On Tuesday, we prepared for the contact improv jam on Wednesday. After the warmup of running around avoiding people and walking in their footsteps, we listened to the point of contact through our fingertips. We continued to warm up our bodies with a game of pass of the golden ball of light as it rolled around the inside of our skin. We brought the idea of the rolling point of contact to our forearms. We followed the point of contact as it rolls over the connected surfaces of our skin.
We also spent some time taking weight and sharing weight with a partner by sitting back to back, rising and falling. We did this face to face holding wrists and side by side touching hips.
Then, we had the jam! What are your first impressions of contact improv? What are your questions? What are the joys and the challenges?
I really enjoyed the golden ball exercise but actual contact improv I am still not very comfortable with. I went to the jam on wednesday and I was little more comfortable, but I realize that I am comfortable only with people who I trust and know. In class, it was really hard for me to share weight as I haven't done much of it. I didn't mind the whole contact improv with the arms and wrists and anything standing up, but I'm still not comfortable with floor work in contact improv. It was really nice to see people able to do so much with contact improv- everything seemed so effortless. The lifts and all seemed like the people were floating in air. It's going to take me a while before I'm really comfortable with contact improv.
ReplyDeleteJuhi
I have never been very comfortable with touch, so contact improvisation was definitely something that was out of my comfort zone. I think that doing the partner exercises really helped me to warm up to the idea of touch. One of the things that surprised me most about contact improvisation was how much weight you are supposed to yield to each other. When I was doing the jam during class, you could really tell a difference between the people that were new to contact improvisation and those who had done it before. The more experienced dancers were better about letting go of their weight and that made a big difference in the feel and experience that I had during the jam. Before this class (and the reading), I imagined contact improvisation as more of a way to get inspired and play off the movements of others. I was not aware of how much you rely on those around you to support your weight and your movements.
ReplyDeleteAs mentioned in the “Looking at Movement as Culture” article on page 406, “people doing contact improvisation create a dance through collaborative interaction, basing their improvisation on the physical forces of weight and momentum”. I am very glad that I was able to experience a sampling of what contact improvisation felt like during our class because I think it would have been an ever bigger shock without having actually tried it and attending a jam in the community. After going to my first jam last night at Open Flight Studio, it became very apparent that contact improvisation does indeed have a lot to do with transferring your weight to another person. This is something that is hard for me to do because in everyday life, we do not make much contact with each other and certainly do not have practice in giving our weight to other people. I look forward to experimenting more with the idea of contact improvisation at my next jam. It is definitely something that I will likely feel more comfortable with and be more understanding of once I have more experience actually doing it.
I really have a fun time playing the distance game! It always make me smile!
ReplyDeleteBut what was most interesting to me was weight sharing. I guess its most interesting because it's challenging for me. With meeting new partners, there is always the first couple of minutes of awkwardness as I begin to sense their body. But after that leap, the awkwardness goes away and I feel complete comfort on depending upon their touch, their weight. Being able to be in contact is relaxing.
I guess right now what I'm having the most issues with is being able to give weight. I know that if I pour my weight like sand into my partner, that my partner will be able to take it . . . . but letting go is crazy. It is super hard. There was a point in class where we were partners and I remember that it was really hard for me to let go and pour my weight into you as you carried me. But after letting go and giving into my weight, it was such an exhilerating feeling. Thank you for the dance Louis:)
What my questions are about weight sharing is that I know when shifting weight gets a little more intense and complicated, it can be a little dangerous. My question is what are some things that we should be careful about? Maria and I ended up going to the contact improv jam at open flight and we did something called purging. It got a little dangerous and I ended up going home with a little back pain. So safety is something I would like to learn about more:)
cougar!
“We engage in social interaction from the very start on the basis of sensory and aesthetic impressions. The body and movement are social realities interacting with and interpreting other aspects of the culture…Movement is unique. It precedes language in individual development, forming a primary basis for both personal identity and social relationships” (Bull, 405).
ReplyDeleteMovement as a foundation for personal identity and social relationships; connecting to movement connects me to my self, my soma, mind, body and spirit. In Contact, I can build on the self awareness that I have developed and transcend into cultivating sound relationships. The later is not as easy, for contact is the integration of two minds, two bodies and two spirits as one. Trust and willingness to support the experience are essential. I am challenged by Contact, and love it. I want to feel fluid in Contact.
In “7 Options for your Touch,” point number two, “do nothing: use your touch to simply experience what is, without having to do anything.” Simply being with another person in Contact and waiting to be moved by the shared point is beautiful, and somewhat vulnerable. With a partner on Tuesday, there was a moment where I felt like we allowed ourselves to pause and that space provided connection which then flowed evenly from our point that we then followed. That moment and those that followed surprised me. It was intimate and freeing; fluid.
In general, easing into being in Contact with one another during the exercises on Tuesday was really helpful. Since the beginning of the quarter, I have gone to a few contact jams and found this type of movement to be quite challenging. The challenge is invigorating and after each session I leave with more confidence and more understanding of this style of dance. The basic understanding that I have, allowed me to effortlessly engage in the exercises; playing with the golden energy ball helped me to understand the idea behind focusing and following one point on my body. The games that we played with a partner where we exchanged weight, passing it from one person to the other were interesting. It helped me to feel my own strength, what I am capable of and in return what it is like to completely surrender to another person’s strength.
“It had an immediate and galvanizing effect on those who sensed its quiet revolutionary potential, its subtle simplicity paired with its spectacular sensual and physical rewards,” (Ryan, 414).
Witnessing other pairs in Contact on Tuesday, I felt a surge of energy; I was mesmerized by the beauty, grace and flow. Whether people were experienced or novice, it was remarkable to observe the practice in its many manifestations.
-Lindsey
I felt like it was easiest for me to focus on the rolling point of contact while my eyes were closed. I noticed it was important for me to move my feet in different ways to break away from patterns. Thanks for the idea, Louis.
ReplyDeleteWhen rolling our torsos, I realized it was hard to move at times, cause movements were limited, unlike my arm or fingertips where traveling had a greater range of motion. I think it was also cause I didn’t think we could be connected thru back and arm for example, instead of torso to torso. But now I know the possibilities are endless.
When taking and sharing weight, it was best when I really focused on weight. I realized that both parents really need to trust each other, to help allow the weight exchange to take over, not our thoughts. Listen and feel your body!
During the jam, it was really interesting to feel energy disengage. Similar to when we talked at our partners, and they chose to engage or disengage their energy flows. But it was awkward, when I naturally reached a point of disengaging but my partner didn’t. I hadn’t experienced this situation, so I re-engaged and then our session ended and I could feel the disengagement was mutual. This is an area of interest for me, truly listening to my body, not my mind. Its like our natural instincts finally get utilized.
It was very nice to dance with someone I was unfamiliar with, cause it made me listen to my body more intensely but at the same time my comfort level wasn’t as high.
A definite joy was watching the different manifestations that came out of different individuals interacting together. It was great. Many lovely moments.
Dance is continually a resource for and process of creating intense and meaningful imagery. I participate with dance because it provides an expressive and dynamic framework for my consciousness and my body.
ReplyDelete"Movement is unique. It precedes language in individual development, forming a primary basis for both personal identity and social relationships” (Bull, 405).
Moving on both Tuesday morning and Wednesday night I was able to gather an experience of this practice. Contact is a practice of movement communication. It allows space for many levels of participation. During the practice I found myself resting in my body, not journeying outside of myself or into a mode of judgement. Working with a partner allowed my senses to touch, both literally and metaphorically, something. I was moving from a playful space wherein I wanted to give the benefits and challenges of the practice to myself and to my partner. In this way, I find contact improvisation to be a communicative form of dance. I find myself witnessing and moving, listening and responding, giving and recieving.
Much of the beginning movement was fluid. I felt soft in my joints and my bones, as well as in my attitudes and expectations around what I want to see happening. I gradually began to explore and encourage my body to be open to change, and concern itself with creating energy and experience. I found myself moving with a partner beyond ways that I could have defined previously. I felt a syncopated beat in my chest, moving me to each direction and filling up the space with both density and curiousity.
I love dancing with a partner because of the awesome support we can have for one another, both in the moment as well as in the process of the dance, both in our weight and our bodies, and our understanding of the practice. Moving in contact with another person does require a deep level of trust. And when I am moving, mostly with partners who I do not know, that trust is a huge struggle. The practice engages me a lot in yielding and letting go of fears that arise, coming from a place of insecurity, or doubt. I practice, instead, giving myself to another person and supporting patience in myself.
The elemental exchange of the old and the new, and all wonderful variations beyond those two, plays a part in why and how I enjoy this practice. I am coming from a foundation that exists, that I am building, and I am coevolving in these moments with some one else. The process of contact improvisation is a large field in which I am watering the growing plants and digging deep into the soil where I find old, dead, roots, decaying already.
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ReplyDeleteI went to the Jam at Velocity and started contact improvisation with Rashelle. We started with connections between the finger tips and forarms, and then worked our way into using parts of our back, shoulders, legs, and torso. It was calleneging at first to get into a flow of movements without thinking about what we looked like because both of us had not done contact inprovisation for a couple months. But shortly after a few giggles and awkward moments, we finally found our bodies rhythms with one another, and found a constant connection between the two of us.
ReplyDeleteAfter Rashelle and I worked through some beautiful movements, we then moved apart from one another and practiced contacting with the floor. We were both a bit hesitant at first looking in the space for other people to contact with. Finally, some man came to dance with Rashelle, and I went out accross the room to find another person to dance with. I don't remember his name, but I do remember the experience. The close contact allows you to connect with someone that you don't even know and share an experience with them that may not happen outside of contact movement. I found that our bodies rhythms seemed to bring us to the floor multiple times, and our movements changed in speeds and size. I enjoyed this dance, and other dances I experienced at the jam because with each person you dance in contact with, you have a new and seperate dance with varying dynamics and feelings shared from person to person.
I love the pictures in the reading "Experiencing the Body" and how poses such of these can be formed in contact improvisation. Snap shots can be taken just by observing a contact improvisation class of poses and moments each couple has that may demonstrate emotions, feelings and sensations. Same with the video of you and Jamie doing contact improv, I could remember snap shot photos of moments you had during your experiences and possible feelings I may have felt or parts where laughter was apparent. It's beautiful noticing these snap shots in contact improvisations and that is what I think is the most beautiful part to watch of people dancing in contact together.
Katie Boulanger
I have prior exposure to contact improv before this week and Tuesday allowed me to revisit some of the basic concepts as well as learn new ones. Though I am slowly getting it bit by bit, there is still much to learn to be able to fully immerse myself into contact improv. So far, I have just been focusing on refining what I have learnt, unsure of what is considered acceptable practices in contact improv. I guess the trick is to observe the more experienced dancers and see what they do and try to incorporate that into my repertoire. The joy of contact improv is seeing the unique styles of each individual combine together to produce an endless myriad of combinations. For me, I guess the challenge is to progress beyond the classroom setting of contact improv at UW and move on to the community ones like Serge suggested.
ReplyDeleteTuesday’s intro to contact dance was an interesting experience for me. I am not generally very comfortable with a lot of contact or even more so giving up control of my body; however, the class was a gentle introduction. I especially liked the exercise of walking around with our eye’s closed while touching fingertips with a partner. I have done some of the other exercises in the intro dance class I took a while back, but it was good to revisit them, as I am by no means comfortable with them. The seesaw like exercise was quite fun once I realized what I was doing wrong. After this preparation, I was ready to try to give it my all for the Wednesday Jam.
ReplyDeleteI was a bit nervous at first, it is always awkward doing anything for the first time, but I was determined to be open about everything. I think in someway this back fired on me. I enjoyed most of my interactions with the other dancers, though I made the mistake of not setting my own personal limits. Physically I had tried to do more with my arms and upper body than they could take, what started out as light soreness after class turned into severe pain in my shoulder by the next day. It wasn’t until Sunday when I was at a point where I could get by with out ibuprofen to deal with it. Emotionally I had also not done a good job listening to myself and let myself get too vulnerable, what was meant as a kind suggestion /correction by my more experienced dance partner left me feeling very down and confused with myself. Something I usually don’t do as I have had far harsher delivered corrections in other dance classes and not gotten this emotional over it, in fact I generally appreciate the feedback. I think if I had distance myself more from my movements I would not have felt as sensitive about the comment, especially since I did realize that no negativity was meant (I really do feel thankful that she took the time to try and help me learn). I am just more comfortable and feel more natural with pointed feet and “pretty dancery” type movements, also my body is less likely to hurt itself with them (there is a reason I like ballet) and trying not to move that way can actually be less sincere movement for me. Anyway I really did want to enjoy participating contact improvisation, the concept is quite beautiful. It was quite amazing to watch everyone dancing. I especially enjoyed watching Louis, who truly is an stunning dancer. Watching him and everyone else was the real joy for me. I don't know how I feel about participating again, I will give it another try taking into account that I must stay true to my boundaries and maybe that experience will be better.
Contact Improv –
ReplyDeleteWhat a beautiful form of dance! I liked Tuesday’s class because there was an easy natural progression into contact, especially through images of golden spheres in our bodies - moving energy fluidly and wherever it wanted to lead us. I really liked the transfer of weight between partners especially in standing up and sitting down back to back. This is such an issue of trust and was a real point of release from me.
I feel like the joys of improv are numerous! I love touch, surrender and similar concepts which are fundamental to contact improv. However, I do feel that I sometimes feel the need to control some part of myself in the dance and do find it difficult to completely release especially when changing levels or points of contact.
I also really enjoy trying to dance with a variety of people – experienced and inexperienced because you learn something from everyone, even if it is just a revelation in how to explain release.
This contact improv jam was my 2nd jam ever. I was familiar with the setting but yet, still not too confident. However, because I knew what to expect, I wasn't totally clueless. What we learned in class on Tuesday was a great basic foundation to apply to Wednesday's jam. My experience on Wednesday was greatly efficient; I was able to give body weight (release), as well as provide support for my partner.
ReplyDeleteIt was awesome!