user avatarDefne Erdur Eligible Member // Teacher
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IDOCs » Fast & Furious - Teaching Form[less]? - 2015
This idoc is to be created collectively by Gretchen Dunn, Liisa Pentti and Francesco Scavetta and the participants of the session "Fast & Furious" during the 3rd IDOCDE Symposium - Teaching Form[less]?
2015.08.09

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Please keep on adding your reflections; i.e. notes, images, videos, any kind of "outcome" that you would like to share following the "intake" of this session.

If you were a participant but you do not exist as a co-author please contact Defne Erdur from your account here or directly to the mail defne.erdur@idocde.net  to be part of this collective idoc.

 
Gretchen Dunn:
As part of "Fast and Furious" I was interested in the 'balance' between the three of us. I went first, teaching through demonstration, Liisa Pentti was in the middle, offering a long structured improvisation, and Francesca Scavetta was last with a scenario, which, I must admit, I did not understand--although it was delivered with a great deal of enthusiasm! I did not intend to participate in Liisa's part, thinking I would be too tired, but when I found myself putting away my 'props' and attending to her directions I realized I would. Out on the floor, in all directions, all the folk were stamping, stepping, creeping, padding at different tempos--but all related to the music. I copied some, I opposed others, found my own and then changed it, again and again. It was a joyous experience!
"Move Like Your Grandmother" began with handing out props or costumes, if you will: eyeglasses with vaseline rubbed on them to diminish vision, ear plugs to deafen, ACE bandages to limit a joint, and dried soybeans for socks/shoes to provide the foot pain of age. All took seats and we found sitz bones, rocked on them, rocked with a bit of lifting, then rocked and stood up. The group followed me out to the larger space where I demonstrated/taught them a series of spatial movements keyed to everyday actions: Reaching up to unscrew/screw-in a light bulb; stamping feet to get the snow off; crossing arms and taking off a T-shirt; pulling on tight jeans with later pelvic displacement; putting on a jacket as kindergartners are taught; getting in a car--both driver and passenger sides; spinal rotation to get popcorn from your friend behind you at the movies; dusting a huge dining table; putting dishes away from dishwashers, one on each side; pulling high curtains closed at the end of the day.

There was some time left, so I took them through a mirror-image of the first half of Laban's Left-B scale--designed to occupy the mind with the upper body shifts, leaving the legs to support the torso without thought. Older people, afraid of falling, pay a great deal of attention to their feet, and the more they can trust their legs/feet, as in this Scale, the better they are able to negotiate terrain.

For me, used to a class of perhaps five elderly people, this group of 50 (?) extremely able and enthusiastic people was a totally invigorating experience. I thank IDOCDE!

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