Recap of 2-hour class at City Life Wellness in Brooklyn, NY, on Thursday, April 5, 2012. This is a combination of my pre-class notes and my recollections and is a little rough — comments and clarifications from students are appreciated. Hopefully I will be able to clean this up a little more at some point.
Intro, talking (circle)
- name, experience, body, name
- name
- contact class experience: first contact class, between 1st and 10th class, more than 10th class
- state of your body
- injuries, tendernesses, etc.
- name
- Basic information
- L.A. Style is kind of a marketing creation
- I’ll basically teach CI the way I was taught in LA– which appears to be different from in NYC and many places east of the Rockies
- it might actually be West Coast style, but I haven’t spent enough time up and down the West Coast
- plus some tips and tricks from LA & other teachers and my own ideas — which is really more Richard style
- there are many styles of contact — this is only one
- not really a defined, codified form
- everything I’m teaching is to give you more options — there is no right way, and how you dance now is just fine
- wonderful, even
- you are already a contact dancer, regardless of what you learn in this class
- take care of yourself
- step out if you need to
- adapt the exercises if you need to
- don’t worry about remembering any of this — I’ll post it all online
- more talking in a few minutes, and more talking at the end
- L.A. Style is kind of a marketing creation
Warm-up
- Make yourself comfortable on the floor somewhere. Give yourself some space.
- we’ll just wait
- relax into the floor
- let your other worries go away — they’ll come back
- just be here
- you can nap if you want
- we’ll just wait here
- Enjoy the sensation of not having to worry about what happens
next
- [pause]
- think of the floor as comfortable
- as a bed, as supporting you
- let the floor take your tension away from you
- as a friend
- try naming the floor [this is a Martin Keogh technique]
- relaxation, scanning through the body
- starting with the feet
- ankles, lower leg, upper leg
- especially hips, butt
- lower back, abdomen
- upper back, shoulder, chest, pectorals
- upper arms
- lower arms
- wrists, fingers, thumbs
- neck
- head
- occipital ridge
- temples
- face
- jaw
- tongue
- give your weight over to the floor — let it support you
- [pause]
- Some more information — you don’t have to remember any of this
- sometimes I’ll be giving instructions that aren’t very clear
- either because I’m purposefully not being clear
- or because it’s really hard to say what I’m trying to say
- don’t worry too much if it doesn’t make sense
- don’t worry too much about getting it “right”
- sometimes things come up in this practice — sometimes it can be very emotional, or fear-inducing
- that’s okay and normal — if you let me know I can help
- contact improvisation is not about perfection — it’s about experimentation
- embrace the awkward
- sometimes I’ll be giving instructions that aren’t very clear
- Focus on your breath
- [pause]
- Rolling side-to-side, moving in and out of the floor, to standing [this is my adaptation of an exercise I first learned in a class from Julia Rae Antonick, whom I think got it from Nancy Stark Smith]
- start gently waking yourself up
- maybe wriggling your hands or toes
- maybe moving your head a little
- maybe wriggling your hips a little
- but still gently, lazy
- [pause]
- and at some point, do a big yawn, and a big stretch
- and as you finish the stretch, find yourself rolling over
to one side
- and as you finish the stretch, find yourself rolling over
- repeat but go all the way over to the other side
- be lazy about this
- try to let your limbs flop
- and use no more energy than necessary
- now start to roll side-to-side
- lazy, slow
- now a little faster
- like you’re rocking yourself
- rocking yourself to sleep
- or rocking yourself awake
- like you’re rocking yourself
- now push up a little on the side, letting yourself come up on the ends a little
- reluctantly — still loving the floor
- and lazily
- and heavy
- reluctantly — still loving the floor
- and start letting yourself go higher, to low crouches and knees
- to getting your feet under you
- to standing, and still going in and out of the floor
- and as you go back into the floor, greet the floor like a lover, or your bed — you love the floor!
- and now try different ways of going in and out of the floor
- maybe sometimes to the front, or side
- sometimes more vertical, sometimes more horizontal
- try to steal some ideas on getting in and out of the floor from someone else
- discreetly sneak a peek at someone else
- and copy something that they’re doing
- but subtly, so they don’t notice
- and come to standing
- Walking
- starting walking around the room
- notice the room
- notice the details in the room
- try looking up at the ceiling
- notice the people in the room, make eye contact
- notice how you feel about them, what you’re thinking about each
- whom you’re drawn to, and whom you’re not
- and let that go
- now as you make eye contact, pretend that you have a dirty, dirty secret with each of them
- and let that go
- walk between any two people [this is Simone Forti’s “Scramble”]
- pick up your pace; if it was a 5 go to a 6
- keep coming out so that we don’t jam up the center of the room
- increasing up to 9
- Push-ups — modified if necessary, from knees
- only 10 — no more, no less
Weight-sharing pt. 1 — “the float”
- [These are my own ideas mixed with many of Stefan Fabry’s ideas and exercises.]
- talking about pendulums, gravity — slowest at the top, speeding up to the bottom
- demo counter-balance progression — lean, down/back & up (1/4)
- 1) counter-balance holding forearms [facing each other, leaning away from each other while clasping forearms]
- we demonstrate that we’re actually counter-balancing, such that if we let go, we’d each fall backwards
- switch hands from time to time
- 2) down and up
- not directly down & up — actually back and up
- now sitting down into the weight-share
- sense of parabolic motion
- 1) counter-balance holding forearms [facing each other, leaning away from each other while clasping forearms]
- (students do this)
- take a partner about the same size as you
- tips, notes
- no one is leading in particular
- don’t bend your knees and crease at the hips without connecting through the arms
- you can suggest something, but you can’t get too far ahead
- sit down into the weight — bend the knees, crease at the hips
- demo next step — through the float (2/4)
- 3) then through the “float point” to leaning into each other, meeting palm-to-palm
- and back out
- 3) then through the “float point” to leaning into each other, meeting palm-to-palm
- (students do this)
- demo next step — little dance (3/4)
- 4) then a little dance — different hands, etc.
- (students do this)
- demo next step — adding jumps (4/4)
- then add jumps! — switching places!
- you have to go around the outside — not through each other
- have the sensation of connecting to the other person through the weight— feel like your feet are touching the bottom of a pool
- (students do this)
- demo next step — in a crowd, switching off between different people (5/5) — all previous motions are possibilities
- keep the sense of the float — love the float!
- if you have to float a little longer until you find someone, that’s okay! — just pretend like you’re still floating, no problem
- take a walk — walk it out
Weight-sharing pt.2 — falling
- falling into someone, push off, go through float point, catch self [demo]
- as you walk, put your hands up in front of you [palm facing out] — and meet palms with someone. Fall into them; then push off
- this means you stop your feet a little bit away from the person, so you can fall into them
- push off, then feel yourself going through the float point, and falling, then catching yourself
- see if you can stay longer before you catch yourself
- look behind yourself before you go backwards and make sure there’s space
- as you walk, put your hands up in front of you [palm facing out] — and meet palms with someone. Fall into them; then push off
- [students do this]
- now your own
- try go to the tipping point and catch yourself
- try both going over tipping point and taking a step
- it might be helpful to close your eyes, but keep an awareness of people around you
- more falling
- as you go past the tipping point, run it out
- and try falling to the floor
- try taking a real long, dramatic, flailing run across the floor
- try going into the ground dramatically as well as gently
- try making fun of people going to the floor gently
- [These last two are based on exercises taught to me separately by Kirk Andrews and Scott Wells.]
Rolling Point
- with the wall
- do a little fall against the wall
- or walk your feet out
- to get away from the wall, don’t do the pelvic thrust, pushing
off with your head- instead, just walk it up — walk your feet towards the wall
- so that you’re leaning against the wall
- do walking in and out
- more lean — walk feet out
- less lean — walk feet in
- rolling against the wall [demo]
- leaning against wall at shoulder, roll to other shoulder
- and around back and front
- you can reduce the weight by moving your feet in
- but keep the weight into the wall — don’t reduce by taking pelvis away — pelvis towards the wall
- [students do this. fix and make recommendations]
- Mosh pit/scrum
- five people stand in close with each other, forming a mosh pit or scrum
- [demo]
- one person at a time takes a turn rolling outside of five people huddled together, really giving her weight to the scrum/pit
- if the mosh pit starts moving from the weight — it’s their fault! it’s five people!
- really give weight — don’t take weight away while rolling over the shoulders
- as you go around the shoulder, you can either keep your arm down, going around the shoulder, or put it up, rolling through the armpit
- Practicing rolling over shoulders against the wall
- can practice this at home as well:
- recite a number every second or so, calling the weight you’re giving to the wall 1-5, as you roll over shoulders, back, chest
- try to keep it constant
- then try to keep it constant over all different weight: 1, 3, 5 all the way through
- can practice this at home as well:
- Now just rolling together with a partner, around the shoulders
- [demonstration]
- find someone about the same height as you
- again, if the weight is too much, walk it in, like the wall
- (people do it)
- Notes
- can increase weight by walking feet out, decrease weight by walking feet in
- guard against collapsing under weight, by having pelvis fall too far towards partner — ending up under/below the point of the contact. Instead, get feet out and keep tone in the torso
Getting in and out of the floor
- [demo]
- if you keep walking out all the way while back-to-back, you can go to the floor together
- then push in to get back out
- push push push — walk the legs in
- can move legs out a little instead heels to to butt to put less strain on the knee, and can also push more with the hands
- also can use the full surface of the back for stability
- [people do]
Surfing
- [A combination of how this was taught to me in my first contact class by Mary Herzog, and in my most recent contact class by Andrew Harwood.]
- from sitting, spiraling down to belly
- [demo]
- follow outer hand
- [demo]
- from sitting with a partner back to back
- [demo]
- one person (A) spirals down
- the other person (B) follows, ending up on top
- A follows the outer hand to roll, and B gets a ride on top. A rolls B out to B’s lower leg
- A reverses. B pushes up a little on B’s hands in order to give a little more pressure between B’s lower legs and A’s torso to help get things going
- tips
- person on top
- stay between hips and shoulder of A
- get your hands above your head in case A goes fast, to protect your head
- sound effects help
- let the person on the bottom drive (i.e., determine how the roll goes)
- person on top
- [demo]
End of class
- More on LA style
- shared center
- plus some tricks from favorite teachers
- Stefan Fabry, Jeffrey Nash, Mary Herzog, Shel Wagner Rasch
- Martin Keogh, Karl Frost, Gretchen Spiro
- question of “where can I get to that I can’t get to by myself?”
- because of that, we think in terms of off-balance weight-sharing
- whether V-frame (holding hands & leaning back) or A-frame (leaning into each other, feet away from each other)
- I’ll post summaries of classes on my blog after each class
- probably by Monday
- next class — tentative plan
- refinement of what we’ve done
- low lifts — learning to feel your partner’s balance on you
- tabletop work
- idea of observed one-on-ones after class in extra optional “master class” session
- I want you to learn as much as you can
- talk to me at jams
- Thoughts, impressions?
- Names
- logistics
- pay before you leave
- if some of you are dropping out after 2 classes — $24