After my first experience of improvisation I was ready to come to class with a more positive outlook. Last week’s lesson inspired me to want to throw myself into the module and put my worries of improvisation behind me.

To begin with, we did some somatic work on the floor focusing on the breath and tensing different body parts on the floor. We also moved the head from left to right to see if there were any restrictions and how it differed from one side of the body to the other. I found that when I turned my head towards the left, there was more tension there than there was in the right which seemed more relaxed. Isolating and tensing a certain body part such as the torso or leg proved difficult as other muscles and body parts began to get involved. This exercise relieved any stress in the body that had been done prior to class and allowed us to focus on our bodies and inner feeling.

The second exercise done in class was with partners, this exercise required a lot of focus as you had to improvise movement and mirror your partner through peripheral vision. To start with I felt like doing movements which relieved tension, particularly focusing on the spine as it felt stiff. Using simplistic improvised movements made this exercise easier to follow, but I did feel in some parts there was a clear leader. Some parts of the body felt heavier than others and I was exploring movement which helped balance this so both sides felt the same. I found it strange relying solely on peripheral vision to make the movement happen, it was hard to keep your eyes focused on something for a long period of time. At the beginning of the exercise I felt restricted when moving because we were seated on the floor, but noticed as we both got used to the exercise the movement gradually got bigger.

When I heard we would be taking part in an ‘improvisation jam,’ my heart literally sank! I find performing in a circle terrifying even more so when you are just improvising for as long as you can until someone swaps over with you. When I went into the centre of the circle I felt as though I was repeating my movement a lot and not exploring smaller internal movements. My movement also became habitual taking things I had learnt from technique classes and previously choreographed dances. I began to think, will I ever break the pattern and move away from habitual movement? It can get frustrating when you want to be able to make movement and you just can’t break away from old tendencies.

The next exercise we did was a tracking exercise. With this exercise you are constantly thinking of movement that has happened before and then carrying that movement on. I found this exercise difficult and often found myself stopping for thinking time, rather than it being continuous. We then got into partners and assessed how our bodies were moving in the space, taking note of any patterns, habitual movement and repetitions etc. From the feedback I got given, I realised I was repeatedly using my upper body and kept rolling my shoulders and rolling over my body.  My movement was also very placed rather than free flowing.

“Movement- subtle or extreme, gestural or locomotor, intentional or accidental- is the medium through which the improvisation is experienced by both the improviser and the audience. It is also the lens through which that audience can view the inner world of the mover.”

(Spain, K, 2014, 93)

After reading ‘Landscape of the now a toptography of movement improvisation,’ I took this quote which inspired me to think of other ways of moving my body. I took that movement is what you make it, it doesn’t have to be complexed it can be something simple, pedestrian, and can be whatever you choose for it to be. It can even be something you dislike and something that wasn’t meant to happen. This quote has inspired me in upcoming weeks to look more at simple/small movements, maybe experimenting with a body part I don’t use often and actually just going with what my mind is telling me to do. Hopefully my movement will start becoming less habitual and more original.

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