Celebration Barn Day 2

Day 2.
We start by lying on the floor, and are guided through a 45 minute meditation-like exercise from stillness to movement. You are the authority of dance, what you do is exactly what dance is. Next we move like a kid. Kids are just learning about their bodies and what they can do with them and always pushing the edge. That's where the learning and fun is.

We do some mimicing with partners, then move outside to silently capture a "scene" (look at something and take in the rythem, sound, psychology of it). Then we play those scenes out physically on stage. My group ended up picking raspberries, so we played that out. Note: when working together, you don't have to agree on things all the time, those can be great dynamics for a piece.

Then it's Back to Basics, where we look at the body and it's planes of being and how they effect the whole person... putting your weight forward, backward, and neutral. We move with a focus on the eyes... looking above horizon, below horizon, and horizon. We add an image/thought/emotion of the present/past/future as an exploration of how we relate to the word under those varied circumstances. Each combination created a different feeling.

Plot Game. We use eye contact within the space, walking toward each other, then simultaneously looking at audience. Whoever then looks at the other first is the first to leave stage. All improvising, and give and take.

Ping Pong. In pairs, one partner does something, and the other reacts to it, etc. Suggestions are to stay away from "mimey" things, watch aut for "no end" movements, and have a punctuation. This game moves into 3 partners, one main dancer and two backups.

Scene in Pairs. Only instruction is to have a mis-communication. Examples were: phone call to pizza hut, thinking it's boyfriend and talking about private things. Language misunderstanding. An eye twitch mistaken for flirting. Feedback for mistakes: show that the mistake is effecting you, don't do the same mistake the same way. Sometimes, try to be the "worlds greatest" at what you are doing to find the moments, then the mistakes.

Homework: Bring dancey song for tonight. We were in our same 3 person groups and each person in the group was the leader and the other 2 were backup dancers. We had 2 minutes to think of a group choreography for each of our songs. We had a mambo song, robot song, and sexy song. Our homework for tomorrow is to put all the dances together in a way that makes sense.

The final assignment for the night was in two groups of 6. We had to put an act together containing elements like...
a roll, a kiss, a hug, extended silence, change in tempo, crying/laughing, surprising entrance, a line from Shakespeare, something disgusting, something beautiful... etc. It was super fun. Our group created two gangs, the pirates vs the ninjas, yay. Things to take away for future acts: variety, surprise, moments of tone, anticipation, action, follow through.

Until tomorrow.