At the start of the semester I was very skeptical about contact improvisation. I did not know what to expect going into the class, but I was excited at the same time. I have seen people do contact before and it is an art form that I did not know how my body and mind would react to. As the weeks went by the class became more interesting and I was becoming more open minded about contact. As the semester went on everyone started to become closer to each other and more comfortable trusting each other with our bodies. Some weeks felt better then others, but overall I have learned a lot and received a lot more tools for coming up with movement material. It opened my mind up to a lot of possibilities that I will use in the future.
During the middle of the semester we did an exercise with a partner. We had to dance with our eyes closed while our partner watched us and examined our movement. During our dance our eyes had to be closed and while our partner watched us they were also looking out for us so we did not collide with anyone else in the class. During this exercise I initiated a lot of movement with the weight of my head. I felt off balance and it really helped me find the movement that felt right in my body. There was a point where we were told to keep dancing but open our eyes and once I opened my eyes everything fell apart. I lost my sense of letting my body do whatever it wanted.
As I talked to my partner, after the dance, I realized that I find it easier for me to do contact improv with my eyes closed. This is from a post on Yahoo Answers ,"Closing your eyes stops you from processing information about your surroundings and moving objects, and your position in 3-dimensional space. Less information is sent to the middle ear and balance mechanism loses its equilibrium and falters." This quote made a lot of sense to me because I was wondering after that exercise why everything changed so suddenly when I opened my eyes and also why I could keep up with the fluid movement my body was doing. Once I opened my eyes my equilibrium came back and I saw others dancing and the 3-dimensional space I was in. It was harder to become off balance and let my body take over because my eyes were taking in too much information from the space around me. This did not allow me to listen to what my body wanted because I was processing the space around me. This made me think how this can apply to me and how I feel when my eyes are closed while doing contact.
Another thing I realized during the semester was the more weight you give to your partner the better off you will be. This is what I have put in my head every time I do contact because it helps me get into the mind set and get my body to do what I need it to do. Being more open to movement and having my body be relaxed enough to let my partner feel my weight was helped by the fact that my eyes were closed most of the time. After I had this light bulb go off in my head I investigated this idea more. I tried to keep my eyes open for a whole dance and it brought more ideas to my head and it felt totally different. This was exciting for me because, as a dance maker, I am always trying to find new ways to create movement. It was an interesting experiment for me to put on myself and I learned a lot from it and received a lot of information from it.
Over all this class has taught me a lot. I learned different techniques for creating dance movement and found a different way to dance. Dancing with my eyes closed really opened my eyes to a lot of different possibilities and I am glad I opened myself up for this class and was able to take a lot from it.
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