We started off today by quickly warming up, and heading
straight into some contemporary technique combined with the hip movement
exercise I was discussing in my last post.
Carla spent time going over some fundamental ballet/contemporary
technique using pliés. Many issues were
raised considering that, many of my peers are not classically trained, I, and I
believe many of the others find it hard to map onto their bodies, the
strictness of ballet technique and how the body is meant to respond to the
completely different muscles used throughout.
For example some peoples knees, including my own cave inwards in
retaliation to the new technique. Carla
explains that it is a conscious effort to continuously train and engage the
core muscles, and the specific muscles that haven’t been used, slowly at first,
to acquire strength in a new technique.
This made me begin to
wonder about dancers’ minds and how it is related to the body as an
entity. I believe that there is no
“mind-body split” and that they act as the same entity. In relation to dance Anna Pakes writes: “Within
dance circles, there is a tendency to think that even to refer to the mind-boy
relation as a ‘problem’ is to get off on the wrong foot by assuming that mind
and body are separate entities.” (Pakes, 2006, p. 88) I agree with Pakes as, as
a dancer when we are training we are constantly using metaphors to guide and
fuel our movements, also creating emotions and feelings on stage: “a decision
on the part of the choreographer that this action be performed. These purposes shape the quality and
significance of the movement” (Pakes, 2006, p. 87)
As the session progressed, we showed our solos. Carla then paired everyone up and gave us a
task. We were to perform the solos separately
from our partner, but also have moments of interaction – thus creating a
duet. For next week we were told to
create a hand gesture movement.
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