Week 7

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