October 15, 2007

My Path to Learning How to Improvise and Create Movement

I think I finally figured out what type of classes and dancing I ultimately want to take and pursue so I can develop my own personal approach to movement.

What I want is a mix of elements that I've come across in different dance programs I've taken:

- A rapid way of disconnecting myself from my intellect and my inhibitions so I can more comfortably explore a much wider range of movements and possibilities without judging or limiting myself every step along the way.

- The use of a diverse range of structured exercises that makes it easy to generate new phrases, rhythms and fundamentally different approaches to how I move. This more rational approach might conflict a bit with my desire to let go and disengage from my rational side.

- Find classes and dances where participants have extensive training and much more experience dancing than I do.

That's it - the above will give me exactly what I'm looking for and here's some background on where I'm going with this:

5 Rhythms: Letting Go on the Dance Floor

Last Friday, I went to another 5Rhythms program - this one was called "Night Waves" and it was hosted by Tammy Burstein. I would describe this two-hour program as a place where people can come to let go and experiment with movement in a non-judgmental, non-critical atmosphere. There were about 25 people in last week's program and the class consists of light guidance and a few exercises to get us to the point where we're comfortable in our own skin and not burdened with our doubts and insecurities. There's nothing really fancy about the class - it just works, at least for me.

At the beginning, you warm-up and start to move at your own pace - some people stay in a fixed spot while others move across the floor. I felt self-conscious beyond belief and I couldn't stand moving to the mellow sounds of the '60s playing over the sound system, but the music got much better. So, everybody is moving about in their self-contained world. Then, at one point, Tammy said, "If you're emotionally tired go in this corner, if your physically tired go in this corner and if your intellectually tired go in this corner." I didn't really feel like going to any corner, I was revved-up and had tons of energy; I ended-up going to the intellectually tired corner. Then in our three different groups we formed circles. What surprised me is how uninterested some people in my circle were in connecting to the people right around them. When I'm in a circle, I tend to watch other people dance and often start replicating the movements of others. Maybe some people just come to these 5Rhythms programs to be by themselves and experience their own dancing without having to deal with anybody else. I like dancing alone part of the program, but I have no interest in spending all my time in isolation. But after awhile, I started dancing with one women in my circle and we had a very connected, high-energy dance together.

A little later during the class, Tammy had us break-up into two groups. She said that everybody who wanted to dance with a partner should go on one side of the room and everybody who wanted to dance solo should go on the other side of the room. Well, guess what happened? Me and the woman who had just danced together were on the partner side and everybody else went on the other side of the room - this struck me as very odd. 95% of the people who went to this program wanted to be by themselves? In any case, the two of us started dancing like crazy, most of the time facing all the other dancers - I'm not sure what we were doing - maybe it was something like a fast-paced aerobics dance - we were dancing all out. So eventually some of the solo-people came around to our side and tapped into the energy. I'm not sure where my stamina on the dance floor has come from lately. I guess it's from the gazillion dance classes I've taken. My energy has gone through the roof and I'm probably in better shape than I've been in many years.

One more exercise, a bit later in the class, consisted of our forming a large circle. And one person after another would do a solo improvisation dance in the middle. By this time, I had burned so much energy and I was so unconcerned by just about anything that I went for broke when it was my turn - except for a few moments when I felt awkward - I'm not sure where that came from.

Finally, the music become softer and more mellow, we were dancing slowly alone or with partners. And as the music came to an end, we were all relaxing on our backs winding down from an intense two hours.

Do you know when I read the 5Rhythms website, it sounds incomprehensible to me and I don't know what they're talking about. For me the class on Friday was a great experience. Partly it was the fun of dancing, it was feeling connections with other dancers and it was progressively feeling more comfortable in my own skin. While all that is very positive, I'm not sure what specifically it is about how the class was gently directed, the music or anything else that actually led to this experience - maybe that's the point.

Liz Lerman Dance Exchange: A Structured, Creative Approach to Generating Movement

I've written many times about the "Generating and Crafting Movement" workshop I took with Liz Lerman Dance Exchange. Their methodology is covered in-depth in their online Toolbox that you can access after completing an online registration form - there's no charge.

Their methodology for developing choreography is suitable for both experienced and newcomers to dance.

After taking the 5Rhythms class, the additional point that I'd make about the Dance Exchange methodology is that it is for the most part a rational, logical approach to dance making. The goal, unlike 5Rhythms, is not to give you an instant avenue to break down your inhibitions, but to provide a set of creative tools that offer a comfortable path to generating a large variety of movement ideas that can then be shaped into a finished dance piece.

In Search of Experienced Dancers - Combining All Three Elements

There's one thing that 5 Rhythms does not have: trained, experienced dancers participating in these programs - of course, I'm among those untrained dancers.

What I'd like to do is find a group of people that got together on a regular basis that in some way combined the three elements I described at the opening of this post: A combination of the rational and the non-intellectual, ways to break-free of my intellect while still using structured exercises, and the opportunity to learn from dancers with much more training and experience than myself.

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