Denise Rowe

Denise Rowe is a choreographer, dancer, movement artist, singer and mbira player with 10 years experience performing and teaching traditional and contemporary pan-African dance.

To know her personally has been a gift. Denise is a lovely, inspirational woman who has indeed took me on a movement journey that has been incredible, educational and just generally inspiring. I know that she has taught me many things and the memory of that will stay with me for a long time.

Never put together a piece of choreography together in this way before. Seemingly non-related pieces of structured improvisation fitted together as if it had been the grand plan all along. None of it was forced and we were open to where the choreography wanted to lead us.

Site - Coombe Abbey

One of the sites at Coombe Abbey used for inspiration for Rooted. A place so familiar to me now yet still contains the magic. Memories of my time there will linger. I hope I left an impression there no matter how insignificant. Conversations with trees, details of life, being still yet open and full and being part of the landscape. Calm, Peaceful, Magical, Quiet, Interruptions, Connotations, Flickers of Movements in the outskirts of my eyes, Cannot control anything here... why would I want to?

Expanding my Movement Vocabulary

After participating in 5 intensive dance sessions with choreographer and performer Denise Rowe, I feel like I have expanded my movement vocabulary and explored an entirely new way of moving. We focused on moving within the landscape of music, articulating different parts of the body and leading with different body parts. As we were working with aspects of African dance we were also thinking about being grounded, whilst being full and open. I can't believe some of the movement that I was creating. Things I thought would work wouldn't and mistakes or falls would suddenly become this new burst of movement. I learnt just to let go and instead of looking for new movement, just being open to new movement. How can you continually find new ways of movement? I'm constantly using my body in various ways everyday but still manage to do things I didn't know I could do. Be aware of being stuck in my old ways of movement.

Humming and Breathing

After doing a score in which the focus is on the breathing of the body, creating space with the body, being grounded and uplifted and finally bringing in humming to intensify it. This is my feelings afterwards. My main focus was on the ever continuing motion of breathing, which got deeper and slower the more I focused on it. I was also very strongly drawn to the image of a thread connecting me to the earth and upwards towards the sky, which lengthened my body creating space and providing an inner calm.

Poem...The Old Stoic

The Old Stoic 
Riches I had in high esteem,
And love I laugh to scorn;                            2. sharp, use of focus, speed, flexed wrists 
And lust of fame was but a dream
That vanish'd with the morn:                        4. use of costume, hides face, stillness, child like pose

And if I pray, the only prayer
That moves my lips for me                          3. fluid, reference to mouth
Is, 'leave the heart that now I bear,
And give me liberty!'                                  1. reaching, contract, open, high

Yea, as my swift days near their goal,
'Tis all that I implore:
In life and death a chainless soul,                5. pulled back hips, falling, reaching, strong
With courage to endure.
                            
                                   Emily Bronte (1818-1848)

1-5 comments on my movement from Hannah and Rebecca

Moving from the Organs

Encourage my partners organs to move/work, incorporate this into rolling from the organs instead of the head, can really feel some of the different organs but its also really hard to feel the others due to the bones and muscles being in layers above the organs...protection...one thing I was largely aware about when receiving was my partners WARM hands, it made everything feel more intense and was so relaxing. The experience was peculiar as if my partner was actually rubbing straight on to my organs rather than through the layers of skin and muscle.

Body's Cavity's

So many organs in such a small space, organized in most effective and functional way. In the abdominal Cavity; large intestines, small intestine, kidneys, pancreas, liver, reproductive organs, stomach, bladder...how does it all fit? Jelly-like, hard and squidgey, I look at a liver and can know more about the shape and size of  my own but still can't imagine it being functional. How does it work ? It just does.

Experiential Anatomy

Moving using only the spine, or at least trying to, is difficult...so often do I begin a movement only to realise I am actually leading with a foot instead. To try and improve on this I need to take my time, breathe into the movement and take pauses to observe my body position. I find this hard as I feel awkward in stillness and I want to continue to move so I need to keep reminding myself that it's okay to be still.

Dance Phrase 3 pictures of difficult movements

This position is done on the RIGHT version of the phrase. As I am havint balance on my left arm I find it difficult. This is why I usually keep my foot on the floor as in this picture in order to focus on keeping my hips in parallel to the floor and keep my head to tail connection without twisting out of place.

Sometimes, if I have my balance slightly better I do begin to take my foot off the floor but I would rather keep it on the floor than go out of enlignment.

This is me on the LEFT version of the phrase I find it so much easier to do it on this side and don't hesitate in taking my foot of the floor. My lower back has quite an arch to it so I need to be more careful in positions like this.

This is me doing the backwards roll as I mentioned in the previous post for Dance Phrase 3 you can see how I can't get the lower part of my left arm on the floor. The lower picture shows the other side with the same problem.

Dance Phrase 3

This is a phrase that we have been doing in Studio Practise with Andrea Barzey. This is just showing the right version of the phrase. I generally like learning phrases and have quite a good memory for phrases and pick them up fairly quickly. Despite this I am not particularly fond of this sequence. The phrase itself is nice to perform as it flows quite well and looks closely at the head to tail connection. However, I have so many difficulties due to my left arm. Most of the phrase I'm fine with yet there are two specific movements that I struggle with. The first can be seen at 29 seconds. We have to balance on our same arm/ leg with our other arm/leg lifted. When we do it on the right side i have to balance on my left side. Because I can't straighten my left arm and the placement at the shoulder isn't quite right i can't take my weight. At first I twisted my hips to compensate so I could lift my right leg. But after thinking about the head to tail connection I decided that it would be more beneficial to me if i left my foot on the ground and kept my pelvis parallel to the ground.
The other movement is the backwards roll seen at 38 seconds. For this roll we are meant to slowly take our legs above and over and head and use our hands/arms to push us slowly and gently over rather than using force to get us over. However. my arm prevents me from being able to do this. When I am in this position I am unable to put most of my arm on the floor, meaning I am unable to push myself over. In order to work around this I do have to rely on some force to get me over.
Although, I am so self-concious about this phrase, when I have partnered up to get feedback for the movement they are always surprised by my attitude as to them they don't think I'm doing it much different to everyone else. This has made me realise that although I may be painfully aware of my arm others don't actually notice it that much.

Above is part of my notes from one of the studio classes.

Duet Feedback

On Friday 11th March, me and Alex had our duet progress showing. We performed what we had of our duet infront of our peers and tutor Katye Coe. The main thing I find helpful with progress showing is that we recieve feedback. We asked whether our idea of indivuality was clear throughout the piece and also if our choreographic processes worked. The general feedback we recieved informed us that our idea is quite clear throughout and our choreographic process with the phrases is a really clear structure. Katye also gave us some very useful feedback: she said she felt the contact improvisation was a red herring and that we should focus on repeating and developing our movement. I agree with this as I now feel that the contact work didn't sit as well with our ideas. She also informed us that just by running through the space we were showing our differences which we hadn't even thought about due to its simplicity. Another point was that the movement was too much like the phrases we do in studio practice and that we need to move away from this movement into something more complex. We chose something simple so that we coulod focus more on developing it however I agree that we could make it more complex and more our own material that has more of a meaning behind it.
Other ideas to think about was 'costume' . Katye suggested it would be interesting if we had different layers of clothing on and as we repeat and develop the movement we take a layer off. We could begin with same colours and then this changes as we change the movement to show our personality. I really liked this idea because one of the words we chose to begin with was colour which we can tie in with this. And also adding in speech. I'm not sure of the speech idea as I wouldn'tknow what to say but I guess once we develop our duet that might change.

SO.AN-J DUET DANCE PHRASE DEVELOPED

This is the developed version of the phrase allowing some of individuality through. We both liked the idea of this choreographic process. Our idea is to continue to develop it so that we can repeat the phrases with subtle differences showing our individuality more and more each time. We don't exactly know how it will turn out yet whether the phrase will end up changing completely so that we end up doing completely different movements or...?

SO.AN-J DUET DANCE PHRASE

Another choreographic process we tried out to carry on with the idea of individuality was to produce a dance phrase together and then go away and develop it seperately. This is the first version where we did it as similar as possible to the original phrase. There are still of course some differences but in general we look fairly similar.

SO.AN-J Contact Improvisation

This is a clip of some contact improvisation we tried out. We tried to maintain our own individuality whilst working closely with each other. We both liked the work but were unsure of whether it sat well with the ideas we were looking at. After gettin feedback from our progress showings we agrred with our peers that it was probably 'a red herring' Katye Coe. We have decided to focus more on our other choreographic processes.

Individuality

For our duet the thing that still intrigues us the most is the idea of individuality. How one person can be completely different from the other, in personalities, likes and dislikes, perspectives...Can individuality be maintained during a duet consisting of two different people? Is anything lost because of this? We began to work through different choreographic processes we could use to show off our uniqueness or possibly our lack due to a duet. We did various things: Contact Improvisation; can we keep our individuality in such close proximity to another? Working with a same phrase and then going away and developing it ourselves before coming back together and seeing the differences. We also went to the same place and drew our own scores on what we could see, feel, hear etc. We then worked seperately but together with improvisation based on our scores. What I found the most interesting about this was when we did this in a studio we both ended up choosing the floor as our stimulus from our score. Yet, whilst I chose the patterns of the wood and worked with these, Alex worked with the surface of the floor and how smooth it is.

Words for our duet

For part of our choreographic process of our duets, we looked at choreographic devices and in our pairs chose ones that stood out to us. The 2 main ones that we both chose were colour and perspective. Perspective in particular stood out to us in the way people can be in the exact same situation but react or percieve it completely differently. From perspective comes many different strands such as individuality/ their identity/personality. Colour can reflect that. Why do people have favourite colours? Why is it they're favourite colour? Why do people react differently to colours? These both interested us and it would be interesting to base our choreographic process around this.

Photos for my body story

Excuse the faces! So whilst I was doing my body story I decided it would be a good idea to take some photos of my left arm to show people the lack of rotation/straightening of the arm. The pics with me in the GREY top were took just after the Christmas hols (the first week back) I noticed in class how my arm seemed stiffer than before and was bothering me slightly more than before Christmas so I took photos from the left side and front and decided to take some photos at the end of Jan/ Feb time and see if there was a difference.

My arm never 'feels' different. I guess I do notice if I have more movement that normal but it never hurts. Yet, obviously my arm does change depending on how much exercise I am doing. I have come to the conclusion that I really need to take time in my breaks to maintain my arms movement range. Although exercise does improve straightening, physios say the lateral rotaion form the radio-ulna will never improve without operation and there's no guarentee an operation will help anything. I guess for now I'll just have to keep doing what I'm doing.

Images from Skinner Releasing Technique

These are my writings and images from the Skinner Releasing Technique. The top one is a page from my journal. I have come to realise that for my journal I like to have mainly written form but with drawings to visualise certain images or positions etc. During this Skinner class the main things taht stood out to me was the idea of marinette strings and puppets and how this can elongate your movement as well as making you more aware about the idea of a floating skull during movement.

The next two images are our reflections at the end of some Skinner classes. I find it interesting that although some of the writings or drawings are similar/the same ideas, I had a different understanding of them. In the first couple of lessons we looked at the strings and breath through the body but it wasn't until the last couple of lessons that my understanding if that changed and developed so that those images meant more to me than before.

Skinner Releasing Technique

   On Tuesday 18th January, we had a Skinner Releasing Technique led by Florence Peake . It was very interesting and it left me with a lot to think about. We explored skull on strings amongst other things. The following week we had our second session which looked more into images and breath as white mist. The third lesson stood out the most to me. We continued to work with marionette strings. From the skull, the base of the middle finger and your knees. We allowed the strings to appear and dissolve and let us control our body parts and take us to sitting/standing. We also began looking at different images. Lying in a hammock suspended 2 small trees/clouds/in space. The idea was to have the image of melting into the hammock, back curving. I found it helpful that we were lying down for this image as it was easier to focus on just the imagery without having to think about correct placement of the spine. The other thing I like about the Skinner Releasing Technique images is that they give a clearer picture and understanding to the dancers.

Pilates...and my arm

Pilates - The moment I notice my arm the most. Ofcourse my arm restricts some movement in dance but it has never affected me as deeply as it does in pilates. It is so FRUSTRATING not to be able to do simple things that every one else can do. The pain is like a tense, stretching, shooting pain all down my arm. I can work through it at first but if I continue to push, my arm can ache for hours or days and sometimes goes dead.

It does make me determined though and there are moves I WILL be able to do one day. Also it does help me a lot with my core muscles. It especially helps with the awareness of my ribs. The continuous instruction and reminders mean that I am always readjusting myself to be in the correct position for my body. This should become more autonomous as time goes on. Hopefully.

Inspiration 1

This is a page from my journal. Whenever I'm bored or have free time I doodle in it. It represents day dreams and contains mythical objects as well as everyday things. It's quite abstract but all the things mean something to me. I think one day it'll be a great source of inspiration. I am quite creative when it comes to the imagination so this means more to me than it would to others.

Anything can happen in dreams, its a place of escape, one that you can control because its you thats making it happen. Yet, sometimes our dreams get away from you and you lose control. How does this happen? Why? And is it so bad to let things go out of your control?

My Siobhan Davies Scrapbook

When I registered with Siobhan Davies Replay Archive, I was then able to make a scrapbook of her work that stood out to me. I first chose the dance work In Plain Clothes as it was the first piece to be performed in the Siobhan Davies studios so all the dancers had a connection with it as they wanted to mark the studio for themselves. I then chose several scratch tapes for In Plain Clothes as I found it interesting to see if any of the work was used in the actual work or if there was any variation of it present. It was also interesting to see how different dancers had different vocabularys or interpretations of movement that could be linked to the same stimulus or subject.

I decided to look more indepth into this particular piece of work rather than look vaguely into different works. So next I looked at promotional pictures and still images linked to In Plain Clothes. The ones that stood out to me were Wake Up Your Heart and Make Time Visible (Both found in Siobhan Davies Replay Archive).

Observations of Siobhan Davies Work; Bank

I have just watched a piece of Siobhan Davies’ work; Bank. ‘Bank is set to an extraordinary percussive score performed live by composer Matteo Fargion. Davies’ choreography sees simple fragments of movement building up to create complex patterns’ (Dance Umbrella programme note, 1997: taken off Siobhan Davies Replay Archive).

It starts off with a lone dancer on the stage. The movement vocabulary at the start is more focused on the legs with arabesque style movements but not in a controlled ballet form but more of a free-fall movement where the leg causes the dancer off balance and into a fall.

Then another dancer joins the stage and a sort of duet forms where one dancers movement causes the other dancer to move without physically touching the other person. ( N.B. This is another form of duet to remember for myself). The duet turns into a trio, where one dancer performs the first sequence in the dance then the duet do the same movements first together, then in canon, then with slight variations, to go back to walking at the same time.

Although the piece started off slower it soon changes dynamics and the pace picks up. Here they stay lower to the ground in order to move quicker, more efficiently and be able to change directions quickly. The piece also makes full use of pauses throughout the performance. This makes it more intense to watch in my opinion and brings pauses to my attention more. I definitely need to add them into my work more if possible as I think it will develop my work and take it to a new level.Another thing that stands out to me is the use of repetition. The very first sequence is used throughout as well as simple repetition of movements in the trios especially.

It’s very obvious in the piece that the dancers retain a sense of the head to tail connection. This makes movement as efficient as possible and means that they are extending movement as far as possible. Another thing that is quite clear throughout is the use and manipulation of limbs. There are several phrases where either a body part leads the movement or a body part physically moves or manipulate another body part.

What is a duet?

What is a duet? Essentially a dance performed by two people that couldn't be danced seperately.Yet it's so much more... Relaionships: couple in love, violence, contact, alternating converstation. It goes together like light and dark, sea and sand, like a jigsaw(interlocking parts). What do you think?

Labelling Videos

On the Siobhan Davies Replay Archive the videos of dancers doing improvised work are labeled in a specific way. They take the initials of the dancer and then add numbers to it. Therefore if 'Tracy Smith' had two videos of themselves, they would be labelled TS1 amd TS2 etc. If there were two dancers 'Tracy Smith' and 'Kerry Drayton' it would be TSKD. I have decided to label my videos in the same way as I find this a simple way to keep track of what videos are what. I have also decided to put key words in the title like 'solo' or duet' etc.

Siobhan Davies Replay

I have been introuduced to Siobhan Davies Replay, a dance archive of all her work. Its one of a kind and contains not only videos of her full works but also information on her dancers, theirs thought or stimuli and short clips of their improvisation. It is based on this that Istarted my own blog where I could collect together my inspirations and thoughts, aswell as clips of me doing both improvised choreography and also phrases from class.

Feedback for SO dance phrase 2

This is a video of Rebecca Curtis giving me feedback on a dance phrase we did (SOJMRC2). It was very useful as the information could be translated into all the dance movement I do. In particular the thing about my ribs. I don't do it all the time but sometimes in rises or swinging movements when the arms are above my head my ribs jut forward and I neeed to be more aware of this.

Feedback for SO 1

This is a video of Rebecca Curtis giving me feedback on my solo. I found the feedback very useful and I appreciate it very much. I agree with everything she said and will look more into these suggestions in the future.

Chair Duet SORC

This video shows me, Shannon O'Dowd and Rebecca Curtis performing an improvised duet with a chair. This is a video of when we did it in the studio. We also tried it down a narrow corridor and down the stairs. I found that in the studio we were more focused on the chair rather than our surroundings. This had pros and cons. On one hand we were focused on the task at hand and we didn't have to worry about lack of spaace, yet on the other hand, sometimes we had 'sticky' moments when we weren't quite sure what to do, we just had to keep ploughing through it.

Duet SO.AN-J

This is a video of me, Shannon O'Dowd and Alex Noel-Johnson. We are doing an improvised duet, thinking about the connection between certain body parts, in this case the head and the knee.There are some moments in it that are interesting to watch, but for the majority I felt like I was thinking too much about what to do rather than just doing it. Also I need to be more aware that when I'm on the floor I'm not just sliding around.

Duet SORC

This is a short video of a contact improvisation duet between me, Shannon O'Dowd and Rebecca Curtis. It's not very long and although there are some parts that are a bit rough, there are moments that flow really well. We haven't worked very much on contact improvisation so this surprised me even more as there are certainly some parts that work very well. The funny part is that even though it was improvised, we have worked together for a long time so at one point we both 'knew' we were going to do a lift we both know.

What stops you, what blocks you and why?

On Thursday 13th January I was lucky to have a dance class taken by Cecilia MacFarlane. It was very empowering and it brought many things to my attention. We did a lot of reflective work and one of the things that stood out to me the most was the question 'What stopes me, what blocks me and why?' It could be to do with that dance session only or something that is continually preventing you like an injury. It made me think more about my left arm and how it restricts my dancing.

I was born with Erbs Palsy; a condition that causes paralysis to my left arm. This was due to 1-5 of the primary nerves in my left arm being dead because of the position of my arm in the womb. I regained the usage of my arm after months of physio therapy, thus the treatment stopped. However, when I was 14 and I began to dance more extensively, I realised that I found my left arm wouldn't quite do what I wanted it to do. After experimenting I found I couldn't straighten my arm fully; it would only straighten to 130 degree and there was no lateral rotation possible.

I was referred to a physio who told me that not only did I have limited movement but that my shoulder muscles were not developed properly and went out of place during certain movements. They gave me various exercise to improve my mobility and placement of shoulder muscles but not to get my hopes up.

Since then my shoulder muscles have developed correctly and the physio say it is unnoticable now and it no longer goes out of place. The extension of my arm has also greatly improved. However, the hardest part has been the lateral rotation. There have been some improvements but it has been an extremely slow and frustrating process.

As with anything the more dance and exercises I do, the greater movement range I have and the easier it is to perform. I have just started back into more rigorous dancing after the Christmas holidays and I have found  that my arm has become slightly stiff from the break in dancing. It has made me more aware of the need to step up my arm exercises during breaks so there is less chance of this happening again. I am constantly aware of my arm both during dance and in everyday activities. I have to translate certain dance movements so that I am able to do them and there are some things that I will never be able to do because of it. Yet, I have discovered that although I am continually and painfully aware of my arm it is not noticable to others. Few notice it by themselves and the few that do notice it are usually dancers or physios and it is whilst i'm doing specific movements.

Eden Dance Company Review

 On the 10^th December I was captivated by Eden Dance Company’s wonderful yet challenging work based upon the subject of nature. The piece was choreographed and directed by Alex Howard, who has, amongst other things, performed in Serena Korda’s Decosa Traditional, Stockholm Kiefer/pin. Eden Dance Company is made up of 11 Coventry University Dance students. The piece was originally meant to be performed outside yet due to adverse weather; the choreography was altered, cut out and replaced so that it could take place both inside a theatre as well as outside. The dancers should receive tremendous credit for these last minute changes as rather than looking like it had just been thrown together, the piece was very professional and the dancers all seemed to be on the same ‘level’.

The first part of the dance began in the theatre; the dancers were already performing when the audience entered the theatre space. Rather than allow the audience to take to their seats straight away, Eden Dance Company had instructed their Front of House to lead them around the stage area. This began the idea of nature and made the audience feel like they were on a nature trail, where they could take in their surroundings. It also challenged that performer-audience relationship and literally brought the audience closer to the action. The dancers continually explored all of the space, using different levels and dynamics. This included dancers coming into the audience seating, thus invading the audience’s space. Throughout the piece there were many intricate details and the eye focus of both the performers and audience were on these.

The costume continued the idea of nature, with dresses in natural colours of green and pale pink. The dresses allowed for a wider, unrestricted range of movement needed for this performance. The only props used were plastic sheeting on the ground. This represented snow and at one point the performers enveloped themselves in it. The sheeting created an intriguing ‘crunching’ sound and provided the dancers with extra material to explore.

Halfway through the performance the dancers donned wellies and fur coats and went outside, with the audience in quick pursuit. The dancers continued down the city streets remaining in character despite the on looking public spectators who didn’t know what was going on.  The audience were confronted with the problem of uncertainty as most worried about evading the dancers performance space and were unsure of how close to get. The piece excelled in challenging the long established audience-performer relationship to its limits thus providing the audience with a different view of the piece.

Overall, the choreographic work was enchanting, with so many different aspects happening at once. The dancers were focused on what they were doing and used everything that was available to them in the environment they were in. Also, throughout the piece there was a sense of unity between all of the dancers and this was highlighted in sections of the dance such as when moving through the streets in a tight huddle.

Solo Feedback

Halfway through my choreographic process we had to perform some of our work in order to show how we had progressed and also to gain feedback from our peers so as to push ourselves even further. This is some of that feedback. We were also given feedback at other stages.

The main things that stood out to me were the comments I've circled in red; extend movement-make it bigger and remember wrists and hands. The first refers to how I sometimes cut movement short and the second refers to how my hands can almost be 'dead' on the end of my arms, rather than letting the movement continue to flow all the way from my shoulder to my fingertips. I cut the movement short sometimes by rushing through movement. This happens because of nerves. Sometimes if I'm doing movement  that is unfamiliar to me, I feel extremely vulnerable and this leads to me panicking and rushing. The only thing I can do to improve this is to stay calm and believe in myself. I can also practise doing things out of my comfort zone as this would change the way I approach new things and how I react.

     I have never realised the thing about my hands before so it was actually quite surprising to me. From watching videos of me performing I noticed I don't do it all the time just in certain movements. This was a lot harder to change and I really had to work on it. I just had to think about keeping the arms lenghtened rather than deadening the arms by having lazy wrists.

Solo Score

This is the score that accompanies my solo. It gave the improvisation some form of structure. One of its uses was a floor plan and I vaguely followed its route across the stage.

To make the score I watched videos of me moving to the stimuli and recorded a score. Therefore when my movement developed so did my score.

Beginnings of Solo

This is how my solo began. I took the lyrics to Colours of the Wind and chose phrases in it that stood out to me. I then disected these phrases and wrote down any emotions, dynamics or related words or images that I connected to those lyrics. I then began to explore movement based on this.

Alexander Technique

On Monday 10th and Tuesday 11th of January 2011 I participated in Alexander Technique classes. The first was more of an introductory session whilst the second was a more practical approach. Both were taught by Lucia Walker. I found the classes productive and educational and came out feeling more knowledgable, relaxed and energised.

Christmas Holidays

Coventry University broke up for Christmas on 17th December. During this period I have practised various sequences and have tried to keep my fitness up. However, not dancing everyday and participating in fitness sessions several times a week has had an impact on my fitness and endurance. Thus when we had studio practise on 10th January I certainly felt it. This is not exactly a bad thing. I felt I have recovered and come back refreshed and ready to get straight back into everything. Also throughout the session I felt the work and fitness coming back quicky and by the end it felt like I'd never had a break.