Dance Improvisation / Nomadism Workshop

Developing an understanding of improvisation in/as nomadism has lead me into new thinking and refined my improvisational practice.  Improvisation becomes, in this approach, a mode through which to (re)figure subjectivity and form connections to others in physical, spatial and temporal terms.

The below workshop outline pulls together many of the improvisation tasks in the blog below and places an emphasis on the development of fluid, shifting forms in and between bodies, creating an ethics of intersubjective engagements.

Warm-Up
                      Skin
                                  Transformations
(Re)locations
                                                    (Re)visiting and inverting
Flow and interruption
                                              Intersubjectivities
                                                                       Open improvisation

Open Improvisation

Open Improvisation from Vida Midgelow on Vimeo.

Intersubjectivities: Duets 3

See March 16th 2012 post for the task relating to this video material. A duet between Sam Frizzell (MA candidate, University of Northampton) and Vida Midgelow.


Video (duet version 1):


Video (duet version 2):
Intersubjectivites: Duets 3(version 2) from Vida Midgelow on Vimeo.

Intersubjectivites: Duets 2

See March 16th 2012 post for the task relating to this video material.

Video: Duet (version 1 : part 1)

I-Ying Wu joins me in a duet (I-Ying is a PhD candidate at University of Northampton researching movement improvisation and daoism)

No sound, filmed from fixed camera. Here one round of call and response are edited into one screen.

Video: Duet (version 1: part 2)

I-Ying and I in a duet emerging of the call and response solos shown in the video above. 

No sound, filmed from fixed camera and unedited.

Video: Duet (version 2)

I-Ying and I move through a loose call and response score and resulting duet form.

No sound, filmed from fixed camera and unedited.

Intersubjectivities: Duet

Feeding off your partners movement.. Partner A Partner B

A. Dances for 3mins. Pause.

B. Observes. Noting what draws you. Imagine shapes, patterns, dynamics in your body as you watch.

B. Dances for 3mins in response. Take with you into your dancing the imagined sensations, images and patterns you noted whilst observing.

A. Observes. Watching, noting, imagining.

Repeat the call response structure at least 3 times.

A and B dance together.

Both drawing on the sensations and actions from your dancing/watching.

Both respond to each other in the moment.... echo, contrast, transform.

Note what changed in your own dancing and that of your partner.

How does dancing together shift you both?

Video: Duet 1
Matthew Gough joins me in a Duet (Matt, is a senior lecturer in Dance at University of Northampton, Director of Playgrounds Dance Company and blogger: http://quodlibet.tumblr.com/).
Filmed on a dolly, lightly edited

Video: Duet 2 Filmed on a dolly, lightly edited (this version, danced again with Matt Gough, takes a more open approach to the above structure follows in essence the same task/score).

Perspectives: Call and Response 2

Perspectives: Call and Response

Improvise for 2 mins.... then pause, reflect.
Taking your own improvisation as a score or trigger, dance again for a further 2 mins.

You might think of this as making a response in order to reveal something of the previous dance

And... in a cyclic process you can go on... each period of improvisation illuminating and shifting the previous version.

Video: One round of 'call' and 'response', filmed on the left and right side of the studio respectively with a static camera, editing together into on screen.

Perspectives: Shifting focus

Video: short timelapse

A beautiful day!

Responding to what is available.

Giving yourself space and time to absorb and integrate your changing environment is a key part of nomadism in/as improvisation...

Video: The studio is bathed in sunlight, casting shadows and warmth across the space, I dance.

Connectivities: duets

Embodied transformations

Working with a partner, support their movement – stroking, holding, guiding, following your partners movement with your hands. Guiding their emerging solo, and echoing it with your touch and in your body.

When you are ready exchange roles - passing from guide to guided.

As the dance between you develops and extends let a duet take shape. Following and leading blur. A dance with or without touch/contact is formed.

                         Note how this dance resides within you....

then, when you are ready - drift away from your partner and explore this dance as a solo... how does it reside in your body?

then when ready find a new partner.. here allow a different dance to form – informed by the previous duet and altered by this new partners dance…

       and again move to solo’s, and then in time, new duets…

then, following one more solo re-find your first partner –

re-find your first dance,

                      Noting what has changed, how things have moved                 on,             transformed.

                     Note what remains, what remains anew...

inspired by Eva Karzcaq (ID workshop Dec 12th, 2011)