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[bethus2w-blog]

50 Minutes

For a total of 50 minutes the class worked with a partner doing contact “improv” work. After the 50 minutes was up, we each had to reflect on what had just happened. I noticed that I stayed on the floor a lot because it’s familiar, as well as feeling slightly unmotivated and lacking creativity. I also found that I struggled to know when to shift but that when I did shift, tended to lead with my feet a lot. We are always told “to be with each other in the space” even when your eyes are closed and so I’d like to know: 

How do you know where your partner is in the space when there are other people in the space if your eyes are closed?

What do you dance when you have nothing left to give?

[bethus2w-blog]

“Memories of Partnerwork”

We began our lesson with lecturer Matthew (Matt) by trying a series of rolls and doing them with our eyes closed, or without using our hands for support. We also did lifts including unexpected lifts and hugging lifts where we had to “go with the flow” of what we (partner and I) were doing. I find this task challenging because I’m always afraid of dropping my partner or being dropped by them. I also struggle with quickly finding my way into a new lift, safely. With everything that was taught and told to us, we had to create a solo on everything from this class so it could be used in Matt’s and ours new work.

[bethus2w-blog]

“En Defensa” Week 4 - FINISHED!!!

In our last week with Thania, we finally finished the work although it was just less than 30 minutes. As we finished the piece at the end of our final week, we lacked time to do full run-throughs so instead, we ran through individual sections and tried to clean. After any run-throughs that we did do, Thania would give us feedback as well as e-mail us videos of our run-throughs along with more notes on improvements or what works well. After a four week block and four hours every afternoon, we feel accomplished.

[bethus2w-blog]

“En Defensa” Week 3

Our third week out of four weeks making “En Defensa” with Thania was spent structuring Section 1 of 3 sections. Thania gave us the title of the music for this section and gave us time signatures for specific dance motifs to happen. We were also set the task of teaching and cross-learning each other’s dance phrases. Being on the third week of creating a 30-minute dance piece; we have A LOT to get through to finally finish this work...

[bethus2w-blog]

“En Defensa” Week 2 - Planes

During our second week of working with Thania for her new 30-minute work, we looked at Laban planes. To help us understand the types of planes and what space can be used we gave them a simpler name to use. For example, the sagittal plane is a wheel, the horizontal plane was a table, and a vertical plane was known as the door. Once Thania felt we had an understanding of them, in two groups we made a dance phrase using a chosen plane as our protagonist. This new phrase we made is to be remembered as it will be used somewhere else within the work, meanwhile, we added our kicking phrases into it instead.

[bethus2w-blog]

“En Defensa” Week 1 - Krav Maga

To begin our new work with our new lecturer, Thania, she firstly explained that she wants it to look at inner battles whilst using martial arts and self defence techniques, such as kickboxing and Krav Maga infused with contemporary dance. We thought about inner battles associated with body image, culture, gender and more. To create this piece Thania taught us different techniques that she had learned from having taken self defence classes. Thania taught us lots of different types of defensive kicks such as a roundhouse kick, or a snap kick, and so from this we created our own kicking phrases.