This week was a little different for me as I was observing the session, not taking part. Although I did not want to just watch the session it was interesting to be able to see other people move through the space and how they create connections with each other. The strongest connections were formed when participants were moving with their friends compared to with the people they are not as close with. I think this was only because of how comfortable they were with friends and they already have trust and care for each other’s bodies. There were some interesting moments within peoples work, one of these being Kye and Laura C. They kept momentum throughout their improvisation and experimented with how they could transfer weight between each other.
One of the tasks showed which people in the class wanted to be the hierarchy when in pairs, I think this says a lot about contact, in the sense that as a group we need to come to terms with an equality between 2 bodies and show that roles are interchangeable within the practice. I know personally this is an issue for me as I prefer to be the under dancer, taking peoples weight and being in control of the situation. This is because I don’t feel comfortable about giving someone all my weight. It is not a lack of trust for my partner, it is a lack of trust for myself in that situation. This reflects on my dance training as I have always been the male role of lifting within performance, so I feel I am not able to be lifted.
We also looked briefly at the Nancy Stark Smith Underscore in preparation for our assessment, I am slightly confused about this at the moment but hopefully watching the set video and researching in more depth with make it clearer, however I am looking forward to integrating this into my practice in the future.
The jam this week was one of my favourite so far! I felt that I really pushed myself with exploring new ways to keep contestant connection and a momentum. I worked best when I had my eyes closed, this is because I tuned into my other sensations such as; skin on skin contact and how that made me feel/ how it influenced my movements, listening to my partners body and tuning it to how they are feeling in that moment. I also forgot about how aesthetic my movements looked at the time and concentrated on the feel of them and how they flowed. I worked with Laura C for the first time in this jam and we came up with some exciting ways to take one lift into another, she was very mobile and not afraid of what might have happened if something went wrong which helped me to feel more confident too.
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