My Reflections on Contact Improvisation
Every now and then you want to do something that would surprise you and help you discover something about yourself that you think never existed before and I did something like that exactly when I decided to attend the “ contact improvisation ‘ workshop by Lucy May Constantini a week ago.
Contact improvisation by definition is an improvised dance form based on the communication between two moving bodies that are in physical contact and their combined relationship to the physical laws that govern their motion—gravity, momentum, inertia. The body, in order to open to these sensations, learns to release excess muscular tension and abandon a certain quality of willfulness to experience the natural flow of movement. Practice includes rolling, falling, being upside down, following a physical point of contact, supporting and giving weight to a partner.
I come from a non-dance background with a little bit of amateur theater experience and improvisation purely from a ‘playback theater’ or a ‘Whose line is it anyway’ format . These workshops leverage the ability to think on your feet and use language as the medium of expression to perform for an audience and entertain them. I had never thought that there would be an opportunity to just engage myself and perform for myself. That in itself is a whole beautiful creative process i realized through this medium of contact improvisation.
Before I enrolled into this I had enquired from the organizer Nakula if an entry level person like me could attend and he was more than open to have me as a part of the group. The moment I entered the ‘space’ and got myself into acknowledging the folks around I realized that most of them were actually professional /part time amazing dancers and I dint even know the abcd of dancing. I have infact just started learning contemporary dancing with Tarantismo , and one of their best teachers/ dancers were also around. For a brief moment, my mind was struggling to find reason and my body finding it's own feet as to what I was doing amidst such good experienced dancers ? What would I be able to learn and what would I contribute to the team as a whole ?
However, I was very pleasantly surprised to find my unsettled mind calm down and my deepest fears laid to rest right from the word go when the workshop began because of the way it was done by our facilitator Lucy and the people around who went about in such a fashion that by the end of it I can say that I am more at peace with myself. I have learnt to see events/ things around from a completely different perspective, i.e to look at life and nature around as one big composition that we can only fathom to touch the top layers that our perception or should i say 'nervous system' can comprehend. This definitely was something unexpected and unsettling . I use the word unexpected because when you dance , most of the times its with music; it’s with a certain audience in mind and follows a certain pattern. This was nothing like that….
I do not want to list the activities or how it went about during the week, but I want to definitely share that we began with doing something very basic and from the ‘ground’ level quiet literally. Connecting to the ground beneath not just my feet, but connecting the whole body to earth and your partner and letting the earth receive and give energy to you is a very unique experience. It doesn’t matter if you practice dance, or music or act on stage or just go up and speak to an audience , but the very energy exchange that happens is something that I experienced and allowed myself to enjoy it thoroughly . The continuous cycle of : The earth- your center - touch - partner and the earth is an amazing feeling . At the very beginning, it does take its time to come to terms with as there is the fear lurking inside that always creeps within and asks me -Why am I allowing someone to peek through a part of me or even why am I allowing this part to come out of me to either be witnessed by myself or through someone watching ? Have I exposed something or shared my vulnerabilities , that was just for me and my sensibilities ?
Anyway once you begin to accept what you go through , there is something very beautiful that emerges from the space – the emptiness and nothingness around that cannot be explained logically or intellectually. From getting to know the earth , to ourselves, to partners and exploring the space through a dance that has no structure, no set rhythm no set sound no set time is fantastic and is something so fundamentally transforming that only when you experience it can you believe it . We are so used to the visual means of perceiving the world around that some of the things we did with our eyes closed gave us a whole new sense of ‘sensation through the senses’. The whole time you just allow your body to function like it has a mind of its own and allow it to take and receive, feel and listen rather than use language or words to express or allow your brain to respond and take control.
Whenever we would want to appreciate , the sign language hand clapping or the reverse clapping is what we followed so that we do not break out of the state of self that we are in. Understanding a composition , doing the sweeps , tilted room, expressing through imagery rather than long sentences and many more things that I went through the workshop made me look at things around from a very different perspective. Another key thing we did towards the end that I enjoyed was the whole ’underscore ‘ thing on one of the days that typically lasts for 2 hrs atleast.
Finally I do have to say that there is something about Lucy and the way she taught us with such zeal , innovativeness in her style , allowing us to experience reflections , satisfaction , empathy and a whole lot of feelings through the medium of ‘pure unstructured dance’ . We as a group are very humbled to have learnt from her and though this was just a one week workshop , we are deeply thankful for having accepted us to be worthy of knowing this form of dance and sharing her insights in the little time that we had with each other.
May we ‘contact ‘soon and ending it with a small poem by the movie maker Farhan Akhtar ( in Hindi first and then the translation below ) whose feelings I echo this very moment
Pighlay neelam sa behta hua yeh samaan Neeli neeli si khamoshiyaan Na kahin hai zameen Na kahin aasmaan Sarsaraati huyi tehniyaan,pattiyaan Keh rahi hain ki bas ek tum ho yahaan Sirf main hoon meri saansein hain aur meri dhadkanein Aisi gehraiyaan Aisi tanhaiyaan Aur main sirf main Apne honay pe mujhko yaqeen aa gaya
The moment flows by like molten sapphire Deep Blue silences No Earth below No Sky above The rustling branches and leaves Saying that only you are here Only me My breath My heartbeat Such Depth like this Such Loneliness like this And me only me I now believe I exist
Shivster
Know Shiv! - actor, improviser, runner!
Every now and then you want to do something that would surprise you and help you discover something about yourself that you think never existed before and I did something like that exactly when I decided to attend the “ contact improvisation ‘ workshop by Lucy May Constantini a week ago.
Contact improvisation by definition is an improvised dance form based on the communication between two moving bodies that are in physical contact and their combined relationship to the physical laws that govern their motion—gravity, momentum, inertia. The body, in order to open to these sensations, learns to release excess muscular tension and abandon a certain quality of willfulness to experience the natural flow of movement. Practice includes rolling, falling, being upside down, following a physical point of contact, supporting and giving weight to a partner.
I come from a non-dance background with a little bit of amateur theater experience and improvisation purely from a ‘playback theater’ or a ‘Whose line is it anyway’ format . These workshops leverage the ability to think on your feet and use language as the medium of expression to perform for an audience and entertain them. I had never thought that there would be an opportunity to just engage myself and perform for myself. That in itself is a whole beautiful creative process i realized through this medium of contact improvisation.
Before I enrolled into this I had enquired from the organizer Nakula if an entry level person like me could attend and he was more than open to have me as a part of the group. The moment I entered the ‘space’ and got myself into acknowledging the folks around I realized that most of them were actually professional /part time amazing dancers and I dint even know the abcd of dancing. I have infact just started learning contemporary dancing with Tarantismo , and one of their best teachers/ dancers were also around. For a brief moment, my mind was struggling to find reason and my body finding it's own feet as to what I was doing amidst such good experienced dancers ? What would I be able to learn and what would I contribute to the team as a whole ?
However, I was very pleasantly surprised to find my unsettled mind calm down and my deepest fears laid to rest right from the word go when the workshop began because of the way it was done by our facilitator Lucy and the people around who went about in such a fashion that by the end of it I can say that I am more at peace with myself. I have learnt to see events/ things around from a completely different perspective, i.e to look at life and nature around as one big composition that we can only fathom to touch the top layers that our perception or should i say 'nervous system' can comprehend. This definitely was something unexpected and unsettling . I use the word unexpected because when you dance , most of the times its with music; it’s with a certain audience in mind and follows a certain pattern. This was nothing like that….
I do not want to list the activities or how it went about during the week, but I want to definitely share that we began with doing something very basic and from the ‘ground’ level quiet literally. Connecting to the ground beneath not just my feet, but connecting the whole body to earth and your partner and letting the earth receive and give energy to you is a very unique experience. It doesn’t matter if you practice dance, or music or act on stage or just go up and speak to an audience , but the very energy exchange that happens is something that I experienced and allowed myself to enjoy it thoroughly . The continuous cycle of : The earth- your center - touch - partner and the earth is an amazing feeling . At the very beginning, it does take its time to come to terms with as there is the fear lurking inside that always creeps within and asks me -Why am I allowing someone to peek through a part of me or even why am I allowing this part to come out of me to either be witnessed by myself or through someone watching ? Have I exposed something or shared my vulnerabilities , that was just for me and my sensibilities ?
Anyway once you begin to accept what you go through , there is something very beautiful that emerges from the space – the emptiness and nothingness around that cannot be explained logically or intellectually. From getting to know the earth , to ourselves, to partners and exploring the space through a dance that has no structure, no set rhythm no set sound no set time is fantastic and is something so fundamentally transforming that only when you experience it can you believe it . We are so used to the visual means of perceiving the world around that some of the things we did with our eyes closed gave us a whole new sense of ‘sensation through the senses’. The whole time you just allow your body to function like it has a mind of its own and allow it to take and receive, feel and listen rather than use language or words to express or allow your brain to respond and take control.
Whenever we would want to appreciate , the sign language hand clapping or the reverse clapping is what we followed so that we do not break out of the state of self that we are in. Understanding a composition , doing the sweeps , tilted room, expressing through imagery rather than long sentences and many more things that I went through the workshop made me look at things around from a very different perspective. Another key thing we did towards the end that I enjoyed was the whole ’underscore ‘ thing on one of the days that typically lasts for 2 hrs atleast.
Finally I do have to say that there is something about Lucy and the way she taught us with such zeal , innovativeness in her style , allowing us to experience reflections , satisfaction , empathy and a whole lot of feelings through the medium of ‘pure unstructured dance’ . We as a group are very humbled to have learnt from her and though this was just a one week workshop , we are deeply thankful for having accepted us to be worthy of knowing this form of dance and sharing her insights in the little time that we had with each other.
May we ‘contact ‘soon and ending it with a small poem by the movie maker Farhan Akhtar ( in Hindi first and then the translation below ) whose feelings I echo this very moment
Pighlay neelam sa behta hua yeh samaan Neeli neeli si khamoshiyaan Na kahin hai zameen Na kahin aasmaan Sarsaraati huyi tehniyaan,pattiyaan Keh rahi hain ki bas ek tum ho yahaan Sirf main hoon meri saansein hain aur meri dhadkanein Aisi gehraiyaan Aisi tanhaiyaan Aur main sirf main Apne honay pe mujhko yaqeen aa gaya
The moment flows by like molten sapphire Deep Blue silences No Earth below No Sky above The rustling branches and leaves Saying that only you are here Only me My breath My heartbeat Such Depth like this Such Loneliness like this And me only me I now believe I exist
Shivster
Know Shiv! - actor, improviser, runner!
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