Dance Improvisation and Revlective Practice

“We believe that students learn to become choreographers through the development of artificial consciousness; the ability to describe, analyse, interpret, evaluate and imagine/implement revisions to their own and others’ dances.”( Lavender, L, 2001, 195)
I am now at the end of my improvisation practice and my views of it have changed, at the beginning I had only a little bit of improvisation practice and I was completely unaware of how much could go into it. For instance, how a score could help you create a phrase, different images to incorporate into my body and so much more. My views on improvisation have changed because it’s made me more aware of my body and all the different possibilities I can use my body for. I believe that imagery has influence me a lot with this change because it’s made me think about ways in which I can move my body, think about what parts I use a lot, what parts can I use when, what parts haven’t I used and what parts are my weakest that I don’t use and what could I experiment with. To continue, improvisation has expanded my choreography because it’s broadened my awareness and has given me more choreography techniques, ways to develop myself further within my stages of choreography.
Furthermore, improvisation has got a lot to do with choreography because it’s always going to be a starting point for it. Without improvisation there would be no choreography we always start from scratch when creating so we are improvising to bring that all together to create something. When you’re improvising you are dancing from within and being internal. When choreographing you are improvising but taking movements that you like and putting them together into a set order. When improvising and choreographing they can be separate because improvising you are just flowing with the movement and the movement is coming out of the body, were as choreographing, yes you improvise but that then becomes set as piece.
Being in the moment means to let out any emotions and any movement within the body, being internal and really feeling the movement. The experience I got from this was a good feeling when I got it right because I found my movement would rise and really flow nicely I wasn’t thinking about where I was going or what I was doing, I was just flowing through it and letting my body create. I think you know when you’ve been there because the movement feels good and you really feel like you are there.
Bibliography
Lavender,L.(2001)From Improvisation to Choreography: the critical bridge. Research in dance education.

During my improvisation this week I found myself trying to figure out my body more as I had a period of time off. In the beginning I found myself laying on the floor relaxing into my body, finding points of tension or where needed some relaxing in order for my body to feel internal and calm during my improvisation. Massaging different points one by one through the floor, curling my body into ball stretching out through the entire body releasing within. Once doing this my body felt very calm as I began walking begin given instructions such as using my kinesphere, head and pelvis, elbow, nose, index finger, left leg on the floor leading with the elbow, no hands or feet these rules helped me begin thinking about my body again, ways in which I could develop abstract movement and get the variation of movement back into my body. Also whilst being in the space walking around there had to be spurts of movement, stillness and structures helping us think about those parts of improvising as well so that we could involve them within the movement material created.

Nancy Stark Score
Nancy Starks score is a piece of framework that continues with developing research within improvisation and it allows a dancer to go “through a series of changing states” which can vary from being internal to allowing gravity to take you within the space. By doing this it allows us to have an in site to these changes, how the body reacts to those changes and how it can be a push into contact improvisation practice. By developing these changes it allows ease, dancing in the space by yourself or with anyone else in the room, initiating the kinesphere and concerns in improvising. I find this score makes you think about, what is an underscore? What is an inner score? How does it help me within improvisation? Whilst looking at the score I found that the concepts and components within it are always changing or developing as new ideas come about, also many more phrases are being added to it as new ideas and movement are developed.
Once looking at this score in groups we used it to create our own idea of a score using some of the symbols that Nancy stark uses to create different stages. Things we had to think about when creating is time felt/actual, dynamics, space, RSVP cycle, Spatial relationships and how may you influence what happening in the space combating habitual? Our score;
1. Split into three groups
2. Attraction and repulsion, one person you are attracted to and one person you are repulsed by, you have to focus around the idea of imagery given
3. Middle and high kinesphere, creating new movement and finding new ways at these points
4. Relationships with bodies, involving a round ball, the ball has to be passed around and it involves an image, connection with the object that is being passed
5. Within the first minuet of each section they have to use internal time and stop for 10 seconds and carry on
6. Must stay in each section for 2 minutes and when they are told move onto the next section
7. Purpose is so they find a connection between time, relationships between each other and objects, challenging habitual movement and connections between the bodies and space
Feedback
1. What did you feel the purpose of the score was?
The response given; To do different things then what you would do normally, not to use body parts that comfortable, think outside the box especially when using the ball, however when using the ball or in certain points of the improvisation it distracted from dancing and would forget to dance.
2. Do you think you challenged habitual movement and breakaway from it?
The response given- At points when thinking about the one minuet, kinesphere thinking and really challenging themselves. In the first corner they found themselves working out of it and really breaking away more from the habitual movement, they found that more interesting and abstract movement was happening.
3. Did you find it difficult to improvise and think about internal time?
The response given – they found they forgot about the minuet as they were so focused on what they were doing and the minuet was lost in every section with each group. They found it hard to figure out and concentrate on the task and minuet.

Bibliography;
Smith, N. Caught Falling the underscore.

Anna Halprin
She created movement material for large communities and the people she created for didn’t need to have any dance background training at all. She is one of the many female pioneers of modern dance when creating her work she would use scores an example of the is the circle the earth scores in which she uses eleven different stages which are;
1. Preparation
2. I am the Earth (Rising and Falling)
3. The Vortex (Snake dance)
4. Confrontation (Monster, Mask and Warrior dances)
5. Restoration
6. Bridges and Passages
7. The Earth Run
8. Peace Wheel by Terry Riley (Sound Circle, Peace Song, Sound Spiral)
9. Bird Transformation
10. Action and Commitment
11. Peace Bird
These scores are very open and closed and based around the RSVP cycle which stands for;
• Resources – “Which are the basic materials we have at our disposal. They include human and physical resources and their motivation and aims.”
• Scores –“The word scores is derived from its original use in music which makes it possible to instruct groups of people to carry out prescribed activities. They delineate place, time, space and people as well as sound and other related elements.”
• Valuation – “coined term menacing ‘the value of the action’ or the analysis appreciation, feedback, value building and decision-making that accompanies the process of creation.”
• Performance – “the implementation of the scores, which includes the particular style of the piece.”
The RSVP cycle is an essential tool during Halprin’s creative process of the performances, circle the earth and the planetary dance. These scores are relevant and key to my dance practice because it going to be able to help me develop my improvisation practice and it will help me with my further choreography. Also it will help me in the future because her scores are malleable for anyone to dance to i.e general public.
Space, Clapping and Clump
Walking around the space enabled me to be conscious of the bodies in the room and what was going on around me. This enabled me for further exercises to understand and feel the space a lot more it also made me feel and be within the space much more. Making eye contact with each other around the space made you realise who you were with, where they were within the space. Coming together in a circle with each other we began a clapping exercise what I got from this was again making ourselves aware of each other in the space. Also keeping contact with one and other it kept us engaged with each other and how deep and far we can go into the space. After this we clumped and one person walked through it we had to open and close the space really quickly. This involved us working with one and others bodies and feeling how tight and enclosed the space could be. It made me think when improvising how I can make my movement much more tight and enclosed within my improvisation.
Travelling across the space
Whilst traveling across the space we had to think about our lower, middle and upper kinesphere we did these all individually and then combined them together.
Lower – I found I slid along the floor in different ways but I don’t want to constantly keep sliding on the lower level of the kinesphere. I would like to develop my movement so that I am able to focus on quirky and abstract movement when improvising across the floor. I found my lower kinesphere most difficult to do as I found myself to provide the same or similar movements or movement pattern.
Middle – This kinesphere I found easier to do as I was able to twist in my body a lot and develop my movement into something bigger. I was also able to provide movements like low body jumps and coming up off the floor.
Upper – Upper body was easiest to do because I could twist within my body and I could go into jumps. I found it easiest because I could get around my body a lot and I felt like I could be a lot more open with the movement I was doing.
Combined – When combining all my kinesphere together I found it more flowing because of focusing on them individually first helped me really think about what I could do and how I could combine them altogether. I noticed that I used the floor during this a lot so to develop from this next I want to focus on my other kinesphere and really make sure I work on developing abstract and quirky movement.
Creating a score
Resources available
Scores components such as time and space
Valuation process
Performance
Using this in groups we had to create our own scores either off everyone’s question or statement or we could just use one or a couple to combine a couple to help create these scores. We based our score around:
How can improvisation help my movement pallet develop to
help my chorography? How can it help me with in my improvisation?
1. Basketball: focus on the texture of the ball, movement it creates and circular patterns, how does it feel when using it against the body.
2. Hula-hoop: two people are only on the hoop at once using it and improving with it, however everyone must be moving and focusing on moment to do with the hoop.
3. Beanbags: it must be thrown at all times and everyone must be constantly moving around and catching the bag. If you don’t catch the bag everyone must fall to the floor.
4. Responding to sound: have to listen to the instrument being played, must be able to get the movement through the body, listen to the beat and dance to the beat, take the sound and put it into your body.
By creating a score I found this hard to do because you want it to be creative and interesting for people to do. I think our score was interesting to watch because everyone had to really think about the moment they could do and how they could use the props around them a lot to help create the movement. With the basketball I noticed a lot of people used it on their bodies and really focused on the upper body with the ball. It allowed us to see how they would get the idea of how a ball could be used and developed into their heads. Hula-hoop I think people found this one hard and I noticed they wouldn’t be very experimental with the hula-hoop they would just move around it. I think if people put their minds to it they could’ve really developed some good ideas with the hula-hoop and been really experimental with their bodies. Bean bags this one I enjoyed watching with some groups because they were really energetic and really focused on where the bean bag was and they were moving constantly. It was nice to see change after they dropped to the floor and how catching and falling with the beanbag really effected the bodies dancing. Finally responding the rhythm was very interesting to see because some people where really focused on the timing of the movement and how they can put it through the body. It was really nice to see a change within people’s bodies when listening to the music because they really think about the movement and where the music could go inside them.
Bibliography:
Worth,L and Poynor,H. (2004) routledge performance practitioners: Anna Halprin. Pages 110 – 126

During improvisation today we worked on using the frontal plane and we were only allowed to use out arms. Going either way across our bodies and up or down diagonal both ways, this allowed me to think about what I could to beside swipe across my body and what I could do with my frontal plane. Whilst being with our partners if we swiped the same side we would then have to do the same movement as each other and carry on, the movement would have to be across our frontal plane. This enable me to think about what open and closed movements I could do involving my frontal plane and incorporating that into my improvisational practice. After this it turned into a travelling swipe across with different partners one person would have to swipe whilst the other would figure a way to move around the swiping through the frontal plane. It made me feel aware of my partner through the space and a way to progress from this as well was to the swiping and movement much more intentional. This then changed to copying a partner across the space, the intention from this exercise for me was to develop new ideas and movement partners which we can add to our own improvisational practice, still coming away from that habitual movement and encouraging my body in new directions for new ideas. We did this for a while constantly changing the partners we were with developing new movements and becoming aware of their movement. What I noticed during this exercise is that I need to use my upper body more meaning my chest and the planes I can use within my kinesphere.
Improvisational imagery and impulse, this involved us working in partners and tapping parts of the body, responding to the given impulse. I noticed doing this from last time I work in circular patterns a lot still and that’s a go to shape for me. There were three given images given to use at different times we had the imagery of seaweed, kitten and wrestler.
Seaweed – when I was being tapped this thought of seaweed made my movement feel very flowing and I found that I didn’t travel across the space much because seaweed is usually very still. My movement was very focused around the arms and this annoyed me a little because I want to try and come away from using my arms as my go to first movement. As time has gone on I have noticed that my arms are go to habitual movement.
Kitten – the kitten movement was not my favourite out the three being tapped, it found my movement was very jolted and jagged which I really didn’t enjoy much as all.
Wrestler – the wrestler was my favourite out the three because you could really see the difference within the dynamics and movement. It made the movement become much heavier and I found that when I was moving it was grounded and I travelled a lot.
Thomas Lehmen
Social system – interactions between the dancer and choreographer.
Visible choreographer – is a person who plays a double by role by being part of the network and producing its components and leading the selection process.
Choreography as a social system is a movement selection process led by choreographer, they play an active part of the performance event itself these process become much more visible by illustrating the operation of the social system. By there being a visible choreographer being part of the network it makes the choreographer visible to create a double role. This offers a shift in social dynamics, challenging the identifying feature within the of the choreographer and dancers.
During Thomas Lehmen’s piece Funktionen (2004) he uses five different functions these are material, mediation, observation, manipulation and interpretation. These are in a non-hierarchical order and the performers are free to move between the different functions. Funktionen explore the organisation between the performers within these functions, tasks and their adaptation to given changes. Thomas Lehmen works with different democratic structures focusing on communication between the performers.
Democratic – empower the performer to take ownership
Autocratic – you have to do this…
“The system aims towards a kind of work that understands itself as a group of changeable interactive structures, which are based on communication between the constituting factors. Basically, it is possible to show the human being within, in friction with or beyond a system of structures, thereby making either the constituting factors transparent or placing results in the foreground.” (Lehmen, 2010)
Skills needed and choreographer need to;
• Experienced and highly skilled in improvisation
• able to react in the moment
• taking ownership of their responses to tasks
• be confident to explore the tasks in their own way without worrying about the director’s intention – being judged (choreographer, audience)
• The system aims towards a kind of work that understands
• itself as a group of changeable interactive structures, which are based on communication between the constituting factors.
• possible to show the human being within
• friction with or beyond a system of structures
• making either the constituting factors transparent or placing results in the foreground. (Lehmen, 2010)

Points to think about in my improvisational process
Empathy – “The link between dancers, it occurs not only by the means of actions but also of emotions… An empathic ‘choreography’ is a metaphor of cooperative and co-built relational activity that emerges from dance improvisation. In dance improvisation, an empathic ‘choreography’ occurs based on collective intelligence that generates a temporary structuring of movement…built at the present moment.” (Ribero, M and AGAR, F, 2011, 81)
Empthay- is a process that enables undertsanding of emotions and intentions among people.
Congnition model – based on body sensations linking the perceptions of the body situated in space and time; the body context whichc organaises dancer, improvisation and enviroment.
Motivity – the motive is the idea that allows the action to arise and rearise.
Rule – something that is set to enhance cognative challenge and challenge motor habit
Mirror nureons – enables us to establish a direct connection between the one who sends the message an the receptor.
Intentonalised listening – provides collective diesision making in the ephereral constrution of imrpovsaitional ‘choreogrpahy’. This hearing requires avalibility, flexability an affectivly. ( lisenting to others bodies within the space)
Emobodied Cognition – understanding that takes place in the body. (how we embody our thinking)
Kinasethic Perception – resulting in a collective body intelligence.
Situated Cognition – reinforces the idea that dancers movment and their space are continuously rebuilt and aquire new meaning from their relationship.
Bilblogrpahy
Husemann,P. The Functioning of Thomas Lehmen’s Funktionen.
SiNS Dance (2010) Schreibstuck-Vancouver [entertainment]. 10 July. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EaaFKu3_Y8 [acessed 9th March 2016].

Today I found myself trying to figure out my body again and where I was at as we had a week away from everything to come back fresh. I found myself trying to work through movements and think about where I am going, what my bodies getting up and getting into the flow of improvisation again. When beginning we did a jumping exercise in lines then altogether, adding gestural movement in. It was all about coordination of movement and working together as whole ensemble. I enjoyed this cause it made my body think about what it was needing to do at certain points during the exercise like when I needed to put my arm up or out to the side or when I needed to jump into second. Also coordinating as whole group I realised it made me focus on who was around me more and where my body movements where going. With the coordinating thinking about working together as group in the space cause I notice most of the time I do and everyone else get lost in the improvisation and don’t always recognise what is happening around them.
To carry on from coordinating with each other as a group we had to walk around the space together making sure we filled it. When doing this sort of exercise I have to think about where body is within the space and where it’s going and how it’s moving around, making sure I’m aware of others. During this exercise we had to fold, look, choose a favourite spot and come to the centre. Having to think the way our bodies folded how we came out of it and not just standing up coming up out of it the way we got down to the positon, keeping the body same and getting used ways of coming up and down. Looking at each other it helped you focus on a different point within the space and focus on someone else so if you were to do contact or get in contact with them you have that eye focus between you or on them.
4 images:
• Feet are knifes/blades – this I found hard to imagine I tried to think about the shape and the sharpness of a knife or a blade. I found that I couldn’t get the idea into my body and I found my movement became very similar.
• Arms as spaghetti – I found this one was a lot easier to do, maybe it’s because it was to with my arms which may be a comfort, I found the movement was a lot more floaty and it felt much more fluid.
• Nose trying to reach my sit bones – this picture I found very hard to create because a lot of the time I felt like I was going around in circles. I found I tried to experiment with this one most because it enabled me to find new ways my body could twist and turn.
• Cells are racing through the body – this one I found the easiest because all my body parts could move and once and I didn’t have one distinct thing to think about all the time.
Once doing this altogether we split into two groups and had to choose one of the four to do ours chose cells racing through the body. I noticed whilst doing this I created my own habitual movement for that exercise which was interesting as I kept realising that it continued to happen a lot. It was never on purpose though it just seemed to happen naturally out of comfort and allowing me time to think more, even though I need to start thinking much more internal. Also I noticed that I wasn’t going maybe slow enough at points to allow myself time to think about what’s coming next and found there would be stillness. So for future improvisation I need to maybe slow down a bit more to give myself time to really recognise what I’m doing.
Thick skinning – ways in which two bodies can stay close together
I found this at beginning hard to do because I found it was becoming very repetitive and that I was connecting with my partner’s body in very similar ways this was exactly the same when we switched partners as well. Once I got into it more and started to think well if I move my body this way then can’t I move my partner’s body this way. It was really interesting to feel and see what different partners bodies made your individual body do. How they could make you move and how you would respond. I noticed though once you got comfortable with a certain movement it became habitual for you and your partner to keep doing.
Improvisation jam
Tidal wave jam – doing this jam I found it interesting because you would make eye contact with someone so you were never sure if they were going to go, you had to go on impulse with each other which was hard to do. Once getting into the middle of the jam I found it very limited because at this point we weren’t always free to do what we want we had to stick to an idea. However, once the idea of doing everything from the past weeks and putting into play became the vocal point people became freer with the idea.
Normal jam – this jam involved everything we have done over the last weeks, once we were told tidal wave had finished and started going on a normal jam I found people were reluctant to go at first. Once this jam got going I found people started to come in more and we need to be much more spatially aware. As we were getting really into it and we got entangled with each other and found we were clashing with each other instead of using the whole space. One thing I also noticed was that when we were observing I wouldn’t want to disturb the improvisation that was going on as others were in the moment and you get so intrigued in what they are doing.
Things to think about in my improvisation
Accumulation – staying with the movement and seeing how I can accumulate it throughout my body
Diminishment – thinking about how I can change it and changing it to something else or part of the body
Retrograde – taking a sequence or movement and changing it to go backwards, how I can change it through my body
Echoing – taking part in what someone else is doing in the improvisation but instead of copying echoing the movement that they are doing or something they did before or after that movement