July - November 2016
After a small hiatus for a couple of weeks we jumped into our practice with a 1 hour improvisation: our favourite way of really exploring our own personal and our collective interests -and to put all of our tools into practice!
WARM UP:
we played a random playlist of songs and moved to the music!
-explore the lyrics / the mode of the song / the melody
-create relationships with other through the music
-act/ion the song
-can change the music at anytime
-go with first reaction to music
This is one of our favourite warm ups because it's fun, we can be silly, we can be energetic, we can engage as much as we need to warm our bodies up. In a way, this is our 'bad improv' time; to get rid of our movement diarrhea / clear our random movement desires so that we later can settle and focus on creating our interesting worlds.
IMPROVISATION [1 hour long]
we all engaged different tactics to enter and then to remain contributing to the improvisation:
Ben + Cushla: were both invested in developing a relationship but both did not want the other to know. Used different modes of not looking at the other, being subtle with the way the other influenced their work. Eventually it became a mutual duet and as they moved the duet changed heaps but through all changed they remained together, pursuing the next idea to it's fullest.
Elle: began with something that felt good, and continued to exhaust that idea:
Reece + Leah: reincorporated the idea of connected heads and various noise-influence-movement moments
Rodney: created a character -bag on head and explored various postures and props (character work would be a really interesting avenue to pursue)
In this improvisation, non of us really stepped out to take the role of the shaper.
-most felt it was shaping itself
-it is a hard role, with an element of the pressure to make it 'good'
-once, someone stepped out and it looked good enough already so they jumped back in without making any changes
-some thought that/waited for someone else to step out
Also, it was relatively low energy, something that as a group we find hard to shift. If there is an outside influence - music, a shaper giving big instructions - then we often respond with energetic movement but it is really hard work for someone on the inside to pull the group into a level of high energy.
In some ways it seems like the project is shifting away from discovering what the role of the shaper is. Maybe we are becoming stronger improvisers? Maybe we are undertaking the shaper role simultaneously to our doing the shifter role? Maybe it's too hard and we need a new access point into the role of the shaper?
-We would like to keep exploring the relationship of the shaper-shifter / shifter-shaper as this where we can really identify the mode of live-decision making and (from an audience's point of view (yet, this is not a main focus for us!)) that is the really rich / interesting place of questioning / discovery.
All of us noted that many of our daily factors influenced tonight's improvisation. We use these elements to explore our movement and ideas within the improvisation (often as an opening point but also throughout. (Sometimes these are concious choices, other times we only realise upon reflection)
-tiredness
-one has been watching psycho TV shows
-sore neck
-haven't stopped to look at anything
-wanting human interaction
After a small hiatus for a couple of weeks we jumped into our practice with a 1 hour improvisation: our favourite way of really exploring our own personal and our collective interests -and to put all of our tools into practice!
WARM UP:
we played a random playlist of songs and moved to the music!
-explore the lyrics / the mode of the song / the melody
-create relationships with other through the music
-act/ion the song
-can change the music at anytime
-go with first reaction to music
This is one of our favourite warm ups because it's fun, we can be silly, we can be energetic, we can engage as much as we need to warm our bodies up. In a way, this is our 'bad improv' time; to get rid of our movement diarrhea / clear our random movement desires so that we later can settle and focus on creating our interesting worlds.
IMPROVISATION [1 hour long]
we all engaged different tactics to enter and then to remain contributing to the improvisation:
Ben + Cushla: were both invested in developing a relationship but both did not want the other to know. Used different modes of not looking at the other, being subtle with the way the other influenced their work. Eventually it became a mutual duet and as they moved the duet changed heaps but through all changed they remained together, pursuing the next idea to it's fullest.
Elle: began with something that felt good, and continued to exhaust that idea:
Reece + Leah: reincorporated the idea of connected heads and various noise-influence-movement moments
Rodney: created a character -bag on head and explored various postures and props (character work would be a really interesting avenue to pursue)
In this improvisation, non of us really stepped out to take the role of the shaper.
-most felt it was shaping itself
-it is a hard role, with an element of the pressure to make it 'good'
-once, someone stepped out and it looked good enough already so they jumped back in without making any changes
-some thought that/waited for someone else to step out
Also, it was relatively low energy, something that as a group we find hard to shift. If there is an outside influence - music, a shaper giving big instructions - then we often respond with energetic movement but it is really hard work for someone on the inside to pull the group into a level of high energy.
In some ways it seems like the project is shifting away from discovering what the role of the shaper is. Maybe we are becoming stronger improvisers? Maybe we are undertaking the shaper role simultaneously to our doing the shifter role? Maybe it's too hard and we need a new access point into the role of the shaper?
-We would like to keep exploring the relationship of the shaper-shifter / shifter-shaper as this where we can really identify the mode of live-decision making and (from an audience's point of view (yet, this is not a main focus for us!)) that is the really rich / interesting place of questioning / discovery.
All of us noted that many of our daily factors influenced tonight's improvisation. We use these elements to explore our movement and ideas within the improvisation (often as an opening point but also throughout. (Sometimes these are concious choices, other times we only realise upon reflection)
-tiredness
-one has been watching psycho TV shows
-sore neck
-haven't stopped to look at anything
-wanting human interaction
