WORKSHOP REPORT - Sunday, September 28 2014
4.30 – 7pm
Asheville Contemporary Dance Theatre
20 Commerce Street, Asheville NC
4.30 – 7pm
Asheville Contemporary Dance Theatre
20 Commerce Street, Asheville NC
Participating in the workshop were: ACDT Founding Director -
Giles Collard, company members – Jaime McDowell, Sara Keller, Sharon Cooper,
Alexis Miller, Mary LaBianca, Caroline Althof, plus former company member –
Coco Palmer Dolce.
Physical exercises:
Vibrations
I used an abbreviated form of the vibrate / shake / throw sequence as a warm-up exercise.
Vibrations
I used an abbreviated form of the vibrate / shake / throw sequence as a warm-up exercise.
Voice
1. Deep breathing, exhaling on “ssshhhh”, then “sssss”, then a voiced blowing through vibrating lips.
2. Hanging forward and humming until sound vibrates in the nasal resonators.
3. Opening up to an “Aaah” while shaking arms & body.
4. Plosives. (plosive sounds to hip-hop beat)
Joint Spirals
Circling and spiraling through all joints in the body for full range of motion.
1. Deep breathing, exhaling on “ssshhhh”, then “sssss”, then a voiced blowing through vibrating lips.
2. Hanging forward and humming until sound vibrates in the nasal resonators.
3. Opening up to an “Aaah” while shaking arms & body.
4. Plosives. (plosive sounds to hip-hop beat)
Joint Spirals
Circling and spiraling through all joints in the body for full range of motion.
(No discussion or feedback for the above physical exercises was given at this workshop session – but will be a focus of discussion in a future session.)
Quality of Motion – Percussive / Sustained
Creative Response exercise:
Call & Response
Journaling, discussion and feedback about Quality of Motion and Call & Response exercises.
Video documentation of Quality of Motion, Call & Response plus discussion and feedback.
Assignment for next week:
Go to any place of your choice and sit for at least thirty
minutes. Do nothing but absorb the surrounding sensory impressions without
analyzing.
Video link: http://youtu.be/sU-vtG2KXs0
Detailed report on documented section of workshop.
Quality of Motion
My intention with the Quality of Motion exercises is to
explore a movement quality in it’s most pure and concise form.
In this workshop we isolated the opposing qualities of Percussive Movement and then Sustained Movement.
I noted that individuals with a natural propensity towards a percussive mode of moving would be inclined to initiate a sustained gesture with a “punchiness” and it was a challenge for them to smooth that out.
On the other hand, those inclined towards sustained movement had a hard time stopping a gesture abruptly in order to create a truly percussive quality, but would continue the gesture a little too long, almost crossing into the realm of sustained motion.
As a teacher, my challenge is to find ways of encouraging a student to be self-aware of their individual tendencies and to be disciplined in their adjustments to achieve the desired quality.
In this workshop we isolated the opposing qualities of Percussive Movement and then Sustained Movement.
I noted that individuals with a natural propensity towards a percussive mode of moving would be inclined to initiate a sustained gesture with a “punchiness” and it was a challenge for them to smooth that out.
On the other hand, those inclined towards sustained movement had a hard time stopping a gesture abruptly in order to create a truly percussive quality, but would continue the gesture a little too long, almost crossing into the realm of sustained motion.
As a teacher, my challenge is to find ways of encouraging a student to be self-aware of their individual tendencies and to be disciplined in their adjustments to achieve the desired quality.
Call & Response
This is a creative response exercise to encourage intent “listening” (in both an aural and visual sense) and a resulting spontaneous response.
(Using concepts from the physical exercises, plus being open to anything else that spontaneously emerged)
In this workshop, I explored this idea in partners.
First, one partner would give a call in one short phrase of movement – and the other would respond in movement.
Then we repeated the exercise in sound.
On the third round, one partner would give the call in movement and the other would respond in sound.
After this, we set up a framework for the exercise as follows:
Each set of partners is standing facing each other across the room.
One partner gives a call with a short phrase of either sound or movement (their choice)
The second responds with a short phrase of either sound or movement (their choice)
Then the second partner begins a new call … and so on.
Everyone is all doing this at once, so each individual has to intently focus on their own partner and not become distracted by what others are doing.
Once the “head couple” has passed a Call & Response back and forth about four times, they shift around one place – now each person has a different partner.
First, one partner would give a call in one short phrase of movement – and the other would respond in movement.
Then we repeated the exercise in sound.
On the third round, one partner would give the call in movement and the other would respond in sound.
After this, we set up a framework for the exercise as follows:
Each set of partners is standing facing each other across the room.
One partner gives a call with a short phrase of either sound or movement (their choice)
The second responds with a short phrase of either sound or movement (their choice)
Then the second partner begins a new call … and so on.
Everyone is all doing this at once, so each individual has to intently focus on their own partner and not become distracted by what others are doing.
Once the “head couple” has passed a Call & Response back and forth about four times, they shift around one place – now each person has a different partner.
Discussion and Feedback
Alexis:
Call & Response – endless options (creatively), more comfortable with movement but found that sound offered a whole new medium to explore & also helped to inspire new ideas for movement. Partnering offered being able to play off of another’s movement style. It was difficult to separate sound & movement.
Percussive Quality – difficult to travel, wants to find ways to move percussively that are not rigid (like toy doll), more playful with a partner.
Sustained Quality – loved the feeling of never stopping the movement – that one gesture leads into the other. Enjoyed the image of “moving in honey”.
Giles:
Call & Response – important to relax and to pay attention to the essence of the partners call.
Percussive – stillness creates opportunity (for the next movement to happen)
Sustained – isolation (of body part) enhances clarity.
Sara:
Call & Response – give/take, receive/share, listen/learn, love/dislike, play/fight, animated/blank
Percussive – (drawing of cartoon explosion) snap, bong, ting
Sustained – (drawing of clouds & wind) whoosh
Mary:
Call & Response – fun & silly feeling, play more with tempo & spatial distance? How can this be connected more deliberately with past exercises?
Percussive – felt isolated, wondered how to find simultaneous movements, became aware of dominant movement tendencies in initiating movement, how can percussive movement be used to propel in space & not stay small?
Sustained – music felt supportive, enjoyed playing with tempo (within the given quality)
Coco:
Call & Response – hard not to combine movement & sound, important to listen to each other, would like to find a structure to make it more random.
Percussive – after physical exercises everything felt like moving through water, even percussive movement felt like playing in a lake!
Sustained – luscious, loved drawing out a gesture until there is a shift into the next.
Sharon:
Call & Response – hard not to do sound & movement together, would like to speed up the tempo so it forces a quicker response time.
Percussive – challenging to be purely percussive
Sustained – favorite way of moving so felt easier
- both were a good way to get out of movement habits & create something different, perhaps try going back & forth between percussive & sustained, also to try a movement quality to opposing sound quality in the music?
Jaime:
Call & Response – similar to another exercise with everyone in a circle “tossing the sound” to each other in a more random & unanticipated form, difficult to separate movement & sound, took too much time to think.
Percussive – hard to travel
Sustained – hard not to move slowly & get sleepy-eyed!
- enjoyed exploring both, it helped to think about making it simple (in order to focus in quality – rather than movement vocabulary)
Caroline:
Call & Response – excellent training for listening & being ready for unpredictable influences, promotes presence in each moment,
Percussive – bang, pop
- in regards to creating a curriculum – these exercises are working well with a group of trained dancers – how would they be adapted for inexperienced & / or younger ages, high school, college?
Call & Response – important to relax and to pay attention to the essence of the partners call.
Percussive – stillness creates opportunity (for the next movement to happen)
Sustained – isolation (of body part) enhances clarity.
Sara:
Call & Response – give/take, receive/share, listen/learn, love/dislike, play/fight, animated/blank
Percussive – (drawing of cartoon explosion) snap, bong, ting
Sustained – (drawing of clouds & wind) whoosh
Mary:
Call & Response – fun & silly feeling, play more with tempo & spatial distance? How can this be connected more deliberately with past exercises?
Percussive – felt isolated, wondered how to find simultaneous movements, became aware of dominant movement tendencies in initiating movement, how can percussive movement be used to propel in space & not stay small?
Sustained – music felt supportive, enjoyed playing with tempo (within the given quality)
Coco:
Call & Response – hard not to combine movement & sound, important to listen to each other, would like to find a structure to make it more random.
Percussive – after physical exercises everything felt like moving through water, even percussive movement felt like playing in a lake!
Sustained – luscious, loved drawing out a gesture until there is a shift into the next.
Sharon:
Call & Response – hard not to do sound & movement together, would like to speed up the tempo so it forces a quicker response time.
Percussive – challenging to be purely percussive
Sustained – favorite way of moving so felt easier
- both were a good way to get out of movement habits & create something different, perhaps try going back & forth between percussive & sustained, also to try a movement quality to opposing sound quality in the music?
Jaime:
Call & Response – similar to another exercise with everyone in a circle “tossing the sound” to each other in a more random & unanticipated form, difficult to separate movement & sound, took too much time to think.
Percussive – hard to travel
Sustained – hard not to move slowly & get sleepy-eyed!
- enjoyed exploring both, it helped to think about making it simple (in order to focus in quality – rather than movement vocabulary)
Caroline:
Call & Response – excellent training for listening & being ready for unpredictable influences, promotes presence in each moment,
Percussive – bang, pop
- in regards to creating a curriculum – these exercises are working well with a group of trained dancers – how would they be adapted for inexperienced & / or younger ages, high school, college?
Summary
This felt successful as a first workshop. I was able to
clearly evaluate the results of these exercises and begin to formulate methods
of continuing their development.
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