Improvisation was something that I had done before however, I found that I became quite nervous and apprehensive about the idea of doing improvisation again. This could be down to the fact that I am in a new place and being asked to go further into movement, test myself to do things I naturally wouldn’t do but act on the habitual movement I do and act upon the spontaneous moments more.
Once I began the improvisation I found that I became a lot more comfortable and I just started to flow into different movements. For example, when we were folding into our bodies on the floor using actions like pushing, pulling and feeling it within our bodies. For me once I got into it I felt like I became a lot more relaxed and calm. This allowed me to explore parts of my body that had a lot of tension and somehow this allowed me to release it and by doing so it felt very therapeutic. Although doing this exercise was all those things I felt like I was questioning myself, asking myself why do you keep using similar body parts? Get away from that do something different or why don’t you explore this part of your body more? Find out what it can do. I realised that I didn’t use my legs o see how they could go and what they could do on a higher level, what could impulse from doing this?
Contact with the partner I really enjoyed seeing what could come from them taping a part of our body and what reaction the body has by doing this. I found it difficult at first not to move other parts of my body when just touching a specific point of the body. But once allowing those to come back in it became interesting watching and seeing what others do. Naturally a lot of people go back to into their habitual movement or will do one movement and follow through with a movement they naturally do. When we introduced going in a faster pace it had to be more impulse and quick thinking which allowed you to forget “yourself become the universe”. The movement seemed to flow and developed it further which allowed the habitual movement to be explored much more. Also what become interesting doing this was where the partner was taping your body. I noticed she would focus on the knee or shoulder a lot maybe because that was where a lot of my movement was coming from or it was natural to go to those points. I realised that “ I am both dancing and shaping, inside and outside at the same time.”
Bibliography
Midgelow, VL (2012) Dance Practice…:The experience of improvising. University of Northampton: Intellect.