HEAT

1^st LEAP local meeting Amsterdam 

Location: Amsterdam School of the Arts

Date: Saturday March 8^th 2014

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Notes, photos and videos documented by: Michael Jahoda

Idoc created by: Roos van Berkel

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1^st local LEAP meeting:

 

HEAT: from blabla to dada

 

Date: Saturday March 8th, 2014		Reserved spaces:
Where: AHK, de Theaterschool		studio 201 for movement/exchange sessions
Time: 10.00-18.00 hours		class room 501 for discussion/lecture (ppt)

 

10.00-10.15	Arrival
10.15-11.15	Session I – 60 minutes Led by: Roos van Berkel   Title: Ready, set, action! Using the Laban ‘body actions’ and my experiences within the Scores workshop (credits to Hillary Blake Firestone), I propose to do a warm-up during which we will play with small scores. After creating small scores, we will ‘submit’ them to different parameters so they can be varied in terms of level change, dynamics and spacing.’
11.15-11.30	Transition (incl. brief sharing previous session)
11.30-12.30	Session II - 60 minutes Led by: Jack Gallagher   Subject: Partnering ‘My interest is finding out how to combine different cannons and value systems. How to initiate creativity with tools that usually don't go together. I propose a physical session that will include some basic contact exercises.’
12.30-12.45	Transition (incl. brief sharing previous session)*   with room for Maria’s questionnaire (option)
12.45-13.15	Lunch

 

 

 

 

 

13.15-15.00	Session III –  105 minutes Led by: Eszter Gál   Subject: LEAP information meeting Visiting coordinator Eszter Gál will host an open information meeting about LEAP.  This is an open invitation to Every dance professional (teaching, performing, choreographing) that’s interested in exchanging knowledge and expertise, is invited. Eszter will discuss how LEAP connects to the previous 2-year IDOCDE program, and how LEAP will continue to stimulate the European exchange on dance and dance documentation.
15.00-15.15	Transition
15.15-16.15	Session III - 60 minutes Led by: Nicola Balhuizen-Hepp   Subject: How to come to love repetition   ‘I often miss some kind of interest in the sensation of moving and repeating and how that in itself can stay interesting. I want to investigate ways of making repetition more fun and interesting for people. I’d also be very interested in how you use repetition and what you think about it. I propose a session in which we all take an exercise of our own, work in groups or pairs and analyze what you do when executing it to keep it interesting for yourself.’
16.15-16.30	Transition (incl. brief sharing previous session)
16.30-17.30	Reflection of the day and gathering thoughts/input for next session(s).

 

 

Session 1

 

‘Ready, Set, Action’

Led by Roos van Berkel, documented by Michael Jahoda

 

Rough Notes and Key Words that I inscribed during Roos' session:

 

Topic of the session : "READY SET ACTION"

Working quote of the session : "what if we aim to play lightly"?

 

NOTES:

The Session was built in stages, one layer building directly upon the other.

The key phrase of the session was "aim to play lightly". This key phrase was repeated again and again.

It was noted that it was necessary to repeat this key focal point, otherwise have gotten consumed by the other tasks.

 

There was tight time limits of 4-8 minutes put on each stage and development.

The energy levels rose throughout the session as did the dynamics.

?'s - What is memory? How do we recall? From words to physical memory sensations?

 

 

A) TOUCH   ACTION: In pairs of two, one touching and one receiving, and then switching the doer and receiver.   Focus: Observation Touch - "track the touch and focus on where the touch is being received" Breath - "see how the focus on the breath effects overall awareness"   * aim to play lightly

B) FOLDING AND UNFOLDING   ACTION: Building on A) by adding Folding and Unfolding TIME FRAME 8 Minutes   Focus: "trying to warm up the body in the process"   * aim to play lightly

 

  

C) PHRASE
Action 1:   Create a 4 count phrase from the following:   Unfold Flex Stillness Gather   Focus: aim to play lightly	Action 2:   Find a partner (duet) and make 1 phrase from the 2 phrases.             *Phrase material can change when combined.	Action 3:   Create a 4 count phrase from the following:   Step Fold Turn Jump	Action 4:   Find 2 partners (trio) and make 1 phrase from the 2 phrases.   *Phrase material can change when combined.   Focus: "exchange as a dialogue"   * aim to play lightly	Action 5:   Increase dynamics (4 minutes)   * aim to play lightly	Action 6:   Create a 4 count phrase from the following (4 minutes)   Locomotive Scatter Weight shift Extend   * aim to play lightly	Action 7:   Level Changes - add, incorporate, investigate. (1 minute)   * aim to play lightly	Action 8:   Create a new phrase from all the words used.   Unfold Flex Stillness Gather Step Fold Turn Jump Locomotive Scatter Weight shift Extend   * aim to play lightly	Action 9 (final):   Start as solo with above phrase   Encounter the duet partner   Progress to trio   Progress to all moving to the center of the room.

 

 

 

Session 2

‘Sustaining Creative Directions in Partnership’

Led by Jack Gallagher, documented by Michael Jahoda

 

 

Rough Notes and Key Words that I inscribed during Jack's session:

 

Topic of the session : "Giving and Receiving"

 

Key element: Risk

Risk is a process, not a goal or action.

Risk is something to be embraced and mitigated

Risk requires courage and mutuality

 

Noted directions

Contact vs Contact Improvisation.

Give and receive.

Direction > Weight

Tempo > Pressure

Passive > Receptive

Risk = Trust (of self, of other)

Instill trust vs tolerating impulses.

Negotiate mutual risk while traveling, finding.

 

 

Action:

Two people on floor, one Active, one Passive. (10 minutes)

Start manipulating with hands and pressure.

Then manipulate with the whole body.

Gradually increase  Risk and Co-dependency.

Acknowledge the steps of the process.

 

Active person-

Give pressure to give Passive person direction.

Two main directions – to and away from the body.

Vary contact points so many possibilities are available.

Vary the volume of the touch

Try to stay upright, and avoid too much on the floor.

 

*Active person generates material for both (2 people)

 

Focus: Active person - 

Check if you are inhibiting any of your manipulations.

Notice the potential to experience Risk

Increase the stakes...

 

Passive person-

Embrace the Active persons intention, not your own reaction.

Self organize to return to a center balance point, or use (need) the active person to return to a center balance point.

 

 

 

 

 

Round circle to discuss development LEAP

and the Amsterdam Teacher Group 

Led by: Eszter Gál, documented by Michael Jahoda

 

Rough Notes and Key Words that I inscribed during Ester's session:

 

It was of course a description and clarification of LEAP.

 

 

Questions for her and for us that arose.

 

Does the democratic process of ATG inhibit our ability to fulfill the LEAP requirements?

 

In the end, it seemed that we agreed that LEAP and ATG or two different beats with different aims, curiosities, ambitions and goals.

 

 

Session 4

‘How to come to love repetition’

      Led by Nicola Balhuizen-Hepp, documented by Michael Jahoda

 

 

Rough Notes and Key Words that I inscribed during Nicola's session:

 

Nicola wanted “fresh and untainted input” from the participants.

(She wanted us to look at, and learn her material, and the way she taught the material with our fresh eyes)

 

Theme/Topic: Repetition

Question: “Why do students get bored with repetition”?

 

Nicola noted that students all too often feel like they have mastered a phrase and are ready to move on to a new phrase, before they have even scratched the surface.

 

The group learned her phrase material and discussed various approaches to help the students gain tangible insight into the depth and varied layers of the material, therefore making them more curious to investigate the material on a deeper level.  

 

 

*** Mea Culpa - I was too personally involved in the conversation and therefore did not make notes of the comments.

 

Short impressions by participants

Session 1: ‘Ready, Set, Action’

 

Roos van Berkel (session leader): Using the Laban body actions in a playful way for instant composition, I aimed for an opening session that would not only warm up the physical body, but would also wake up the mind creatively. After the short warm-up through touch, as well as folding/unfolding of the body, it was great to see that all participants could immediately connect to the fast pace of the compositional tasks. I was curious to see how each person would connect to the different tasks within the session, and what the movement output would be. Besides that, I was touched to see that colleagues from the field truly dedicated themselves to each task – pearls of sweat started to appear on concentrated faces, joined by the occasional grunt because it was still an early Saturday morning. One of my aims for this session was to find out for which level of students this material would be most suitable. I received the feedback that the playfulness challenged compositional habits, and would be suitable for dance students at the start of their professional education.

Playful it was, light it was – excited I am.

 

Jack Gallagher: ‘Roos van Berkel has a way. The ATG gathers, knowing that skepticism comes with an experienced body. Van Berkel's way, goes around and through so fast that you 'wake up' after a choreographic instant composing session not realizing how you got so active and down to business. 

 

Roos proposes. Her open assignments are explorations. We witness our personal tool kits, we see each other's. The immediacy of her leadership rhythm makes for a playful innocence. We combine, space little creations, co choreograph at such a pace as to out pace judgement.

 

Watching our samples of choreographic mini translations afford a straight forward interaction with raw materials of choreography. 

 

 

 

 

 

Session 2: ‘Sustaining Creative Directions in Partnership’

 

Jack Gallagher (session leader): ‘How to guide a session when there is nothing to Teach. Dare to expose it all to expert peers!

 

Here I am with expert colleagues. We are going to get active with my workshop material.

There is a luxurious feeling in the air. 6 well experienced professional dance teachers are about to take my material sequence for establishing non-verbal communication for a test drive. Unfortunately, my workshop co developer Marcella Moret can not be in Amsterdam today.

 

And drive it they did. I am immediately aware of a one whopping crucial fact. I’m not going to teach anything to these pros.

If anything, I am going to learn from these pros.

 

So off we go on the devised journey.

A sequence meant to tune the various possibilities in the body while creating exchange. 

 

How does language help or hurt?

How much speaking? What tone of voice matches the material!

Will it flow in time toward accumulative action? How will the elements listening, tracking, tracing also become actions?

Can we have actions not as a means to an end but as a means toward a beginning?

 

As these practical questions pulse through my brain, it is with great pleasure that I see out the corner of my eye (guiding and participating at the same time….is this uberhaupt possible????) that my colleagues are moving. An exchange is on the way. The personal styles and impulses are present. There is laughter.

 

After a refreshingly effective compact session, we have an immediate feedback session. Still huffing and puffing from all the traveling and lifting and risking, the thoughts and feelings just float to the surface.

 

I’m overwhelmed by the relevance of the feedback. Something of my personal assemblage of familiar practice based partnering exercises has an effect.

Whew. I’m not one to be religiously opposed to reinventing the wheel. After all, we all start, at birth, “over again” with what it is that we inherit.

To have confirmed that in particular, the particular ideas that I’m adding to some traditional Contact Improv, namely witnessing the thresholds crossed, self organising, responsibility through direction as a communicative pathway…all stimulate a sense of renewal for our Contact heritage. And then there is the indescribable joy at seeing how my colleagues are adding there own angles and styles toward the body of work. Spontaneously, past the theoretical, and without the statements that sometimes clog our discoveries.

 

Thank you ATG! It’s one big step towards the Symposium!’

 

Nicola Balhuizen Hepp: ‘Great to see the complete trust and surrender between the people working together. The truthfullness in responding to actions of the partner and the different kinds of touch that were explored.

I also found it very interesting to hear Jack talk about risk in a slightly different way than what had first come to my mind. Moving with courage, passing through borders, the unexpected as ways of moving rather than to just think about it in terms of ‘the more, the better’. That surrendering to uncertainty and letting go has to do with risk and that the technique is there to support you in that’.

 

Roos van Berkel: Jack invited trust. Not in the conventional way. As a matter of fact, in an unconventional way. We explored how partner work could access ‘risk’ from the moment you begin. With ‘availability’ as a given, I touched my partner Eszter in direct, uncompromising ways. Not knowing Eszter very well as a person and as a mover, it felt strange to pass through borders so quickly. Direct touch is usually accompanied by gentleness. This gentle approach was pushed back by Jack, as he was interested in what happens when there is an ‘allowing’ until the partner’s borders are met. To see what happens when you leave the responsibility of indicating borders with the partner, instead of assuming them yourself. Strange and exciting. Exciting because what would have probably been apprehended borders before, now seemed to be immediate ground to step on - not by forcing but by being allowed. It was thrilling because I felt that as partners were literally exploring more of each other’s bodily grounds in a shorter amount of time,  and the dynamic range of the material seemed much richer. Of course I could not observe Eszter and I with an outside eye as we moved, but I was very excited when I saw John and Jack move – risk and availability combined in a dynamic play with force and time.

 

Session 4: ‘How to come to love repetition’

 

Nicola Balhuizen-Hepp (session leader):‘Due to the small group attending HEAT, we decided to work all together. Everybody learned an exercise from my class and repeated is several times. We also watched eachother executing the movement phrase. In discussing other people’s experiences with the material and the question of repetition in general there were definitely some nice concrete ways that other teachers are dealing with this that came up. Mainly, I found it very interesting to see how their offhand suggestions often correlate to their own class, material or interests. Which led me to again realize how important it is to not stay in your own little bubble but to share and learn from eachother. The reason that I feel stuck sometimes might well be a lack of imagination of issues to focus on while moving. Where for me personally it is enough to keep reexperiencing the sensation of moving and shifting the weight in space, my students need more guidance and specific tasks while repeating an exercise.

 

Eszter also talked about an exercise that she has done in her class- where there’s an ongoing flow of movement happening across the room. One starts, the others try to see the details of what the first person is doing and then reproduce that movement. It can be an endless exercise because after a while someone else can start a new movement and so on, and so on. I tried this in my technique class for a few weeks in a row and it has definitely put my students in another mindset. They also became very attentive to even very subtle changes in material. I enjoy this exercise very much and it will definitely be something that I will keep revisiting!’

 

Roos van Berkel: I love repetition. So chances I would get bored with Nicola’s phrase were very slim from the beginning.

First of all, it was nice to be taught a movement phrase. We were all tired from the day, and could immediately connect to ‘being told what to do’.

And of course that’s when the work started. Learning the combination, I was immediately thinking of elements that I could connect to. Focusing on body actions, on body connections, the space you enter & the space you leave behind, spirals, grounding into the floor, and so on. I was not bored. As a matter of fact, I could have repeated the phrase another 10 times. And that brought up the question of the investigative mind with dance students. Of course I understand that students want to be challenged with movement material but I also consider it to be the student’s responsibility to keep reconnecting to the material from different angles. Or to just ‘sit in it’ for a little while and simply enjoy the movement material. With that in mind, I think we can actively stimulate the students to consider the same material from different perspectives. Nicola was quite specific about how she wanted the movement material to be executed, and I enjoyed that. That was another way in which I could keep connecting to the repetition of the phrase – by focusing on the details and not being satisfied until they are attended to well within the phrase. I say we should repeat some more…J