Kirsty

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAqUNJGKjCQ


Last weeks never made it up...so this blog is a little overdue...today is a link, the song popped up on my ipod a few days ago....this affair with Blake is encroaching into all corners of my day to day.


Last week....

-dancing like me is proving harder than one would think. As an improviser it is perhaps unthinkable to have few sneaky traits or (hushed tone) 'moves' ready to throw in a dance of which the sole essence is the here and now...?right? But good intentions aside...video evidence supports that yes there are a few dominating features that tend to occur throughout my dance. Pin pointing those into set/choreographed material has been my challenge. I could argue that finding my 'signature way of moving' occurs in the search for something else. I walk like me when I am walking to the bus stop, not when I am walking like me with the intention to walk like me. I have a movement quality but my aim is to shake it off/up, not be confined my it...to be accessible...Is it OK that I don't like the movement stereotype of myself...? Perhaps my ego is reluctant to acknowledge I have one...the ability to appreciate, utilise and even change the intuitive patterns of human action, can be what create the opportunity for creativity...A dancer who has a heightened sense of awareness of and over the actions of her body, has access to faster and potentially more intelligent decisions during improvisation... perhaps why setting material whilst dancing 'like me' feels like myself just settling for the obvious decisions at the moment...

-which leads me to the second question Fleur brought up in the studio yesterday.... When to set, when to improvise. A challenge I find often occurs for me. Sometimes set material sucks the life out of an otherwise interesting idea, by containing it, diluting it into a series of forms and shapes...and sometimes the here and now in a performance situation has the potential to distract from the interesting idea if a dancer is too concerned with the audience. Dance set material as though it could be improvised, and improvise as though the movement were set. A friend/colleague of mine mentioned this idea of a sliding scale- 'set in stone' at one end, 'completely free' at the opposing end. How much of a memory of movement we 'solidify', or how closely we 'rein in' an improvisation, depends on where we place it on this scale.

On a lighter note...a morning session with 4year olds (we are researching for the matinee performance) is definitely a great way to start the day...I lost a contact lens and Ana got hit in the face...instigating chaos in a nursery does not come without consequences...