During the workshops we were looking for ways to improvise without feeling shame or judgement. How can we create a clear task where the participant broadens their movement language without putting the focus on the fact that they have to invent it themselves?

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Art is a language, I want to research whether it is possible to speak the same language through different bodies. Every one can create their own dialect in order to understand each other and to have the freedom to speak the language in their own way and capacities.

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During the movement workshops of I find that people are able to explore their own movement language when I create a side entrance. A specific task that is clear and simple but will be done differently by everyone. The participants experience freedom because they can use the exercise as a starting point.

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Drawing and moving works calming and relaxing. The participants share that it calms them down when they focus on their drawing or on a specific instrument in the music because they stop thinking about performing as a dancer.

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The effect of music is enormous, a song without a beat gives the participants a hard time because they have to create their own rhythm. Every dance has a cadans, often that cadans seems to be led by the music. When the music doesn’t have a clear rhythm the mover gets more freedom to play with the rhythm. I am not stating that music with a clear beat means that one cannot take the freedom to play, but when we place that idea within a first encounter with dance it is difficult to create ones own rhythm. How can we make that easier?

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The words: articulation, research, joints, weight, direction,… are effective words to make the participants explore without thinking about aesthetics and performance. It makes them explore the possibilities of their anatomy. Without realizing they are already improvising and creating their own dance, starting from listening to their bodies and exploring the possibilities of their bodies. During the warm up we pass through our body, articulating our joints, after which we use them in relation to gravity and their weight. The arms and upper body were easier to relax and they made us move into space.

 

Because of the different bodies I have to discover how every single body uses weight in its own way. If one can not bend their knee, how can they use their weight to move their legs through space? The use of different levels? On which body part is the bodyweight? The placement of the weight is crucial.

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The moment the participants started to enjoy and stop thinking was the moment in which they got into “the zone”. A moment in which I could see glimpses of their personalities coming out of their movement language. A next step I would like to achieve is for them to open up their zone towards the other participants. How can we work on encounters during their dance?

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