IMPROVISATION
Wojciech Mochniej
WORKSHOP Objectives: In this LAB we will explore our organic physical response; by this I mean that we will learn to understand the importance of an uncensored physical response to an image, idea, or given task. We will identify and move away from, or more deeply into, our known patterns and habits. We want to sense physically and personally, the logic of the body, as well as our own unique strengths and weaknesses, and leave behind ideas of what movement „should” be like and “should” look like. We will work on sensing movement development; exploring the skill of following the direction of a movement– sensing where it needs or wants to go. We will respond to multiple types of stimuli which might include; an image, another person, gesture, text, music or sound, or daily inspirations from everyday life. We will involve ourselves deeply in the exploration, and respond with movement.
Movement invention will be a high priority for us. This is an important skill for creating movement appropriate to the task/situation/score. To explore this fully we develop the ability to take risks. We will work on developing our confidence in movement; to listen and follow where we need to go (move) without ‘worrying’ about what it looks like, and to develop the power to work through a challenging task rather than backing away. We will learn to explore all these elements and to carry that process into work with partners and groups; to communicate with them through movement, without any need for verbal exchange. We will elevate our understanding of performance, and develop the ability to maintain the improvisational process while performing for an audience. This will require us to keep our concentration and focus on the task or the score.
WORKSHOP Activities: Exploration and experimentation are the primary modes of learning in this course, and class exercises will progress from the simple to the more complex during the term. Each meeting is designed to enhance the student’s creative and physical awareness. Classes will consist of : • Warm-up designed to prepare the body for movement and to connect to the senses; introducing effective breathing/relaxation techniques, increasing body- awareness, developing our ability to respond organically, re-patterning movement habits, and preparing the student to move more fully. • Exercises and improvisational structures designed to help us understand movement development and movement invention; increasing our ability to explore movement through a comprehensive understanding of space, time (rhythm) and qualities of movement, as well as relationship of self to other. • Exploration of concepts from contact improvisation such as; an awareness of points of contact, rolling, giving and taking weight, falling, spiraling and ‘riding the dance’. • Improvisational dances in which students will explore and expand their range of movement choices, spatial awareness, awareness of the whole, the concentration required in improvised performance.
We will work on solos, in duets, in trios, and as part of the larger group. Group discussion will often follow improvisational exercises.
ZUNA KOZANKOVA NEW DANCE “BREATHING BONES”
Zuna Kozankova
The skeleton structure is the deepest and the most solid structure of our body. It is the base for our life and movement. Through improvisation and technical movement phrases this workshop will lead us to understand the mechanism of this structural support and teach us how to acquire balance and strength not only for dance but also for everyday life.
Each bone of our body has its story generated by our way of using it, by nutrition as well as by emotions. Dancing on this workshop will be accompanied by basic qigong exercises for developing contact with the bones on an energetic level. So let´s „read“ our bone stories and use them in dance.
CONTACT IMPROVISATION: Giving & Taking
Milan Kozanek
Contact Improvisation as a dialog of two or more people, with their bodies, where body is in the physical as well other then physical contact. By movement and contact we will opening the stories, not by intelectual mind, stories of our bodies. Through the sensation of support, trust, gravity, rolling, balance,… We will move in tho the unknow, and learning from not knowing. The body will be the landscape for our stories and imagination.
PARKOUR
Jakub Adamowski
Practical movement arts, including all kinds of martial arts, climbing, races, playing with movement and other sport practices, have been part of our lives for centuries. However, not many people wonder how this can influence our characters, since we rarely assume roles, we don’t try to express ourselves through kicking the ball. Parkour gives us an unprecedented opportunity to 'enter’ someone else’s skin and get to know some of the mechanisms regulated by the laws of nature. This year we will let our bodies tell their own stories, through non-verbal expression, through the language of movement.
ORGANIC EXPRESSION OF ANATOMY
Iwona Olszowska
Body organs as means of expression will inspire our journey into human anatomy. We will search for movement and sounds which originate in our organs. We will bring out the organic aspect of movement. We will search for expression… the potential of personality.
LOGOMOTION
Nora Hajós
Is an improvisational dance/narrative form wherein movement and wordsspring spontaneously from a common source. (form developed by Simone Forti, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simone_Forti) She quotes: „It `s been a way for me to know what`s on my mind. What`s on my mind before I think it through, while it`s still a wild feeling in my bones.”In Improvisation it takes a lot of being aware of our impulses and than editing as we go. Thoughts affect movements and movements affect thoughts. The Somatic component of thought. In this class we will , explore spontaneous moving and talking arising in the moment.
INSIDE OUT
A different perspective on voice and body in theatre
Ditte Berkeley and Przemysław Błaszczak
Each of us has a voice with the potential to express, each of us has a body who needs to speak, one only needs to discover the language in which the instrument they are composed of speaks in. Stereotypes of the “beautiful voice”, myths about being “tone deaf” or physically unable to do something are all reference points that we carry as performers, obstacles to our development which might result in us never actually considering the potential of our own bodies and voices. By turning our concepts and images inside out, we turn the mirror towards us, into our essence, to discover questions that might help to guide us on a journey into our own body-voice.
Our aim is to look at the qualities and characteristics that lie within and that can make a voice or physicality individual. Not by starting from what is visible, what is already settled in our voices, bodies and mind, but starting from what we don’t know about our voices and bodies, working with the inner qualities that make each individual ‘s voice and body unique, special and of great potential. We will try through curiosity and awakening the ability to play and explore like a child, to find a new relation to our voices and bodies.The aim of the workshop is to support the process of inner dialogue in the exploration of individual training of the voice and body rather than proposing ready-made tools. We will share approaches that we find helpful in our individual work as performers. This workshop will be a dynamic fusion of the workshops lead by Przemyslaw Blaszczak “ Forgetting the Body” and Ditte Berkeley “Voice Tale (Speaking Song)”
Forgetting the Body
Social norms, conventions, etiquette and rules create an environment that shapes our physicality and relation to the body – that is, our “body view”. The way we walk, run, dance, touch ourselves and each other is culturally determined but so deeply ingrained that we readily identify with it and say “this is the way I am”. We don’t remember or seem not to remember that from birth we are exposed to intense training that never really ends, and our behaviour is a way of conforming to the prevailing norms.
The aim of the workshop is to make us forget the body as we know it, and make us listen to it in the here and now, in relation to ourselves, the surrounding space, our partners and group. By focusing on solo and partner training we discover new modes of perception, communication and improvisation that brings together, in a creative process, co-action, co-creation and co-existence.
Voice Tale (Speaking Song)
A voice has a tale to tell. In fact, the voice has a million tales to tell, depending on the song it’s singing, the experiences it goes through, the person who is listening, the sounds surrounding it, the state I, who am singing, am in.As an actress I enter into a dialogue with my voice every time we sing a song. I ask, “How are we going to sing this today? What about this sound, how does it feel? What does it say? What tale does it tell?” The exploration takes me further and brings more questions. This is the work of the performer who wishes to make the song a tool for a very deep exchange of experience between the singer and the listener. The voice is naked – it allows us to share on a level that we are not used to and where we often feel unsure. The exploration of its borders and its connections with the physical experience, with images, with associations, enriches our communication tools and allows for a space of discovery.The work session focuses on an exploration into our own voices and our voices reflected and fused in the voices of others; on the strength of standing confident with the sound of our own voice, exploring its richness and building the foundation to support it – through breath, physical support, imagination; on discovering its strength when appearing singly, and its power when it adds to the richness of a common sound created by other voices.
GAGA
Natalia Iwaniec
In this year’s Gaga classes we will use our bodies as tools for telling stories of what’s written inside of us. We’re going to listen and tell these stories through out soft, elastic bodies, which are fantastic, creative tools to work with.
Our imagination is boundless… let’s allow our bodies to feel that they can cross the limits of what is imagined and physical, through the language of Gaga.
Pika, jojo, dolfi, lena, travelling staff… these are the words that will be part of our story.
FALL IN DANCE IMPROVISATION WITH ISADORA DUNCAN
Iwona Olszowska
During this workshop we will follow in the footsteps of one of the forerunners of improvised modern dance. The freedom of dance in scores based on
Isadora’s ideas opening space for various new trends in modern dance.