During today’s session we watched a variety of videos based around contact improvisation to begin we watched a contact improvisation jam from Roehampton dance in which you can see their pace is always different. As the pace becomes varied they still always stay connected through the pelvis or some form of the body rather than disconnecting to find something new. Constantly they think about their momentum and where they are taking their bodies in the space. When thinking back to our improvisational jams I realise at points the pace is kept slow due to wanting to keep bodies safe but by staying in a released state this pace we create can have a diverse state that we can work around. Within the second video played during a Poland Contact Improvisational festival it showed the participants thinking about how the bodies become one, keeping one and other safe and allowing for lifts to happen. When looking back at class finding that relationship with someone is key and I have come to realise that when you find the relationship you find your bodies create this fluidity and dynamic with each other. As a whole I find I manage to keep people safe during the jam I am always conscious of their body and where it may be heading supporting them the best I can. As for lifts I have found they either go according to plan or they tend to go a different direction you don’t want them to. As contact improvisation has gone on I have come to notice that my body will now go with whatever happened even if it’s not the thing we want.
Nancy Stark Underscore is very complex filled with many different tasks a video watched in class is based on her Global Underscore in which everyone around the world who was taking part would begin and end all at the same time. She began the underscore by inventing with students in which she discovered certain habitual actions and elements the students did, this then enabled Stark to start creating symbols that represented the state that the students were describing. Starks jam is a deliberate and reflective way of doing a jam as it creates and intentional different environment enabling the body to focus on what’s happening within the jam and developing on how I am getting to these places.
“Bringing attention into the present moment” (Nancy Stark, Global underscore) helps me to understand the score a lot more as the elements are always changing. The body should be present and ready for any changes that may happen within the underscore weather it’s a change within you and your partner, you move onto another partner or the element for the score changes. When doing the score I found it hard to understand at first due to the amount that went into it by being spoken through it I found my body allowed new elements. The part my body tend to enjoy more was the open score as I was able to do what I wanted however, when there was one element to move I sometimes felt restricted or lost on what to do. At points I found my body tended to go habitual due to being lost for what I wanted to do at points.
Bliblography
Contact Improvisation Jam 20th May 2011 YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdKZlryJ4HY
GLOBAL UNDERSCORE with Nancy Stark Smith YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOGLMZdm2uA
Poland Contact Improvisation Festival – Warsaw Flow 2012 – Jam YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyaHk7KN9b
Week 9 – Nancy Stark Underscore
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