So this week was our final week of contact. Time to perform our duets and participate in the underscore. To start off with I was very nervous due to us having to perform our duets, so much hard work had been put into them and I wanted it to go smoothly. After our duets were over my nerves had gone and I was ready to perform in the underscore. From improvisation last year we had already touched on the score so I knew some of the terms already, but bringing contact and extra components in was new and exciting to explore.
The duet which Claire and I performed tested both our skills in contact improvisation. We thought of the different levels which we could improvise with and tried to not improvise on our lower kinesphere as this is something which is a habit to us both. The different dynamics was difficult to interpret into the duet as this is something which I find hard when contacting with another person as I don’t feel safe lifting or weight baring when going fast. We struggled with the idea of not shuffling into the next movement because it was improvised and choreographed it was hard to make it fluid so the movements just fell into place, but with practice I feel like we overcame these worries. Overall I think our performance went the best it could and I am happy with the achievement we both made pushing our own boundaries in the duet.
Throughout the score I enjoyed dancing on my own the start of the score was done individually, getting to know your bodies and thinking about it internally. I enjoyed this as we haven’t had the chance to work by ourselves this semester as it had been contact. It was nice to bring our solo improvisation in to the score so I could see the link between the both. During the score I felt many different connections with different people which is different to how I have felt the past couple of weeks, maybe it was because it was the last lesson so I just went for it. I felt like I was improvising on my own a lot throughout, there wasn’t a specific reason for this I think it was just how my body felt during that time.
My thoughts and feelings on contact improvisation has changed from week one. I am more confident as a dancer as I feel like my movement material and knowledge has expanded and I have disappeared from my pervious training. As I was trained in ballet, I really struggled in contact improvisation, beginning to love the ground and to let my body be free is something which is avoided in ballet. As the weeks past and my confidence grew I let go of my body and allowed myself to love the floor, this helped me in my contact improvisation to make the movements with another dancer become fluid.
I hate going upside down. At the start when Kirsty told us to travel from one side of the room to the next doing handstands, cartwheels and low floor work it was my worst nightmare. I did not feel confident at all, which knocked my confidence in my improvisation. As we did these exercises mostly every week my arms got stronger which allowed my legs to get higher of the ground and slowing my pelvis was becoming to get off the floor and vertical. This is something which we had to put in our contact jams it was a way to get out of lifts for example. This was a big help in that way of getting out of lifts I thought was always sticky moment as the momentum and connection would go, but when incorporating these lifts the sticky situations would go and made everything so much easier.
Contact improvisation was a demanding and challenging module. If my mind wasn’t in the right place for contact I had to work through that and make it work. This became particularly important, especially when we began to work with other people, where we became in control of lifting another person. Sometimes it was hard to get out of this mind set. I did enjoy the module as I have learnt many different aspects about my body which I did not know before and also about my peer’s bodies and how they react and improvise with me. The connections we have all made through doing contact is something which I will never forget. Sometimes improvising with certain people did not work but that did not matter as sometimes mine and another peers body might not have connected like others did, but when the connections was made with people it was mesmerising to be in. It will be something which I will remember for a long time. I hope to come across contact improvisation in the future and see if my thoughts will have changed or still be the same.