The Play of Weight and Contact Improvisation are two videos that both explore the means of contact improvisation but in two very different ways. The Play of Weight with Martin Keogh and Neige Christenson seemed to be a choreographed piece in which throughout the majority of the piece, the male supported the female. The two dancers had a continuous connection throughout the video, the video explored taking and giving weight and keeping a connection without physically touching, e.g. eye contact. The two dancers had a constant under and over dancer, they didn’t have interchangeable roles unlike the next video. The second video, Contact Improvisation with Mirva Mäkinen and Otto Akkanen seemed to be more improvised than the first and each dancer had an equal amount of weight evenly spread between the two. The dancers had interchangeable roles throughout, allowing them to both experiment with the risk factor. Momentum was used throughout this video, making their movement more fluid. Momentum also aided the dancers to take those risks, but in a more comfortable and successful way, it also made their improvising more interesting to watch. Ann Woodhull said that “shifts in the centre of gravity of the person supported and shirts in the support by the bearer lead naturally too mutual, shared motion” (Woodhull, 1978-79, 47) and I feel that both videos establish this. Contact Improvisation was a lot more experimental than The Play of Weight. Contact Improvisation was set in a more relaxed environment, it taught me a lot in how to act in a jam environment. At one point during the video, Mirva Mäkien and Otto Akkaen, lost their flow of movement but didn’t let it affect their focus, they tried movement from a different angel and kept going. The same happened at another point where they fell to the floor, a movement went wrong, and if that was myself in a jam situation, I would get up and leave the space. But Mäkien and Akkaen didn’t, they continued on and this has taught me to do the same. Don’t let movement going ‘wrong’ affect your movement flow… because is there such thing as going wrong?
The Play of Weight with Martin Keogh and Neige Christenson:
Contact Improvisation with Mirva Mäkinen and Otto Akkanen:
Our centre of gravity is something that is very important when it comes to contact improvisation. “In Contact Improvisation, we purposely change centre of gravity in order to move” (Woodhull, 1978-79, 47), we change our body shapes constantly in order to execute certain movements, our points of support adjust often in order to refine and create new ways of contact. Our centre of gravity simply shifts and allows gravity to do the rest in order for us to accomplish these bodily changes. “This way of initiating movement looks and feels very different from grabbing and pulling” (Woodhull, 1978-79, 47). A lot of the observable adventure of contact comes from the non-grabby and non-invasive support and movement. Woodhull says that the “shifts in the centre of gravity of the person supported and shifts in support by the bearer lead naturally to mutual, shared motion” (Woodhull, 1978-79, 47) and this was understood and experienced greatly in this week’s practice.
During this week’s practice, the dancers started to explore in further detail ‘going up’. Elements of this had been explored previously but in this week session a lot more was examined in terms of height, weight, trust and confidence. Everyone was asked to work with someone they haven’t worked with before, and at first this made everyone apprehensive, but from observing I could see that this made a huge difference in a positive way. Some people even found out that they worked really well with someone they hadn’t worked with before, that their bodies worked in harmony with each other. Going down to go up was something that the dancers had to really focus on and remember whilst experimenting with weight baring lifts in order to keep the practice as safe as possible. By doing so this also made the weight a lot easier to take a lot easier to give, making the lift as a whole easier. “As you go up, travel through space, and come down, your centre of gravity describes a parabola, no matter what your arms, legs and head are doing” (Woodhull, 1978-79, 48).
We now have an entire dictionary worth of movement to explore within our jam sessions. We had explored and played with a wide variety of movement during our lesson and now it is time to put all the skills to the test. From observing this week’s jam, I saw a huge lift in confidence. The space was never empty; everyone couldn’t get enough of being in the space. The dancers really were putting their skills to the test. I saw things I hadn’t witnessed before, including people being fully off the ground and into the air. There was a different atmosphere in the space, it felt as if the class were really working together, safe and successfully. “Contact is about communication and sharing” (Woodhull, 1978-79, 48).
Neige Christenson. (2009). the play of weight. [Online Video]. 29 April 2009. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ltq6y06E8ew. [Accessed: 11 November 2016].
omegabranch. (2011). Contact Improvisation Mirva Mäkinen & Otto Akkanen. [Online Video]. 1 March 2011. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMLbWxujoGw. [Accessed: 11 November 2016].
Woodhull, A. (1978-79). Center of Gravity. Contact Quarterly/Contact Improvisation Sourcebook I Vol. 4.