This morning's class was the perfect antidote to the dreaded Monday morning blues that many of us experience after the weekend, although a challenging class it was light in terms of mood and atmosphere as I approached the day with posistivity and I felt that this was expressed in my movement. The effects of a positive attitude towards a challenge is remarkable, if you switch a negative defeatest view of an excercise for an incontestable belief in yourself with a smile on your face it becomes a lot easier overcome that hurdle. A mental block towards something instantly tenses up the muscles in the body making it harder for yourself to work through a sequence, whereas if you picture yourself suceeding then you are more likely to attain that goal as you strive to reach it more than if your create a mental block for yourself. I have been reading an article based on the effects of positive thinking - Scheier, M, 1993. On the power of positive thinking: The benefits of being optimistic.. Current Directions in Psychological Science , Vol 2, No 1., p 26. and I'm finding it very useful in how I approach my work which is reflecting in the movement itself, I feel it gives me a different quality of movement by allowing myself to enjoy the sequences as opposed to being too concentrated that my body reacts in a negative way. I have found that I am now achieving moments that I in previous years and I fully believe that because I had tried and failed in the past I created a mental block that I could not do it, this block is what actually stopped me as my body was as fully capable then as it is now but the difference is my approach. What I'm finding most intriguing about this technique of thinking is how the more I seem to enjoy dancing, the more my body allows me to do.
I find that when I do release technique it comes very naturally to me, I throroughly enjoy and relish in the sensation of riding through movement in a way that is both accepting and challenging of my body. I feel I can fully explore the use of dynamics in sequences and overall perform at higher level than I do in other techniques, I think this is as much a confidence thing as a physical capability idea but this area is where I feel most comfortable. In this class I found Mona's choreography to be physically demanding with a lot of level changes, floor work and jumps but it had an element of quirky personality to it as well. It allowed us the opportunity to play with the movement to incorporate an injection of self into the movement, I explored the use of dymanics and how this could change and add personality to the piece.
The difference between acting out a movement at speed or at leisure can change everything, it can give emotion to a piece or create a more abstract work. I relate this idea very much to human behaviour in the way we understand body language from to person to person, if a person approaches you in a rush, stern manner with a strong focus forward what impression would that give you? I can imagine a very different impression from someone leisurely strolling towards you, eyes wandering around the space. The same applies with dance, the body language we give as performers affects the reaction the audiences perception of the choreography, I aim to explore this idea through my release technique classes and challenge myself to change my usual focal and dynamic patterns to become a more varied and adaptable performer. In the learning and perfection process of a sequence we regularly repeat phrases numerous times in class so that our bodies can fully explore the movement and that the choreography becomes ingrained into our memories, on each repeatition of a sequence I want to approach with a different idea of quality to the movements, so that I can see in myself the scope of my own performance focusing on the dynamics, spacing, timing and focus.
A question that arose for me today in class is how as a choreographer I can manipulate release technique to work with and sometimes against my phrasing? By this I mean the sensation I experience from flowing through one movement to another is very enjoyable as a performer however, on stage it needs to be taken from class choreography to performance standard work. Sometimes it is pleasing as an audience member to watch flwoing continuous movement but I prefer something that challenges both my view on the piece and the performer themselves by using elements of the unexpected and unpreventable, perhaps exploring the extremes of dynamics and how quickly these can change?
