10ps in the piggy bank.

So about a year or so ago I took the decision to try a different path to the one I was on and take a step back from the arts scene I once knew and loved. After studying, working and pushing forward for the career I thought I wanted, I felt exhausted emotionally, physically and really questioned whether what I was doing was worth it. The late nights, lack of social life, the ever growing surroundings of colleagues and contacts rather than the friendship I craved, I felt a lone and lost. I'd lived in Newcastle since I was 18 and suddenly felt the need to escape to try a new way of life, a simpler, less emotionally draining job that I could leave at the door when I went home. So I took a job in retail, with a great company I'd worked with for years whilst I was a student, but It turns out whatever job I'm in, I find it hard to let go as soon as I leave the office. As a passionate person I have always invested myself in whatever I do, after a year away from the life I tried to escape from I've found myself craving the creativity I once had.

Being back in Leeds has given me happiness and spirit I forgot I had, now is the time to use that to bring my previous love of the arts back in to balance. As well as being a skill I believe creativity to be a habit, even if you simply write a sentence each evening or choreograph a small phrase each day eventually this builds up until you have a plethora of ideas to pull from. Those daily sentences will one day be large enough to fill a novel, those movements could one day be enough to fill a piece of music it all starts little by little so that's what I'm going to begin doing today. Building my creative bank up little by little and see where it all leads. It may be a few words, an image, an essay, a couple of chords on my Ukelele, who knows (and who cares I guess!)- This is my end of year resolution ready to start the new year. running, who needs chimes at midnight to start a fresh.

12/02/2012 - 101 things to do with a lightbulb?

"Ever since we crawled out of that primordial slime, that's been our unifying cry, "More light."  Sunlight.  Torchlight.  Candlelight.  Neon, incandescent lights that banish the darkness from our caves to illuminate our roads, the insides of our refrigerators.  Big floods for the night games at Soldier's Field.  Little tiny flashlights for those books we read under the covers when we're supposed to be asleep.  Light is more than watts and footcandles.  Light is metaphor.  Light is knowledge, light is life, light is light."  ~Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider


As I enter the final stretch of my time at university I dive head first into my workload of words and creativity, discovering a blend of my own and others thoughts on choreographic principals and somehow figure out how to place myself into a wider context of dance practice. Starting with my dissertation piece I will attempt to explore myself as an artist practitioner cultivating in an around 15 minute piece of work to be performed on the 11th or 12th May at Dance City, Newcastle. So where to begin...


The quote written above has been the basis of my exploration so far, having had the image of simply a light bulb in my head for the past year I decided the best way forward would be to explore ideas and metaphors surrounding light and fingers crossed that would spark some deeply inspiring and individual idea from there.... : 

• "There are two kinds of light, the glow that illuminates and the glare that obscures..."
• "We cannot hold a torch anothers' path without brightening our own"
•  "You cannot have a light without a dark to stick it in"
• "It's our privilege and adventure to discover our own special light"
• "There are two ways of spreading light; to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it."
• "Dare to reach your hand into the darkness, to pull another hand into the light"

What are the possibilities for creating light onstage without actually having to use technicians, rigs or anything that you couldn't buy for the house? I want to create something that the audience feels like that could do at home, I want them to feel connected and involved in the piece. Something that could theoretically be performed anywhere in the dark.... maybe I'll do it site specifically. Now that would be fun!! Experimenting with the audience lighting the performers, performers lighting the audience, lighting each other and lighting themselves the explorations are endless but unfortunately the countdown has began... 13 weeks until show time, time to get creative!! 

"Care To Comment" 13/12/11

Title: Care to Comment

Choreographer: Olivia Hayes

Dancer: Feliciana Robles-Acosta

Music: Trentemøller - Shades of Marble

Notes: I invited the audience to tweet "@caretocomment" (https://twitter.com/#!/caretocomment) before, during and after the performance on anything they wished to make comment on, whether that be about the piece or otherwise. This was then projected in real time on to the stage allowing the audience to see themselves in the performance, or how others used this tool for interaction. This piece is aimed to reflect our current relationship to social media outlets, how this affects us and how in turn we can affect it. 

Closing Blog. Beginning of the end.

"Therefore, in looking at dance analytically, a notion that does not in itself exclude either interpretation or metaphor, we have to observe the single moment intently, to register it's completeness while also seeing it's movement toward something else - another moment - what it shares with the next , and how it differs. This accumulation of moments, marked by similarity and difference among and between them, culminates in wholes of varying sizes and ultimately in the 'dance', something that has a beginning and an end even if it is without conventional beginnings and endings." Lansdale, J.  (2010) A tapestry of in intertexts. In: Carter, A and O'Shea, J The routledge dance studies reader. 2nd ed. Oxon: Routledge.

I found this quote in the same book that I began my introductory blog with, and I kind of wish I had found it at the beginning as it is a great way of approaching analysis of dance, but with this in mind I find the end sentance can be related to a recurring theme of life and dance being connected affecting one another. providing parrallels on how we approach each of these. Just as Lansdale states "accumulation of moments" is what creates a dance, I feel the same about life exept the moments in life can last a little longer. As I approach the mid point of my final year of study, I find myself reflecting on my time as a chapter, a moment, in my journey that will differ from another other embodied experience but will still be remembered as importantly as any other. The technique training I have recieved on the course will remain with me both in replayed memories and within my body, I have grown as a dancer and an adult in the duration and one has always significantly directed  the other. Analysing myself through this blog has been a series of captured moments on video or photograph to observe and comment, in order to progress toward becoming an improved version of ones self. This reflective blog has altered my view on self analysis in technique, sometimes you need to take a step back from yourself to truely understand yourself, by this I mean that by taking the time away from the classroom environment to watch videos as if you were marking someone else helps us to separate us as dancers to us as people, it's nothing personal it's just dance.

On to my physical development and improvements or step backs as the case may be, I set myself some goals at the beginning of this project and  how I intend on progressing further with these aims.

• "A weakness of mine is lengthening through the legs and fully engaging the feet to the maximum, to help me find better precision in my movement I really need to improve this element by strengthening the feet and legs by engaging them fully, especially in turned out posistions as I have weak inner thigh mucles so developing these through technique, especially ballet." Hayes, O. (2011) Introduction: Final Year, Final Steps. Available at: oliviahayesdance.blogspot.com

From the second video I posted on 14/11/11 I can see in the hand stand that my legs  are fully extended through the legs and feet, especially in comparison the video I posted on 14/10/11 when my underneath leg remains bent. I feel that I have improved in this aspect but it is something that I will continually need to focus on to embody in my muscle memory, this will change and develop as my feet and legs strengthen so pushing this image of lengthening out through the toes will help the legs appear long and energy moving out through the end of  the feet.

Before - 14/10/11

After 14/11/11
 

• "A challenge for me at the minute is with my feet, in particular my right foot as I broke im toe earlier on in the year and as a result the muscle on the outer edger of my foot is under developed and is proving difficult in certain excercise..." Hayes, O. (2011) Introduction: Final Year, Final Steps. Available at: oliviahayesdance.blogspot.com

I still find balancing on the right foot difficult, and by executing the excercises daily that I listed in the introduction I can feel that it is stronger than it was at the beginning of term, and some days it feels weaker that others. Looking back I do not see this as a priority weakness for me now as I think this has improved through working on other areas such as extending through the legs and feet, recovering from an injury can be a long process so I feel time will help this issue as much as excercise. In the future I will carry on with the strengthning excericises to help speed up the process of reocovery but focus more on strengthening muscles around the knee and ankle to help support the foot in stabilising in balances, when practicing tondus at the barre concenctrating on pushing the foot downward through the floor to extend and the same to return has helped me strengthen the area around my 5th metatarsal and remembering to do this is all extensions will help my foot improve as it connects with the floor.

• "This year I aim to be honest with myself as a dance performer and choreographer," Hayes, O. (2011) Introduction: Final Year, Final Steps. Available at: oliviahayesdance.blogspot.com

I have focused a lot on performance quality and risk taking to help me achieve this goal, and I know I can still push myself further in this aspect, what I learnt was that sometimes risk pays off and other times you can land with a bump but untill you take thise chances you will not achieve those moments in performance that people wait a lifetime to see, untill you push the boundaries you'll never know how how far you can go. In this blog I have aimed to be honest with myself, identyfying my bad habits and weaknesses and trying to improve on those but still acknowledging when I have achieved and progressed in class.

In future, I want to carry on filming myself in class and taking the time to watch this back and analyse myself as I have found this process extremely useful, because I am such a driven dancer I have a tendancy to get lost in the movement and lose focus technically, having something to look back on post class helps identify in myself the bad habits that creep in so I can work on these next time.  I have found the research element to this task to be very rewarding and eye opening, the articles I have read both on and off the reading list have provided me with an insight and approach to technique this semester that challenge me and enlighten me, themes that stand out for me are dance imagery and the idea of executing the present moment as I found these to be most influential in my progress over the term. Seeing how you can connect these readings to everyday life has also been of great interest to me, and the connection between the two has become stronger over the past 8 weeks. This blog has allowed me to look at myself as a performer and an artist and the inspiration I have got from writing my thoughts down in this blog will stay with me and I hope to keep blogging to keep this energy going and inspiration flowing.

16/11/11 Barteneiff Fundamentals

"As we roll onto our sidesand prepare our legs to get out of bed, we flex and bring our legs nearer to our core. As we push to stand, we extend. As we take our first daily step and everyone thereafter, we swing one leg forward in flexion and as we transfer our weight to stand on one leg, the femoral joint extends." Hackney, P, 1998. Making connections. 2nd ed. London: Routledge pg124
I really enjoy Hackneys approach to movement and life and find it fascinating how simple movements we undertake in day to day life resinate through the body without us even realising a lot of the time, constantly massaging joints and flexing muscles without taking a second to think. It is instinctual to us through discovering our bodies as a child when every movement was an exploration. It is interesting in Hackneys work to take a step back and explore the body once more, sensing every muscle and joint as we begin to balance in life. Todays class was focused on becoming aware of the movement available to us in the pelvis and hip joints, it has a presence in our day to day lives that the majority of us do not use effectively, instead we put pressure in the knees or lower back to compensate for this. The femal joint is crucial in connecting the torso to the limbs, as simple an action as picking something up can be made so much easier by increasing flextion in this joint rather than placing added strain on the back. In dance actions such as plies can feel easier and deeper if we think of oiling through the femal joint to assist in as opposed to putting strain on turning out from the knees, we need to consider the deeper physical elements to technique and what we are doing to our body, in comparison to what you can see on the outside.



Image available at: http://www.e-radiography.net/technique/pelvis/pelvis_ap_anatomy.jpg

 We focused on the femoral joint, the less trochanter and illac crest and to become more aware of these joints we began by indentifying pelvic areas by place stickers on them, locating them by feeling ourselves and attaching a visual aid helped in constantly showing us where we were moving from, giving us an instant sense of sending energy to these places. We began improvising with these areas and I found this to help me feel more grounded in my movement as I was holding my enegry in a lower space and having a different sense of gravity in my actions, I was suprised at the inspiration this gave me and how much freedom we have in this area there seemed more room for rotation, extension and tilting than I had experiemented with before and I felt a change in myself as a dancer just by working from a lower part of the body. I could feel more connected with the floor as I felt a weight pulling me down through the pelvis and relaxing the legs with use of the femal joint felt satisfying as I had less pressure on muscles such as the quadriceps, I am going to try and remember this sensation for dancing in the future as I enjoyed this deeper connection with the floor and exploring movement with a different focus point, the pelvis.

Watching this video I can honestly say I think I have excuted this routine, my body appears tired and tense in this video but can still take the reflections I make forward on to next weeks class. On the first rotation in the femal joint at 2 second, I could have pushed the knee higher for longer as the leg rotates to the back I see myself drop the leg unnessarily, holding the for longer would create suspension and a greater sense of drop into the next movement. I feel I could have pushed myself further throughout this excercise, stepping out beyond myself and ppushing myself just that little bit further. My feet within this excerise need to be more precise both in posistion and pointing to help extend through the leg creating cleaner lines, on a lot of these movements I can see a bend in the back of the knee, at 21 seconds especially, which could be improved through directing the energy I have out through the toes.

I questioned in class today how much of our movement do we miss? By that I mean as we move through class and through life how much of what our body does to manouvre do we ignore, obviously we cannot consider every muscle, tendon and bone in the body when walking but do we appreciate the complexity of our bodys as much as we should? As dance practitioners I suppose that we more than most understand what it takes for the body to function but how much movement are we missing out on? I can draw from this thought that as a choreographer and performer I want to explore the full capacity of the body and push its limits to create extrordinary movement that would make people wonder the same as me.

14/11/2011 Release technique

While dancing today I focused on the the space my body moved through sensing how the muscular system reacts to certain movements, identifying areas of freedom in the joints and tension in the muscles as I feel the patterns run through the body. From the video below I can see tension in my shoulders pulling the ribs around to the side throughout, this tension is also visible through the neck as I struggle to relax during the shoulder rolls. In the warm ups before class I am going to do some stretches to loosen these areas and hopefully improve the rotation in the shoulder and neck joints.

From both watching this video I can see how my feet slip in and out of parallel posistion, and this is affecting my knee alignment throughout the excercises. When marking through the movement I need to be really clear  on the feet  as to whether  they are in first or parallel, pointed or flexed and be strict with myself in adhering to these details. Doing more foot and ankle strengthening excercises, such as simple slow rising into relevae and lowering, should also improve my clarity and my connection to the feet.

In the second video I appear generally strong but I can see that I need to fully extend the leg in arabesque posistions through the jumps to present clean lines through the movement and control the armms during the turn but I think this sequences is performed well and I can see myself taking in the space by reaching into the space with my focus and body, and using my centre to help push off the floor into the jumps.

"Developing Listening Bodies in the Technique Class" is an article by Rebecca Enghauser which delves into how we embody movement through the breath, spacial perception and somatically. Her views on how we have become disengaged with our bodies through repeative practice in contemporary technique class are similar to the approaches of the Bartenieff Fundamentals and Alexander technique but as a writer she acknowledges her work not to be ground breaking but more note worthy. She breaks her article down into five subsections:

1. Spatial-Perceptual listening
2. Kinesthetic Learning
3. Listening Through Breath
4. Eco-somatic Listening
5. Listening through the Creative Process

She provides excercises at each of these stages to allow yourself to re-connect with your body and helps the mind become more open and intaking of ourselves and our surroundings by feeling through the space, the body and listening to your experiences and sensations of the environment.

11/11/11 Graham & Cunningham Technique

"If you follow the waves of emotions rather than trying to control them, you can become familiar with the gathering of energy, cresting, surging forth into expression, and the dissolve and return into the oceanic matrix of the body. Each phase is full of sensation, energy, vitality, and risk." Olsen, A. (2002) Body & Earth: an experiential guide.  Lebanon NJ: University Press of New England.  (Motion and Emotion pp194-201)

I found this article on movement and feeling a challenging prospect in the beginning, I am definitely one to generally withhold my emotions and as they say "bottle it up" for a long as possible, so the idea of taking time to consciously identify my emotions is a daunting activity. However, from reading this I can see that the use of emotions can give us a deeper understand out ourselves by analysing our bodies chemical reactions and patterns of energising when experiencing different emotions. I find when I am placed in a stressful situation and becoming stressed myself I immediately feel a tension in shoulders, neck and especially my upper arms, my hands remain relaxed but I can feel a vitality and a pulse in the biceps that is not usually there. My tense shoulders are a signal to others regarding my emotional state but it is in my upper arms where I can identify it myself, even if consciously I am experiencing a contrasting emotion but there is a worry in the back of my mind causing minor stress my shoulders will still be tensed. This week especially others have been noticing a tension in my shoulders and neck that would not usually be there, an internal sign of stress. This article has made me consider exposing my emotions more in class, if I'm annoyed about something use the extra energy it releases to jump a little bit higher or reach a little further, I contradict the opening statement as in my opinion the exposing of emotions enables you to learn how to control them.

Today I was feeling excitement as I knew after class we had residencey with Charlotte Vincent and this positive but energising emotion really assisted me in working through class today, I felt comfortable and had an impression that I could do anything if I really focused my body and mind towards the tasks being given, especially taking note of criticisms given previously regarding Grahams floor work sequences, such as constant extension through the legs all the way from the hamstrings and inner thighs to the toes andalways keeping a constant lift through the body. This class I find particularly physically demanding and I find how you react mentally in the times where your body seemingly will not give any more, you can have a defeatest view and consider not putting in effort through a fear of pushing the body too far and exposing physical flaws or you can push your body further, take the shakes as a sign of the body becoming stronger and take a risk in your movement. From watching others, I have noticed that when bodies are tired the dancers engage more with the breath to support there movement giving a deeper sene of connection and expansion in the movement as they relax through it, to understand how to control your body in this way you need to reach this stage of exhaustion enough times that you can identify the differences in the body and use this in performance.

In all honestly towards the end of this class, my body felt completely drained after a long weeks work. This sequence was taught towards the end of class and it will be interesting to see the difference in quality of movement when excecuted on a Monday morning after a weekend of rest.

I was really seeking to improve my extensions in class today, both in the arms and legs, by lengthening through the extremities of the hands and feet to allow and help the preceeding muscles to engage as much as possible to give the illusion of longer limbs reaching into space. I can identify in this video moments of success and failure at this goal. At 16 seconds I could have really pushed through ths moment of dual extension and played with the sense of opposing forces, arms pulling me forwards and the leg holding me backward. I should have held this moment for a fragile longer to allow the leg to reach full extension through the backs of the legs and the arms to reach just a little further. However, at 20 seconds on the rotating arabesque I feel my leg was lengthed and I could really identify the increase in the strength of my inner thighs to allow me to hold for that long, the posistioning could be better in moving from parallel to turned out posistion so I will focus on that next time. I find generally from watching this video that I need to finish on movements before moving into another, I tend to cut short movement especially in the arms to rush onto the next one. I think this is an issue of clarity in my head of the sequence as this was a first attempt but concetrating on exact positioning when marking in future will help improve this. I can also see in the moments of relax such as the drop at 14 seconds that this appears deeper and breath orientated due to the exhaustion my body was feeling at the time, my body dropped as deep as possible for this moment of breath before pulling back up to continue on with the sequence.

This travelling sequence really helps me identify how anatomically I can improve my elevation and precision in practice of these movements. I was actually suprised at how little I use my plie in this excericise, by deepening into the plie allows further power pushing from the quadriceps to the then utilising the muscles in the forefoot to support the body and create the lengthening sensation I was focusing on in class.
I questioned today my versatility as a performer, what can I do? Where can I go with my movement from where I am now? I feel I need to work on creating the illusion of effortlessness during performance, as opposed to have a constant showing drive I aim to learn to express a sense of ease of movement, controlling the physical strains happening underneath.

07/11/11 Cunningham Technique

BarbicanLondon. (2010). Merce Cunningham Dance Company - Nearly Ninety. [Online Video]. 06 July. Available from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpV5ZY9N-bg. [Accessed: 18 November 2011].

Merce Cunninghams dancers have such a sense of power and authority about their prescence on stage it is truely inspiring to watch. In is interesting to observe how elements of class work in cunningham technique are used in his choreography, and how the technique we learn creates these hyper strong dancers which he could manipulate into any posistion he chose. In class we work a lot on triplets focusing on the distance we move, pushing turnout forward through the heels, the contrast vertically on the rise and allowing the upper body to stay strong, rigid and working as one. At 29 seconds into this video there is a travelling triplet section and it is beneficial to be able to see the proffessionals who worked with the originator of this technique showing how it should be excecuted and the sense of drive and power they have is an element I will be taking forward with me into my next cunningham class. In this section you see other aspects such as the upper body curve in practice, this being something I believed myself to be good at, being done with ability to lock their incredibly strong centres and view a definite upper lower body cut off point. Watching this videos makes me think how long it would take me to reach such a high levell of technique and question how would these dancers perform in another technique such as release when they are prestinely trained in and by Cunningham?

Approaching class with a relaxed positive mind set does wonders on the body, allowing yourself to breathe through the movement and if you do something wrong just brushing it off is a much more effective way of working. I still have moments of frustration but I find these are shorter bursts as opposed to putting a grey cloud over the rest of the class. I think because I am feeling an improvement in my strength and flexibilty that this has affected my emotions as I can see I am getting better, surely this will eventually come too?

We have been working on travelling triplet excercises since the beginning of last year and today I really conccentrated on achieving the sense of lift through the movement, and moving the upper body as a whole through turning sequences. It is about disconnecting the upper body and lower body but to acurately achieve this you need to lengthen down the lumbar spine while lifting upwards in the abdominals, increasing this lift needs the shoulders to be held down the back but still lifting through the top of the head. There is a pull both upwards and downwards and this is what has not been working for me in the past. Today however, this excercise felt nice to perform and my relaxed attitude to class obviously had an effect. I prepared my body while waiting to cross the space so I already had the disconnection in the body, allowing me to emphasise the over curves in the body and the up and down motion in the feet. Pushing forward through the space seemed to come naturally as a result of the body being held so precisely, I felt like one of Cunninghams dancers which could have given me the confidence to perform this excercise well. An insight I can draw from  todays class is that sometimes if prentend yourself to be something this can help you become it, I thought of myself as one of Cunninghams dancers and I instantly improved in terms of technicality and performance. The power of imagery in ones self can be truely motivating and changing in the body.

I have been reading through some chapters of "Dance Anatomy and Kinesiology" by Karen Clippinger and it offers an interesting insight into the bodys skeletal and muscular system in relation to dance, how we can prepare our body for the demands of different techniques, for example increasing your intake of calcium before beginning pointe work assists in srengthening and protecting the small bones in the feet preventing injury. Each technique requires different muscles to be stronger or more lengthened and this reading identifys key areas that focused on can improve performance, it provides excercises on strengthen the back and abdominals and advice for partnering. It emphasises the point that having a fuller understanding on the bodys workings can help become a more versatile dancer and a deeper understanding of your own body.

03/11/11 Release technique

"The infuence of sensual and exploration/assertion motivational systems upon the contemporary choreographer are highlighted, leading to an understanding of the self object function of sensation and movement for the dance artist. Through an examination of the moment to moment ritualized experiences of studio work, the creative process in making dance is discusssed. Ultimately understanding creativity and aesthetically based empathy inform our delination of mental health and the need for aesthetic experience in everyday life." Press, C.M (2009) Self Psychology and the Modern Dance Choreographer. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.  Vol 1159 Pg 218-228

Dance is a pathway that embodies us all, the difference is some take note and others do not. This article by Press focuses on the relationship between every day life and how as creative artists we manipulate elements of every day life for dance that people can relate to and empathise with. The links between psychology and modern dance that she provides are eye opening and this article provided me with some questions for thought on the relationship between life and dance. Is everybody dancing through life? Subconciously are we all constantly reacting to  the rhythms around us, moving to the soundscape built in our habitat at the time whether that be background noise of traffic, other voices around us or more apparently music. With music being so transportable in the form of iPods and MP3 playes we have the ability to block out our surroundings and create our own sound space.  Are these rythms, controlled or not, affecting the patterns of how we move on a day to day basis? She brings out some fantastic quotes from psychologists on life and it is incredible how closely we can relate these to moments in dance, I have used an example below that I felt really applied for me today.

For the first time in a few weeks, I felt truely enegerised as I a woke this morning and headed for class something seemed to click in my body and mind from when I stepped out of bed, perhaps it was the twelve hours sleep I had last night or perhaps it's just one of those days but today I sprung into class with a burst of live I feel I have been lacking in myself for a while. As I have stated in previous blogs, the approach you take towards class can have dramatic effects on your performance and today's class was evidence to that.
"Moment of opportunity, when events demand action. . . Events have come together in this moment,and the moment enters awareness such that action must be taken, to alter ones destiny- Be it for the next minute or a lifetime. . . It is a window of opportunity" Stern, D. (2004). The present moment in Psychotherapy and everyday life. Norton. New York

As I moved through the space, I could feel a sense of drive coming from within me yet it felt managable, I was surpised at how I could control it as opposed to it pushing myself in to letting elements of my technique, most commonly my arms and centre, run out of control. Everything seem to be connecting, working together to excecute more effectively and precisiely. I find this to be a result to the strengthening excercises I have been doing before class to help me connect with my body, a series of varying abdomonal excercises to work both deeper muscles such as the psoas and external such as the obliques to become connected with my centre internally, and my inner thigh lifts so that I can engage with my turn out muscles has improved my strength and helped me over come this hurdle I had.

With this new found energy and connection with my body I aimed to focus this class on connecting with the floor, pushing my flexibilty and strength to explore this new found control.  From the video I can identify key moments where I excecuted strategies to achieve these goals in class and how I can develop these further for greater improvement.

• The first moment which really stands out for me as a significant improvement is at 7 seconds with the leg swings, I can see the sense of drive as the leg swings outward and is pulled back to centre. I was also being aware of the placement of the leg, attempting to push it closer to the head with displacing the pelvis. However, from looking in the mirror I can see that I need to focus on returning to parallel positition with the feet when the leg returns and passes through to the next one. Generally I appear connected with the floor but I need to focus on relaxing the head and neck also to become truly connected.

• At 14 seconds as I move onto the shift through the space, I trust my body by putting more weight into the arm than I have before, I was genuinely suprised to watch this video and view the height from the push off the floor. At the time I remember feeling that I had tested my balance and the risk had paid off and this was extremely rewarding and drove me on through the sequence.

• The drop to the floor at 23 seconds felt very risk and I came to the floor with a bump, and I have the bruises to prove it, but this element of risk in performance is what I strive for. Sometimes  the risks pay off and at other times they do not but if you push yourself that little bit too far the in my opinion that is worth more than holding yourself back.

Overall, with this sequence I can see on the video and feel in myself an improvement and watching this back made me feel proud of how far I have come. I appear controlled and strong yet daring and stylistic, it makes me optimistic of where I can go as a performer, what I can achieve when I really focus and have positive energy running through me and hopefully pass this on to others through my movement.

"Our world and our selves have fragemented to a degree unimaginable in earlier human history, and if there is to be any coherence in our lives, it is up to us to put it there. To this extent we are all called upon to be artists - to shape, find significant aspects of, impose meaning upon, discern or state what is special about our experience. Respose to the mystery of life becomes our aesthetic gesture." Dissanayake, E. (1988) What is art for? University of Washington Press. Seattle

01/11/11 Ballet

Ballet class today provoked feelings of doubt within myself as I contemplate my technical flaws while having one of those days that nothing seems to be going right, the half way through term tiredness has began to kick in with both my mind, body and spirit are struggling to cope with the intense environment in todays class. With every changing barre work and increasingly difficult petit saut sequences, my mind was awash with terminology and  physiology but I powered through the class focusing on placement of  the feet, especially wehn excecuting asembles when connecting the feet in the air is paramount to achieving technical perfection. To achieve this moment of connection in the air I focus on firstly, having a deep plie in prepartion for the jump to give me as much time in the air as possible, secondly, snapping the inner thighs together in  the air to bring the feet inward and turning out from inner thighs, lastly, concentrating on the landing by working through the feet to land and making sure the knees plie outwards over the toes to land without slipping inwards towards parallel posistion.

I am always very aware of my alignment in ballet as having the precision of holding the body is what gives you stability, improves agility and is a healthier way of carrying the body, helping improve performance from the inside out. I can identify in my body when I am properly aligned as it feels easier to execute movement more efficiently and enjoyabley. When performing pirouettes for example, if my body is correctly aligned with the back lengthened, shoulders held into the back, knees turned out over the toes in preparation to turn, I can feel confident that I can excecute single, double or even triple turns easily but even more impressively I can feel as I go around the sensations of  the body working as one.

I found an article listing the seven deadly sins of ballet technique, Poon, Kina. "The seven deadly technique sins." Dance Magazine Jan. 2008: 86+. This has given me a definitive list of  her opinion of what not do in balley and why not to, it has been an interesting read while recognising traits of them in myself, or not as the case may be. She explores in extensive detail the negatives of these sins and how to better yourself by solving them, I decided to go through and give my interpretation of her sins and explore how my body handles these faults.

1. Rolling in - The rolling in of the knees and feet to increase turnout can have devastating effects in terms of injury. The knee joint is not designed to rotate so forcing creates stress on the joint leading to cartilegde being worn away giving long term damage and a great deal of pain. Turn out is an active posistion and it is when you relax into a posistion that problems occur. Personally this has never been an issue in my learning, however I am constantly pushing my turnout outward from the inner thighs muscles, hamstrings and hip area to avoid twisting and rolling. Wotrking in ths way also increases the muscle strength in these parts of the legs, strengthening my inner thighs was one of my goals for the term and by focusing this practice I can feel that they are stronger and working more effectively as I can control them and sense their place more than in September.

2. Misaligning the spine - This can be a weak point for me as I have a bad habit of lifting the base of the spine upwards creating an arch in the back by splaying the ribs forward, especially when excetuing plies and ron de jons at the barre. I have to really concentrating on lengthening through the lumbar of the spine and tailbone while thinking of lifting through the top to create the extended, lengthened spine we come to associate with ballet, I have found that doing sit ups before class helps me to be connected with my centre so that when it comes to execution I already have a focused energy on that area making it easier to lift the naval and control the upper and lower body connection. Misalignment of the spine can cause to back pain especially in the lower back as this is a place that usually overcompensates for other parts of the spines lacking, a common problem is people have a tendancy to slouch the shoulders forward putting pressure on the thoracic part of the spines vertebrae. In dance misalignment of the spine can lead to a higher risk of injury as you cannot support the limbs that hang around the spine effectively, in ballet the spine is paramount in emphasising a dancers long lines throughout the body and provides an image of grace and ellagance.

3. Clenching the toes - In ballet a foundation for the movement is the precise articulation of the feet, they are the base of movement providing stability, working with the ankles and knees to ground the body to floor performing series of plies, releves and jumps in space. By clenching the toes the transversal arch becomes disconnected from the floor creating instabilty meaning the ankle muscles attempt to stabilise, however, as with overcompensation in any part of the body this leads to injury in the muscles, tendons and joints in the ankle and knee. I used to have problems with this when I first came to university but over time I have trained myself out of this technical sin, at times where my concentration lapses or my body is tired I can sometimes slip back into this habit but I am constantly pushing to the lengthen through the toes to allow for longer lines through the leg.

4. Hyperextension - I have what are known as "sway-back" knees, this is where my knees hyperextend backwards past the line of the hips and ankles, it is only slight but leaves me prone to knee pain due to the pulling of tendons in the front of the knee and twisted knees. Some ballet schools actually prefer students to have hyperextended legs as it appears to flatter the arch of the foot in arabesque posistions and tondus. It must be carefully monitored to prevent injury as dancers with this condition are likely to have weak outside rotation muscles, this is definitely true to myself, which can negatively impact a dancers alignment of the legs. Even in basic moves such as a roll down to the floor with straight legs I have to conciously not lock my knees to their full capacity otherwise it puts strain on the back of the knees, assuring my weight is forward over the toes is also crucial  in preventing injury.

5. Unnecessary tension - Tension in the body makes it more prone to injury and unnessarily tightens the muscles in the arms, regular focused breathing through the body can relax the muscles and give  the body a full free range of movement. Relaxing the body also helps give movement a ground, natural, free flowing quality. Tension can be a natural reaction to being asked to balance and a way of trying to force stability in the body when in fact it has the opposite effect making the body work harder to create stability. Generally I find this not to be a problem in technique and if I have an tension

6. Pinching the shoulderblades - Pinching the shoulder blades has never really been an issue as I have little flexibilty in my shoulder muscles and to pinch them at back would take a great deal of effort and would cause the ribs to extend forward very uncomfortably, in comparison I have more of an issue with relaxing the shoulder blades down the back as opposed to directing them inward. This deadly sin can sometimes be advised by teachers as a method of opening the chest and presenting the collar bones forward, however, repeatedly practicing in this way firstly restricts the movement available in the back as the upper and middle spine are locked into holding the shoulders in posistion and can cause the serratus anterior to over develop and stretch too far causing them restricted movement in the rib cage also.

7. Losing the drive - There are so many different ways of exploring the body whether that be in dance technique, yoga, shiatzu or other experimental movement therapys variety is the spice of life and each technique can offer some new information about that can help you develop the body and help you learn more about your bodys sensations, limits and offerings. I hope that I never lose the drive to explore and better myself, I know right now that I find every class in any style thoroughly interesting as I discover new patterns within myself, approaching each day with an open mind and open heart, that is what drives me to keep learning whether it's through technique class or reading, the more information the better.

All pictures from

Poon, Kina. "The seven deadly technique sins." Dance Magazine Jan. 2008: 86+. Infotrac Collection of Full Text E-Journals. Web. 16 Nov. 2011.



25/10/2011 Release Technique

"Considering the number of muscles, joints, dynamics,rhythms, and outside events that dancers need to coordinate, it is often a blessing to be able to bypass deliberation and rely on one's instincts. 5Instincts: one's "natural propensities to act, without conscious intention""  Monten, J. (2008) ‘Something old, something new, something borrowed…: eclecticism in postmodern dance’ in Bales, M. & Nettl-Fiol, R (eds.) The body eclectic: evolving practices in dance training.  Urbana ILL: University of Illinois Press.

Dancers executing with instinct, becoming victim of their own characteristics in response to the environment presented around them moving through powerful impulse and creating their own path and reacting to the subconcious reverberations that echo throughout the body at all times. As dancers we are generally told specific ways to move, to place and to react in a sequence but when a sequence is engrained into the bodys memory over a period of time is it possible for elements to then become instinctual? Or do you in fact add parts of your own instinct to create your signature style with the movement? Is personal movement style a blend of outside influences that years of training have provided us with to become instinct? Odd moments of inspiration, natural beahviour, critisisms, praises that we have remembered somewhere in the back of our head that express through our bodies when we dance? I would ask these questions as I find with release technique I have a habit or letting my instincts take over the movement before my body has the chance. By watching the video below I can see points where control over my body is lesser than the drive forcing it, the drive instinctual from constant drilling and pushing of jazz routines in my developing years, especially towards the end of the video I can see myself rushing through the movement as my body becomes tired and relys more on my physical memory of movement to carry me through.

From this video I can see that I need to be more grounded and lower where I seem to store my energy, here I am holding my engery up in the chest area, which is a positive in some respects as this gives the body lift and a sense of presence on stage . However, in this routine with a lot of work taking place in plie to provide the drive for certain moves such as the grande jete, I need to hold my energy lower in the centre muscles or the abdomen to give me a sense of awareness of my centre, a greater feel of the connection between  the upper and lower halves of the body and stability by focusing the the effort involved in holding myself upright. By concentrating on sending of the breath and placement of the breath this should really assist in providing me with the relaxtion to root the feet into the ground and place my body on top of this.

"TIPS FOR IMPROVING ALIGNMENT

* Think of stacking your skeleton like boxes, but keep a small space between them: Pelvis over the feet, rib cage over hips, shoulders over ribs, and head on top.

* Keep the weight evenly distributed throughout the foot with the fifth metatarsal contacting the floor.

* Remember opposition: Keep the shoulders down and keep pulled up through the hips; keep the feet rooted into the floor and the crown of the head lengthening up.

* Use the mirror. If you look crooked, you probably are.

* The muscles should be engaged but not gripped, so that at any moment you can move without having to release.

* Don't tuck the pelvis under, but think of lengthening the tailbone down.

* Practice alignment during the basics. Bennett says, "If you can't do it in tendu, you can't do it anywhere.""

* The muscles should be engaged but not gripped, so that at any moment you can move without having to release.

* Don't tuck the pelvis under, but think of lengthening the tailbone down.

Brandenhoff, Peter. "Improving alignment." Dance Magazine Sept. 2008: 96+. Infotrac Collection of Full Text E-Journals. Web. 13 Nov. 2011.

These tips for improving alignmen in the body work with a range of style but I would say alignment of the body is a weakness of mine and idetifyably in this sequence. My legs appear strong in this sequence, especially in moments such as the leg swipe at seven seconds, the two handstands and the preparation to jete. I need to be more aware of my allignment in the beginning, making sure my leg is extended behind me instead of slightly to the side at 3 seconds, but this can be improved by rigorously going through the routine, practicing moments like that on the bar, standing still and then moving to ensure precision throughout the body, this will also help with placement of the arms as this is one of my weaknesses across all my techniques. Brandenhoff makes an interesting point in his evaluation of alignment, remembering to use opposition to create a pull from the head to tail would really add quality to my movement by extending it through as much as possible, I am going to focus on not allowing my shoulder to pull inward which is allowing my leg to drift outward in the beginning motions and experiencing the sense of pulling in opposistion throughout the body.  My arms have a tendancy to fall into instinctual patterns of following the dynamic pattern of the movement but never exerting any power or intention, amr strengthening excercises such as press ups for the biceps and also tricep curls will give me a greater sense of my arms and allow me then to connect with them more during movement phrases.

 "Use the mirror. If you look crooked, you probably are." Brandenhoff, Peter. "Improving alignment." Dance Magazine I am told regularly by peers that I focus too much on the mirror during class, I am making a concious effort to look above and beyond the mirror to change this habit and remove myself from the zombie like staring that occurs when staring at ones self in the mirror for too long, however, Brandenhoff does have a valid point. Watching yourself and identifying with your bodies inperfections or incapabilities can help you change them, as opposed to turning a blind eye take a good look at yourself and criticise to correct yourself. You have to be able to feel the sensations of the movement in the correct state, if you do not correct yourself then you can not feel it, every body is different and teachers can tell you a general ruling of doing something but you have to experience it to know how your body develops the movement. Even something as simple as rising to the balls of the feet and lowering, I have had to adapt against the general ruling of how to balance on a rise due to injury, that was not neccesarily something a teacher could have taught me I had to find my own path and by observing myself and how my feet reacted on a rise I developed my own way of balancing to suit my body.

24/10/2011 Cunningham Technique

"Lack of fullness in a particular movement, or exaggeration of a movement outside the particular limits of it's own shape and rhythm produces mannerism, I should think. And, equally so, the fullest possible doing of a movement with the minimum necessity of visible energy and the clearest precision in each element of that movement might possibly produce style. But when this is allowed to go out the window for further effect, prolongation of pose or bravura or other such delights of the performer's ego, then  the first thing lost is serenity, and in the rush to catch up, the dancer stumbles, expressively if not physically."
Vaughan, D (1997) Merce Cunningham: fifty years New York: Aperture Foundation

An element of of Cunningham technique I tend to encounter trouble in is I have a tendancy to put too much energy into the movement which has a tendancy to the then subside the amount of control I have and can look rushed and chaotic. A lot of Cunningham influenced movement requires a lot of control through the movement with precison of place and time in the body and place. I find I can execute the movement but not perform it, this paragraph has given me a great insight in to what could help with my problem as simply don't try as hard. I know this may sound ridiculous but exerting less energy into the movement and into myself may help give me the sense of style and mannerism written about above, I found the comment on serenity very intruging as I think of dancers I have seen who have appeared serene in their work, honestly I can think of few as to perform on stage requires some sort of ego but it is something I now strive for, I can relate to the stumbling to catch up image and I'm hoping that if I reach this serentity it will bring a calmness to my movement quality and myself.

In class I can have a tendancy to get frustrated with myself, especially when I know that I could have performed better in that moment and I find in Cunningham technique I regularly become disheartened which I know actually makes me perform worse as it creates a mental block towards the sequences as I find them difficult and I can become a bit defeatest about it. For some reason today my head was simply not processing what was asked of it especially when it came to remembering combination and my co ordination was all over the place, I have to remember though that as people and performers everyone has days like today where nothing seems to be fitting in to the right place or working as you want it to, it is how you handle these situations and learn from them that helps you improve. I learnt today that to try and channel the frustration I have into my movement to add a powerfull quality to it and use the energy I was using to be angry on controlling my limbs to go where and do what I want them to, sometimes I just need to relax and not neccesarily take myself too seriously in class and have the attitude that if get it wrong there is always next time. Class is the time to get things wrong, everyone has their weak points and it turns out that Cunningham technique is mine.


Today in class I was particularly paying attention to my feet, really pushing down the foot down through the floor until it has to come to a point in the tondu excercises and trying to echo this onward  throughout class into the battemont and jumping sequences. I find during tondu excericises that I have a tendancy to bend my supporting leg to draw it the foot back in so I was conciously making an effort to keep lifted on the supporting side by imagining something pulling me up through the head and trying to disconnect my torso from the lower half of my body. When I really concentrate on doing this action it does happen and feels and looks better, I just have to really focus on this lift throughout every sequence and not relax into the supporting side of the body to ensure that lifting becomes natural habit and therfore no longer an issue.

In this travelling sequence I can see my energy and attack driving me across the floor, I just need to be aware of keeping my control especially in moments such as the pas de chat into the lean with leg extended as this stood out as a weak point to me, next time I aim to take myself more off centre in the lean to add an element of risk to catch myself in the next moment, I look to be playing it very safe in this video. Also softening into my landings more as I keep very high in the legs, softening into the knees is not only a safer way of landing but allows me more access to the power of the legs to take me into the next movement meaning higher jumps taking me further into the space around and presenting myself in class. This is a perfect example of when my energy takes over my movement, as I focused on pointing the feet in earlier excercises, here the feet appear limb and not defining any shape or assiting me in the jumps. As I said before, concentrating on this element in class should help extending through the feet to become natural to me as they become stronger.  A few questions arose for me in class today, one of which was who are we trying to impress in class and who is our harshest critic?

23/10/11 Private Practice

Here is some private practice on a sequence we learnt in our Graham/Cunningham class on the 14/10/11. I chose  to practice to a different genre of music to see how this effects my musicality and stylistic approach to the movemnt, it's extremely useful and interesting being able to look back at both videos and compare the improvements I have made.

• "On the vey first shift can see that I could be more daring in my suspension by relaxing my head backwards to allow my body to fall into the next step so that the catch of the leg into second is more exciting as this will bring an element of risk to the step." Hayes, O. (2011) 14/10/11 Release Technique. Available at: oliviahayesdance.blogspot.com.

I can see myself tilting my head backwards to pull my body into the suspension, however, I could relax the skull more and trust in myself to recover effectively but i can see a difference between these two moments.

• "Looking at the leg extension at 5 seconds, I would say this looks pretty good but more of a pull into the next step would really bring this moment to life." Hayes, O. (2011) 14/10/11 Release Technique. Available at: oliviahayesdance.blogspot.com

The drop into the following movement could go deeper into the plie, but the reaching forward elelement has been improved as you can see with the focus and the aim the direction I am pulling in.

• "At 10 seconds when I handstand I need to point my underneath foot to complete the line of the leg and really give a sense of extension through the air."  Hayes, O. (2011) 14/10/11 Release Technique. Available at: oliviahayesdance.blogspot.com

 The line of the underneath leg now looks clean and fully extended giving this shape definition and strength through the air.

• "The suspension over at 13 seconds I know I have executed more effectively in other attempts and I felt very frustrated when this video was being taken as  I know in myself I can and have done it better, this is a great lesson in movement. Your body is always changing, every time you do a movement it is different than the time before, I think the pressure of the video also pushed me to take a risk in the suspension at this point which unfortunately failed however, without trying to push my own boundaries I will never know how far I can go." Hayes, O. (2011) 14/10/11 Release Technique. Available at: oliviahayesdance.blogspot.com

The second time filming I can see I did not take as much of a risk but this has allowed for this suspension to look controled and graceful which I am pleased with myself for, I could let the head relax backwards more into the roll rather than holding it forward but overall this moment appears to be performed to a higher standard than before. .

• "Into 19 seconds when I push off  the floor into the turning low arabesque, i really need to extended my right leg out to achieve the full shape of the attitude by fully engaging my centre to support the push off my right, I need to watch my positioning on the floor beforehand as if my right leg is bent too far over my foot it makes it substantially more difficult to push up onto the supporting leg." Hayes, O. (2011) 14/10/11 Release Technique. Available at: oliviahayesdance.blogspot.com

I noticed my arms more as a problem on the second video as the force I excert on them causes the ribs to become displace and interfere with the alignment of this moment, however, the push off the floor is more conrolled form the centre and the leg achieves a more precise low arabesque posistion than it did previously.

• "The drop at 27 seconds looks a little forced and fake to me, here I really need to engage the breath and exhale as I release deeper into my plie, this will really give a dramatic sense of rise and fall to this moment."  Hayes, O. (2011) 14/10/11 Release Technique. Available at: oliviahayesdance.blogspot.com

 Looking retrospectively I can see why this moment appears fake, if I engage my plie to create more of a contrast between the down before pushing into the rise, this will allow the fall afterward to appear deeper also. Comparing the two videos I cannot see much of a difference between the two so I will focus on this sense of release into the drop next time in class.



19/10/2011 Bartneiff Fundamentals

"I Become differenciated
   . . .I am an individual with my own spine
I ground myself in my own sphere through yielding and pushing
       . . .I reach and pull, giving attention nto my outer environment
    . . .I follow my curiosity and my imagination
      . . .enjoying my supportive, flexible, playful, sensuous spine.
   . . . All things seem possible."

Hackney, P, 1998. Making connections. 2nd ed. London: Routledge

Hackney begins her chapter on head-tail connectivity, the third stage of the Bartneiff Fundamentals, with this short paragraph which I found a really interesting description of how the spine is more than just a part of the skeleton but a connection to ourselves. The relationship we all have with our spineis individual to us all and it has the ability to not only help us move but become very much reflective to attributes of our personalities contributing to our body language and therefore affecting how others approach us and ulimately how we approach lifes challenges. Hackney goes on to describe how the differences in the spine reflect different traits in ourselves such as curving of the cervical spine forwards can express sadness and laziness, someone whos spine is naturally vertical can be seen as being uptight, tucking under of the lumbar spine is representative of the saying "leaving with their tail between their legs" which means some is embarassed or ashamed of somthing while the opposite of this by someone lifting their lubar spine is seen as fliratious and available. These comparisons seemed fascinating as these are all signs that we subconciously pick up everyday but never think of how we actually read into the emotions of the person, I have never conciously thought before "that persons lumbar spine is lifted, they must be flirtatious" I would have just come to the conclusion that they were flirtatious, now I am going to try and look out for the physical attributes contributing to a personas aura.

On a personal level I can take this on board by considering how I present myself through the use of my spine, as I wrote about in my last blog presentation is key in performance and presenting yourself as being self assured is paramount in the audition process before going on stage, by lifting the cervical spine slightly this is thought to give an impression of confidence. I think by pretending these actions at first this has an effect on your own mood and personality, surely if you pretend for long enough you can convince yourself? Taking a positive approach to a class can open up your movement and I find that I can actually achieve more than if I take a negative approach to a sequence sometimes I can find it hard to switch between these modes of thinking so I am going to start with my spine next time I feel negative, work from the inside of my body to bring postivity out.

In class today we began exploring Hackneys Yield and push patterning which is a method of sending attention inward by grounding yourself by connecting into the whatever contact you have with the floor before actively creating separation as you push out of the movement. It is more about the sensation you feel while executing movement which create subtle changes in quality. "Yield and push patterns also provide the power to "get away," to separate self from other, to establish a personal kinesphere, to become an individual." Hackney, P, 1998. Making connections. 2nd ed. London: Routledge. p90. It is about the movement of the individual and how you can  take ownership of your body to create movement that is unique to yourself not in appearance but in sensation within the body.

We practiced Hackneys yield and push pattern from the head and tail, this is a great excercise for becoming in tune with your own body by taking the time to identify with your own spine picking out areas that feel more or less flexible han others, I found that moving through the lumber spine was more difficult for me and initiating from this place in a curled posistion felt unusual as it allowed you to feel each vertebrae engage as it works from the tail up to the head, some times it's easy to take for granted how many vertabrae we have in the spine and how much range of movement we have to explore, this class was an eye opener to the capability of the spine and how much it can curve and twist through movement but still mantain this constant support. In this exercise the head was poured into the floor as we moved through the spine but as well as focusing on the spine it was interesting to feel the weight of the head moving through the floor, pulling the body over but also the shape of the head. You could feel the different bumps and dents as you moved through the floor, reitterating Hackneys point of individuality, the front of our skull is very different to anyone elses in terms of our facial features but the part of our heads that you do notsee often is also individual. Could you recognise someone from the back of their head?

18/10/2011 Ballet

"...artistry is about how you feel, about getting the music in your body and just enjoying that. I want to reach the audience with my expression, to take them through the story with me, so that people say, "She really touched me." I want to make people happy by doing what I love to do" "New year, new you: 9 dancers share their goals for 2009." Dance Magazine Jan. 2009: 70+. Infotrac Collection of Full Text E-Journals. Web. 1 Nov. 2011.

I feel this quote from Nadia Mara,  former ballet dancer in the Atlanta Ballet company, embodies my approach to class today. My body was feeling heavy and I was finding it a great struggle technically, especially in the adage sequence, with its seemingly painfully slow lifts and extensions which my legs just could not excecute as well as they could, i decided to trun my focus to another element of dance technique. Being able to communicate and be open and honest with an audience is a skill some dancers are born with however, some of us have to practice in class this truthfullness so that when it comes to performance we become less intimated and willing towards an audience.

We are priveledged in class to work with a live pianist who provides us with an emotive backdrop to class, Mara speaks of allowing the music into your body so in future classes I aim to focus on this integration between body and music. When in class, especially in longer sequences, I have a tendancy to blank the a majority of the music out of my head and focus on the driving rhythm usually in the bass as opposed to the flouishes around it. I used to work with recorded music a lot in the past and I feel since working with percussion almost everyday that I have lost a sense of this quality. However, it is the flourishes in the scores that can really connect the music to the body so by listening to more emotive music ranging from classical pieces to ambient electronic styles I hope to overcome this obstacle.  In my opinion you cannot gain a sense of emotion from the drums and I feel that  musicality and emotion can go hand in hand, even if the choreography is supposed to be emotionless surely I need to discover the contrast in my own body? I will experiment with some sequences learnt in class to varying styles of music and see what difference I can see.

I can feel in class that my movement has seemingly become monotone as I cannot create an emotional connection through my body. The music used in classical ballet performance is very emotive and representative of the story taking place onstage; with famous scores such as "The Nutcracker" and "Swan lake" both by Tchaikovsky, elevating ballets to become some of the most well known and popular dance pieces of all time recognised by those in and out of the dance industry, it is crucial to be able to connect and empathise with the music to effectively and emotional portray classical choreography on stage.

To help myself improve in my emotive and expressive quality in class today I focused on self presentation to an audience, the posistioning of the head, chest and eyeline in ballet is what differenciates performance from class work. I have found that lifting the eyeline, making a concious effort not to stare into the studio mirrors, to the upper edges of the room and visualising looking out beyond the room helps me to feel like I am performing to an audience as I can imagine myself doing so. I find this then has a chain reaction on the rest of my body as the eyes lead my head to a focal point in the room which changes as my chest and shoulders becomes more mobile and fluid connecting more to the movement happening in the legs. Visualising an audience helps bring the adrenaline that drives us to push ourselves, my body suddenly snaps into gear and becomes one working unit as opposed to numerous operating limbs, especially in ballet where I feel the least confident I find visualisation helps me become and give the impression that it is my most confident technique.

14/10/2011 Graham/Cunningham technique

This recording is a sequence we learnt in this session, I think for a first attempt this is an alright standard but I know in myself that I can execute this sequence to a higher standard with more precision and dynamics.

• On the vey first shift can see that I could be more daring in my suspension by relaxing my head backwards to allow my body to fall into the next step so that the catch of the leg into second is more exciting as this will bring an element of risk to the step.
• Looking at the leg extension at 5 seconds, I would say this looks pretty good but more of a pull into the next step would really bring this moment to life.
• At 10 seconds when I handstand I need to point my underneath foot to complete the line of the leg and really give a sense of extension through the air.
• The suspension over at 13 seconds i know I have executed more effectively in other attempts and I felt very frustrated when this video was being taken as  I know in myself I can and have done it better, this is a great lesson in movement. Your body is always changing, every time you do a movement it is different than the time before, I think the pressure of the video also pushed me to take a risk in the suspension at this point which unfortunately failed however, without trying to push my own boundaries I will never know how far I can go.
• Into 19 seconds when I push off  the floor into the turning low arabesque, i really need to extended my right leg out to achieve the full shape of the attitude by fully engaging my centre to support the push off my right, I need to watch my positioning on the floor beforehand as if my right leg is bent too far over my foot it makes it substantially more difficult to push up onto the supporting leg.
• The drop at 27 seconds looks a little forced and fake to me, here I really need to engage the breath and exhale as I release deeper into my plie, this will really give a dramatic sense of rise and fall to this moment.

I was slightly apprhensive about recording myself performing but by watching back the video I have found it really is a great way of improving, as I find that how movement feels and how it looks can be completely different. Although I am very critical of myself as a technician, recording allows me to conciously point out my flaws and by bullet pointing precises moments to improve it it presents specific incentives as I rehearse and work on certain moments in the piece, In a couple of weeks I will post another video to compare and explain the improvement.


I have been reading into the use of imagery in dance performance and how different metaphors for parts of the body can help draw out different qualities of movement from within yourself by thinking of the body as different objects. I have been particularly focusing on the flow of energy through the body and how you can exercise this internally to create varying representations externally. I find when I dance due the amount of energy I exert as I power through the movement my arms can sometimes have little control and this hinders my ability to really polish and finish movement.

"Flow through the arms: Imagine energy from the space surrounding you dropping into one of your hands, flowing from one arm to the other and emerging from the other." Franklin, E. (1996) Imagery in improvisations exercises. In: Dance imagery for technique and performance. Leeds: Human Kinetics. p16

Although this was intended for use in improvisation I feel I can still apply this to my own practice, the visualisation of energy can assist greatly with defining in what direction your limbs are going and allows greater control of the energy you have inside of you as you see it leaving the body. I find this image of energy passing through the body helps relax me as instead of becoming a ball of energy with it trapped in my centre I see it more as a river passing through me and I have the control to change the flow as I see fit. Energy is constantly transferred through various forms and never diminishes, when we dance we are taking potential energy from the muscles and transferring this into kinetic energy which then becomes heat energy, surely if we initiate the transfer of energy from stored potential energy then we are in full control of the path it takes out of the body? Visualising the paths of energy helps me to also make pathways through space as I pick up the pieces of energy I have left behind and create patterns of energy in space, as a choreographer this is a great device for helping with the spacial design of a piece and it gives us a great starting point for an improvisation on exploring space, but as performer it is a great way of taking ownership over a space as you visualise your route and take advantage of the places you haven't been.

10/10/11 Release Technique

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?