For my body story assignment there were two particular areas that interested me, the first was the muscular system especially within my feet. This area interested me especially because I had particular injuries e.g. pulled ligaments in my foot and overstretching of the muscles causing my arch to collapse in both feet. In my research I have looked at the differences between ligaments and tendons and which one does which job. Both injuries were caused by an overworking of the foot through ballet. Since being at university, I have found different ways of work around this and learnt to soften through my feet, through more bending of the knees therefore releasing tension off my feet as I land. Also I have found that by not articulating my feet so much in dance, so that its in an abnormal point in the air, I can perform a lot more jumps sequences or a longer period of time without it aching.
The next system that has interested me with my research has been energy systems. For me this was a big part of my life when I was 15, as I was diagnosed with exhaustion, that led onto depression. Daily tasks seemed stifling simply because of the lack of energy I had. At that point in my life I had to learn to just deal with it and carry on because of school and dancing commitments, but now at university I've got to learn more about it and how I can deal with it in periods of exhaustion. The classes we had in The Alexander Technique were especially helpful, finding ways of carrying out daily movements/activities with less energy so that you yield it for others. Next the lecture given on nutrition by Kayte, made me reevaluate what I was eating and how that may affect my energy levels within in class. I now eat breakfast almost everyday and eat far more wholesome foods e.g.wholemeal bread, brown rice, which give a greater energy yielding than plain forms of these. I believe that my concentration levels have improved within in class and I wish to continue to find ways of helping myself find more energy.
Feedback for duet from our peers and Kayte
We were firstly worried about if our idea came across clearly enough, but our peers assured us it was very clear. Kayte's feedback was that we shouldn't go down the path of contact improvisation but stick to simple activities like running or walking. These apparently show how different we are as movers rather than trying to overwork the idea. As a duet we didn't even think about it, because it seemed far to simple. Our peers thought out movement was very similar to that of out studio practice classes and that we shouldn't worry about just dancing as ourselves, which would be a clear way to show individuality. I would agree, but I am worried that if we did this, I would fall back into my old style and this would hinder my progress in the duet. The last idea that was suggested was about an idea of colour and maybe costume. After each section stripping off another layer until it reveals a bright colour which represents our movement personalities. I loved this idea and can't wait to try it out.
Duet Studio work with Shannon
We decided to take a phrase and purposefully make it identical and perform it again how we ourselves in our natural moving bodies would perform it. Secondly we decided to do a score of the studio and find the differences within our personalities from the scores to create a section of contact improvisation. Here are some videos of that session...
Duet Words
On our choreographic day during reading week Kayte gave us a handout called the 86 aspects of composition by Mike Vargas. From this in out duet we had to choose words that stood out to us. Shannon and I choose sensation, perception and colour. The one that drew most of my attention was sensation, because as an individual we all experience different emotions through different activities whether its walking the dog or bungee jumping. But its the way we perceive the sensation we get from that experience, that shapes us as people. This then led onto themes for our duet and one word that summoned all three of these words up was individuality. The way we perceive the world, experience sensations and see the colours in peoples is all about individuality. From this we decided to go down the route of Anna Halprin and how she believes that you don't have to be trained to be dance. It's more about the experiences and personality you bring to the dancing rather than your flexibility and strength.
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