Screen Dance Journal

Week 5: 26/10/17

This week I watched Restless Sleepers: Schrödinger. This performance was physical theatre and involved a performance based around a giant cube in the space. The performers moved around, through and above the cube throughout the performance. I found it really clever how they managed to move themselves and objects through the various different holes in the cube. This piece showed me how important space and set can be for a performance and how it can be used in a practical manner rather that just to be in the background. We started this week’s session by looking at the idea of space during the warm up. When walking round the space, we had to move amongst each other holding our space. To begin with I could feel myself closing in when other people came close to me, however, by the end of it all I felt myself being able to hold the space better, and could allow people to get close to me, and still feel confident about holding my space. We then looked further at holding, and different ways and forms holding can come in. We repeated the cranium and sacrum connection exercise from last week. We got into partners and placed one hand at the bottom of their head, and the other hand on our partner’s sacrum whilst our partner moves across the space. My partner’s touch allowed me to become more aware of the connection between my head and pelvis, and created movement that felt supported and allowed for a wider range of movement.

We took the idea of different ways of holding with the solos we have been developing. We got into partners and whilst one of us performed the solo, our partner looked at how they could hold us whilst we perform. When I performed my solo, my partner used a restrictive hold whilst I performed my solo. Ryan held onto one of my legs, which made it very hard and tiring for me to perform my solo. After a discussion, we decided the moment of struggle could be quite interesting with a camera if you were unable to see the person restricting my movement. This would show my struggle, and how something is holding me back, however, what is holding me back is not shown in the frame. We then tried another strong hold, but this time, the hold was more of a push than and provided momentum rather than being restrictive. The momentum given to me through the hold helped to make my movements reach their full potential. When receiving feedback from the group, it was said that the duet looked forceful, however it was interesting to see the forcefulness pushing me in the right direction rather than being restricted. It was also noted that the gender roles in the duet gave the piece a sexualised feel as it reminded them of an abusive relationship. We wanted to challenge this idea, so we swapped roles and I was the person pushing Ryan. This still had a sexual theme, however it wasn’t as harsh as the first duet. The viewers could see me putting effort into trying to hold Ryan, but it having not as much impact on Ryan because he is stronger than me. My hold didn’t give Ryan as much momentum as it did previously the other way round.