6 August 2012

Monday 6th August 2012

Working with Roberto Olivan:  Day 1
Physical work on day 1, then composition tomorrow. Unknowingly, he is serving as as a great summary of the main issues of the lab. We start working with feet: weight, breath, fall, getting rid of excess tension, freeing the body to flow, within itself and through space. Working with the dynamics, alive, flexible and then impact, working on the innate dynamics of the body, surprises, (waking up the body), Action-reaction. Getting rid of 'residual movement' (the excess habits that we bring moving that may not be necessary in the moment). Isolation. Lots of bouncing and ahhhhhhsss, get rid of the tension, finding a more neutral position, starting from simplicity, finding accents, choices, choices, choices he says....Speed, precision, daring, enjoy. He does not stop, we are communicating in three languages, lots of Spanish (I blame the Puerto Ricans)... laughter, lightness., hard work. "Mejor, respira....breathe in , breathe out, knee in , knee out, libertad (freedom), very simple, very complicated....RISK!!! maybe we fall, but maybe we discover something new...details, the manner in which the material is done, the way we do things, Awake the animal instinct, avoid splitting the body, being able to respond as a whole, not broken in parts... We work on a phrase.... "I like to add moments of acrobatics...to push the boundaries of the language...but to do them with the softness and fluidity of contemporary dance..."

We work through the phrase until the level of physicality is high..then .ten minute break...Moving on to 'composition', duet tasks. offer a body part, touch, offer another, in duet. "we are not improvising" but making a 'sequence' through the touch points and being creative we the manner in which we offer the point...making it complicated, creative he says, not just point point point boring. bit where do I go/how do I go to the point of another that I need to touch, and from there what journey do I (explore?) take to offer a new point of contact. He speaks of this as bare bones, to have a bulk of material to build something tomorrow in part two of the masterclass.

Roberto asks to show the 'bits', he offers suggestions of where the material could go. He mentions (that word again), that one must be aware of what is 'proposed' and work from there. He notices that the duets have resistance so he stops to take the group through a simple carrying exercise to build on trust, tact and to stop being afraid of giving our body and taking the body of another. Offering strong base. Later he addresses the group, suggests an opinion: the need to commit fuylly to movement as somthing that emanates from me, it is not something I go to, it is something given from within.