Guerrilla Dance Practice Day 111 Tensegral receptivity Naomi Tague, Hannah Ruth Brothers, and I explored receptivity within the context of tensegral contact improvisation. Tensegrity structures exhibit continuous tension and discontinuous compression; this is the relationship our myofascia and bones have. Bones are compressive, and don’t touch, while the myofascial network is continuous and tensional. Because tensegrities are self-contained systems, they don’t depend on gravity. Can you imagine if you lay down on your side and then your limbs stopped working…or fell off? Tensegrity is essential in explaining our biomechanics. Working from tensegrity into contact improvisation has been a recent fascination for me, and it generates some interesting and unique aesthetic and somatic properties. Our score at a park in Winchester Canyon, Goleta, goes like this: We begin by finding contact of self with self. These points of contact are compressive—pushing parts together. While creating this compression we use it to expand somewhere else. The most available beginning point for this expansion is around the diaphragm, on an inhale. Marie-josé Blom cites Josaphine Key’s clinical research in teaching this kind of tensegral expansion—it is based on generating and then maintaining intra-abdominal pressurization (IAP). It is as it sounds: The abdominal compartment of the torso, between the breathing diaphragm and the pelvic floor is pressurized by co-activation of the surrounding stuctures. For Key, this is proper “core” work. In the improvisational score, this IAP is then used as a generalized somatic concept for engaging tensegrity in the body. The sensation of expanding is utilized not only in the torso but also around the body and the limbs. Tensegrity is the physical nature of our fascial biomechanics, and it can be increasingly engaged by choosing to emphasize Spatial Tensioning that pulls the parts away from each other. Becoming aware of the spaces between the limbs and the torso is an important part of this practice. Once tensegral expansion is established, it is used to generate movement on an individual level. The next part of the score is to find contact with each other. Consistent with a tensegral view, these interactions were as often moments of pull as they were moments of push. This differs from contact as I’ve known it in the past where these interactions are primarily compressive. There’s a good reason for this tradition—if someone’s limb is hooked by someone else it can get stuck and prevent someone’s ability to catch themselves in a fall. In working with pull it’s still important not to be grabby! Timing was generally on the slow side. I’d like to work on creating more variation and investment in Time. As with anything that involves self-tracking, slower timing tends to assist skill development. The longer we danced together the more we seemed to find easy moments of Quickness, but even those moments were in the context of Sustained Time, or just timelessness. Our main jam together was probably about 20 minutes. The video sample attached here is just a 5 minute run of the structure; there are some Quick moments, but Sustainment is more prominent. The timing seems most apt to shift when the Flow shifts—moments of yielding Free the Flow up and get things going. Receptivity and yielding seemed to happen on their own, and are also a focus for continued conscious development. Working with tensegrity spreads force through the entire structure of the body. In discussing what we experienced while dancing each of us in different words said that it felt like we could relate to the contact with each other without being fully attentive to it. There was a simultaneous investment in the system of the three of us and the internalization of our own force and direction. Of note here is the ease with which the three of us could relate—I actually found this structure better supported with all three of us than when one person would drop out. This has never been true for me when working with a more compression oriented contact score. When working with fascia I often consider Inner Directing—a specificity of direction taking place within my body. My experience in this jam was often one of Inner Indirecting, being aware of all my tissues at once. Perhaps the additional systemic space created by three people dancing makes this Indirecting more available. The integration of Inner-Outer was definitely a prominent theme in my experience of the dancing. https://vimeo/112970004
Posted on: Thu, 27 Nov 2014 00:16:24 +0000
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