

Alignment brings focus to the movement of the spine, the different sections of the spine and being able to explore the range of movement available to myself; whether one part of the spine moves more than the others, whether I have more movement than I originally thought. There are main parts of the spine: atlas and Axis, cervical, thorasic, Lumbar and sacrum and coccyx.

http://www.spineinfo.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/spine_anatomy_diagram.jpg (accessed on 19/10/10)

Peggy Hackney who wrote the book  "making connections" mentions that a healthy spine should have a bend and not be completely straight, we think as dancers that we should have a straight spine and always be upright this is especially the case in ballet dancers. Ballet doesn't really explore the movement of the spine in the same way as contemporary dance does  e.g. Cunningham and the back curves and release technique. In this class we did exercises that involved using all the spine which felt nice as I personally tend to not focus on the movement in the spine, at first we improvised and then we added it to a movement sequence, I could tell the difference straight away when watching other people dance, I can see the connection between the head and the tail. I found that when focusing on spine and after dancing that actually my spine ached this goes to show that I really don't use my back as much as I should be doing. we also did an exercise where we either led the movement from our head or from our tail and the let the rest of the spine and body follow. Its hard to class this as a true improvisation because I find it difficult to not think about what I'm doing, improvisation is supposed to just happen but when focusing on different parts of the body I do find myself thinking about it.

http://www.spineinfo.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/spine_anatomy_diagram.jpg (accessed 19/10/11)
This is one of exercises we did which involved being in this position and rolling the head forward, we did this so we could see all the movement in the spine and where abouts it gets stuck or where the least amount of movement is in the spine, from doing this we could also feel the weight of the head into the floor, you have to lead with your head and pull back with your tail. we then applied this to movement material that we already had to see where about we can add this principle in to the movement. e.g. on a handstand you the tail that bring you back down.

Technique classes are about being able to explore movement and to push your body, its not about being perfect or precise. You have to push your body to improve and see what you can really do, with exploring these principles that's whats it all about just trying it and seeing if it works and how far your own body is able to go.

Private Practice

The Final routine for release technique. I was trying to practice when there was free studio available so I could really travel and use the whole space and explore different dynamics to travelling and also try it with different music to see if it works and if it didn't work with the opposite type of music.

Something Im looking into at the moment for a solo im currently creating is whether movement has to go with a piece of music or whether the connection between the movement and the opposition to the music is enough. We find as a society that we like things to match it satisys us. But do opposites attract?

'Moving to balance'

This video shows the idea of just moving through a balance rather than completely having to stop. I noticed from watching this video I need to move my top arm so I have one straight line from the tip of one hand to he other. On this clip Iplace my arm slightly behind my body which is incorrect.

Full Cunningham Class 17/10/11

This was the first time in a while that we have had Juliet for technique.It felt good to have her back as a teacher as we have had have her for two years so she knows our own strengths and weaknesses. I feel like some of my weaknesses in this class are getting better but sometimes I need a little reminder so that I remember.
    
Juliet's class is a Cunningham based class which focuses on positions of the back (my weakest area) I find that doing an 'upper curve' which just uses the upper part of the back manageable for me to do with the little range of movement I have. The curves are harder for me when it comes to the middle back but I am working on this and need to think more of pushing my belly button into my spin rather than having a deep plie. I doesn't matter if I'm not as deep everyone else in my plie just as long as the positioning is correct.
     I also need to work on my back curve, keep my ribs pulled in and not to push my hips forward and really isolate the upper back going backwards almost over the ribs, like having a corset on.

You can see on this picture that I am slightly pushing my pelvis forwards to give myself a bigger range of movement, I need to keep my pelvis tucked under and ribs quiet to be able to make the correct position.

This is a picture that I have uploaded to try and show my improvement on my middle back curve, I am starting to remember to not bend in the hips but push my belly button to the spine. I appreciate that my movement In my back is little so it will be hard to see a massive improvement.

Middle back curve in parallel, from this picture I have just noticed that I slightly roll my feet inwards I need to work on keeping every toe on the floor and have a flat foot.

When we get moving in this class I feel like one of my major strengths is that I can travel and really move when asked.  However I struggle travelling when doing triplets, they feel quite uncomfortable to do and have the 3 steps equal size, feels quite awkward, I think this would be a interesting feeling/dynamic to explore as I am used to things flowing so it would be hard to make things awkward and staccato almost.

There was one exercise where we had to balance in an open like movement but to do this we had to keep moving to balance, if I think of balancing and stop still then I will definitely wobble whereas if i think about moving through the movement I will be able to keep my centre intact and move through the balance rather than just stopping still.

We were set an adage to do that was quite challenging as it had a lot of positions and balances in. At first as soon as I saw it demonstrated I thought to myself that I wouldn't be able to do that and that I don't have the strength. Our teacher told us not to think like that and to think that if we tell ourselves that we can do it then our body will respond to this whereas if we start an exercise with a negative mind set it will come across in the movement. I tried this approach and I started to believe more in myself and that came across. I can use the same concept for adage as in the other exercise: to balance is to move.  I think this advice has a very positive outcome and is a mindset which I can and will transfer into wider life. 

When in this full Cunningham class I can definitely feel my core working especially when we are in an upper curve doing the bounces, but the idea of the bounce is not to bounce up and down but to help us get deeper and deeper into our curve. I know when doing standing practice to use my core but sometimes I forget when we start moving around the space so this is one thing I need to really work on and remember to do because this will help with travelling on the triplets which I have mentioned I struggle with.