Friday 7 December 2012

Reflecting on November

I feel like November was a good month for me.  I had a breakthrough in terms of both my moving and my understanding of the work we’ve been doing.
 
The month began with workshops with Jenna Hubbard and Park Hill School.  As part of Movement Studies 1, the first years had to teach a small group of children.  I was invited to also take part in this because my final project is teaching based and it was a way for me to make some links with the teacher and with the possibility of working with her class for my final project.  After spending the morning with the children, in particular the group of 5 boys I was working closely with, I found it had an effect on my moving for the rest of the day.  That afternoon, I had studio class with Katye and I felt quite disconnected from the moving we were doing.  I wrote in my journal “I want to be back in my body” and phrases such as “feel my body”, “stretch”, “move fully”, “move like me” and “I am a dancer”. I spent most of the session trying to regain a sense of self and how I usually move.  I also found myself trying to lose the sense of having fun and being child-like and to become a 21 year old dance student again.  Towards the end of the session, we had to travel across the space speaking to a partner about our moving.  I found myself embracing the playfulness of the children I had been working with earlier that day and I was saying “I have a body.  I am a body.  It likes to move.  I like to move.  Stretch.  Play.  Bounce”.  This sense of play is something I have continued to notice in my studio classes this month particularly in Katye’s class and improvisation with Polly.
 
I feel like I’ve taken in a lot of information this month, especially in Natalie’s classes.  In Experiential Anatomy, we’ve moved on from The Navel Radiation and have been working with the Mouthing Pattern and the Pre-spinal Pattern and have been introduced to the Spinal Yield and Push Pattern.  The Mouthing Pattern is one pattern that I struggle with.  I understand the concept of it but I find it difficult to experience it in my moving.  The Pre-spinal Pattern is much easier for me to experience in myself.  I really enjoy working with a soft spine.  I feel like one movement is pouring into another and it is all fluid and relaxed.  Some notes from my journal say, “Moving in a way that is comfortable for my body yet still pushing it” and “Relaxed but alert body”.
 
Towards the end of the month, we have been beginning to explore the Spinal Yield and Push Pattern.  This pattern took a while for me to get my head around.  I wrote in my journal about understanding it in my head but not always felling it in my body.  This is something I want to explore more in the last few weeks of term in December.

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