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.