June 25, 2008

Dance Class at Movement Research and Creative Tango

After a hiatus of four months, I'm back to "real" dance. That's about the most unfair characterization of different types of dance I could possibly come up with. Starting in January, I became obsessed with Argentine Tango--taking classes, going to practicas (practice sessions) and dancing at milongas.

However much I enjoy tango, for me it's not the "real" thing. It's social dancing. It's not the same as taking modern or creative movement classes. I'm sure everybody has their own notion of what's "real" when it comes to dancing. My definition is related to freedom of movement and experimentation and not being tied down to very specific rules and structures. But even tango can cross-over into the more creative dance realm. I've really enjoyed the Tango-X workshops with Fayzah and Kendra that take place once a month at DNA in downtown Manhattan. They'll take a concept from tango such as sacadas (displacing the weight of your partner) and developing a creative approach to experimenting with this idea.

At the about the 42-second mark of this Argentine tango video, the leader executes a back sacada with his left leg, which requires that his partner move her left leg as well -- this is what is meant by weight displacement:

What I like about the Tango-X workshops is that they are much more experimental than regular tango classes and part of the focus might be on how many different approaches you and your partner can create to doing sacadas. Unfortunately, their classes are only about once a month. I'd like to take the Tango-X workshop once a week.

Movement Research Class with Jennifer Monson

I didn't mean to go into my tango digression. I meant to write about my Saturday class with Jennifer Monson at Movement Research. Jennifer was subbing for K.J. Holmes' Saturday morning class, which is called "The Athletics of Intimacy, Improvisations."

Jennifer is involved in a number of dance programs and research initiatives that are very interdisciplinary in nature. Just the types of projects I'm fascinated by.

Here's an overview of her two-hour class that had eight students:

In the early part of the class we explored the relationship among our kidneys, spleen and heart. How we could move our body from each of theses organs and what the connection was between these organs as we warmed-up.

We then partnered with a fellow dancer for the rest of the class. I partnered with Amy (she said I could use her name if I wrote about the class).

The first exercise was a ground-based contact improvisation exploration where we interacted with our partner while continuing to think about moving from our kidneys, spleen and heart.

Then standing-up, each person would dance for a few minutes while one's partner used one or two hands to press against the location of the different internal organs we were concentrating on for this exercise.

I told Amy after I danced that I would have had a completely different focus if I danced the same exercise again. When Amy danced and I put pressure against her different organs, we were much more engaged in a duet and she was not just using the exercise to be notified of the location of her kidneys, spleen, etc., she was also using this contact to respond to my movement as well. Which in retrospect seems obvious to me but I wasn't thinking about it at the time. It might have been partly that I was warming-up and partly that I was concentrating very much on the specifics of moving my body from each of my organs. Next time, I'll try to be more in a collaborative mind-set.

Energy Lines

Then we moved on to what I believe were exercises based on Skinner Release Technique. While an organ focus was more of a grounded, heavier dance, thinking about energy lines was more outward-directed and flowing.

To get started, one partner would stand still and the other would lightly draw straight energy lines on their partners legs, arms, back, chest and head. In other words, imagine lightly dragging your fingers starting at the bottom of a person's back, and quickly creating a line with both of your hands that goes up between your partners shoulder blades and then moves up into space. You're trying to give your partner a sense of a line of energy that moves beyond the body. This way when they are dancing, they can think about how these lines of energy can direct the flow of their movement.

Then once we generated these energy lines from a standing position, one of us would dance and the other one would continue to generate lines of energy on the different parts of our partner's body. This exercise is a bit awkward because you're trying to draw these energy lines while your partner is moving in unpredictable ways.

Then during the final exercise, we each did about a five-minute dance improvisation while our partner watched. The goal was to think about, in an active or passive manner, the different qualities of either dancing from the organs or moving with energy lines in mind. And to also be conscious of the transitions.

It took me awhile to warm-up for this exercise and I was thinking very analytically about what dance mode I was in and how and when I would transition to the other mode.

When I was watching Amy, some of the time I could tell which mode she was in and when she was transitioning from, say a more weighted organ-focus to the larger movements of energy lines.

I really have to take more classes at Movement Research - I find all of their classes fascinating and I have much to learn!

Trackback Pings

2 Comments

marlon barrios solano said:

Hello Doug,
That is great that you are taking classes at MR.
Those classes and this specific knowhow are the most "hight tech" and science related of most of the dance approaches.

I will be publishing soon an interview with KJ Holmes as a part of the series Embodied Techne.
You can find Lisa Nelson's and Alba Noe as part of the series here
http://www.dance-tech.net/video/video/show?id=1462368%3AVideo%3A15448

http://www.dance-tech.net/video/video/show?id=1462368%3AVideo%3A19594
I think that the experience that you had it can be elaborated on the understanding about
interfaces and and kinesis on many level and tall about some fundamental questions:
What is an interface?
Are all the interfaces kinetic?
what is contact with an interface?
is dancing already a manifestation of the "kinetic interfacing" which is our most fundamental way of been in the world?
beain a body implies motion and interfacing?
Cheers,
marlon

Added: June 25, 2008 10:25 AM | Permalink

Doug Fox said:

Thanks, Marlon!

I look forward to interview with KJ Holmes and I'll check out the ones you link to.

I've found that it's difficult for me to get a good understanding of the different somatic education/movement approaches from the online materials I've read. I simply have to take the classes to experience the process first-hand.

As you know, I'm very interested in the connections I (and others) can make by taking these classes and using what I learn to better understand the gesture and movement-based interfaces that I've been writing about.

Added: June 25, 2008 11:02 AM | Permalink

Leave a Comment

Name:

Email Address:

URL:

Remember personal info?

Enter your comment: (You may use HTML tags for style)