30 July 2012

Monday 30th July 2012

Working with Robert Clark
 After one introductory week of considering process, we now go micro, into the body. We begin with a short warm-up (no technique class this morning) small work with touch and contact to establish a ground for the work to come. Thumb working on toes waking up (firing, Robert says) our sense of balance through the vertical.  Robert asks them to stay connected to the partner manipulating, not allowing the experience to close in- only experienced internally.   The images alter from metaphors to anatomy, the body-work is not locked into one mode of language.


He speaks of (through touch) establishing a relationship, opening up to what the body (of the otter) proposes(in moments that I follow) as well as what I propose to the other body (through touch) when I lead.  He speaks of a dialogue (that word again and again).  He reminds us to keep it 'small' so that it does not propel into 'something else'.  He asks the group to change partners, as a way to remain sensitive to the fact that every instant is particular, there is no repetition.  Avoid just repeating, what worked with one may not necessarily work with another (all these relevant to experience of moving and experiencing movement, these two in a dynamic flux).  Keep changing the proposition:  Contact exercise.  Rolling: one rolls, 'one takes a lift'.  It is not what we are producing, but constant exchange of experience, of changing propositions and following them til the next one appears.  Marielys interjects "conditions" (connections to the previous made). A lot of giggling.   Getting used to 'putting weight into' the body.  Interesting  that even trained dancers find this  a challenge.  The exercises pick up layers,  now we enter into depending on shared point of balance to generate a more (shall we say) daring movement journey.

Robert speaks about bringing 'the human' back into dancing, with specificity.  Why forget it is/maybe a man dancing with a woman who may or may not be smaller, bigger, whatever.  He does not want to over do, just bring this to play - shifting the body as form, architecture etc with moments of encounters.. A starting point, acknowledging an other through focus.



 He introduces his research as such: the body as a 'proposal' (multi-layered/multi-dimensional).  An exercise:  with eyes close (in partners) we find with one hand the body of the other (who has created a physical state), the hand stays, another hand searches for another point in the other.  The hands find a proposal, which is then embodied.  n Bringing back the dimension of touch, to balance the previous work with vision.  


Relationships -in space, across bodies, across movement, across energies, across sound- are taken as proposals to responsive action.  Sense environment, what I choose, what I foreground, background, again what proposes, what is followed through, when it ends and the new begins.