28/09/2011 Bartenieff Fundamentals

This semester with tutor Liz Pavey we will be exploring the Bartenieff fundamentalsof movement, as the weeks go on we will explore the next step of deeping our personal relationship with our bodies, working from the inside of our bodies before exploring the space aroud us. There are six steps Peggy Bartneiff developed from her study of Laban movement analysis, these 6 steps are:

1. Breath
2. Core support,
3. Allignment,
4. Rotation,
5. Phrasing 
6. Spatial intent.

Our exploration should take us on a journey through our bodies as we learn how to take the deep breath from the inside and move this around the space, whatever that space may be and whatever technique we may be employing at that time this can be applied to every other area of movement, as I said in my introduction technique is the time to explore and find the connection we all have with our bodies and working with these six steps is a fantastic way of deepening our understanding of our bodies capabilities and we want to move.


"Stillness is being her in this moment now as a perpectual point of tension within movement, not something that happens when movement stills. It is the breath out as it pulls towards life."Claid, E. (2010) Still Curious. In: Carter, A and O'Shea, J The routledge dance studies reader. 2nd ed. Oxon:Routledge. p33

In this class we discussed and explored the use of breath in the movement, the first excercise being simply lying on th floor and engaging with our breathing, identifying its rythms and where abouts in the lungs we breath. Do we breath into the back? Into the chest? or into the diaphram? Everyone is different, how deeply do we breath? How fast how slow? This stillness allowed us to focus solely on our breathing and connecting the movement which is the centre of our being, not only in posisitioning but also in action, without the breath we wouldn't be alive it is the constant pulse that keeps us going. Breathing is what keeps us constantly moving and as a dancer and choreographer I find this a very interesting concept, even when we have moments of stillness whether for planned for dramatic effect or in a moment of improvisation we are always constantly moving. This element of innevitibilty is something that really got me thinking and I hope to one day explore this choreographically as well as technically through this class.

We then expanded on this self discovery about the way we breath by improvising to the rythm of our breath, when we exhaled a partner would touch a focus point on our bodies and we would ove from this point in the body. I found as a dancer it is strangely satisfying to move while exhaling and not when inhaling, the inhale becomes a moment of clarity in it's stillness, a moment to consider what is coming next and focus totally on what you are doing, breathing. The satisfaction of breathing through movement on the exhale stems from the relaxing effect this has on the body, the movement becomes more natural and more from the centre and by losing the pressure of having to choose a focal point as this comes from the patrner we were giving the opportunity to just relax and explore how and where our body wanted to move. I felt my movement was coming from a deep place within myself that breathing allowed me to connect with through focused breathing.

This class gave me a realisation on how important breathing is to dance, sometimes it is forgotten through pressure of remembering choreography or by trying to push though an excercise we find difficult, retrospectively I can see that when we hold our breath the body tenses up making us more stressed and creating more of a mental block against what we are doing. In future I aim to try and breathe through the movement to relax my body and my mind and approach the tasks at hand in a different state.