My intention was to continue from the class I taught during the Symposium in Vienna in August. Encouraging a generic dancing body by using dancing together(on popular club music) as an accessible way to come together, warm up, without having to learn 'new' ways, 'new' techniques or 'new' approaches to known material.

Other elements were working with letting movements or a flow of words stream through you. Sometimes unhindered by any demands or structures, sometimes speaking from a pre-set subject or moving in a pre-set constellation. The structures I proposed were either in close connection between 2 or 3 people face a face or in a closely knit group of 2 or more people facing out but acting  as one. 

These structures are demanding on the students because there isn't anything dictating what material should come out. My intention is that through observing what you tend to put out, how you react on the presence of other people and their material you develop and learn. 

 Each day there were a number structures that we re-visited:

- Dancing: dancing for about  20 - 30 minutes full on, accompanied by club music. No demands on what kind of material you put out but you keep the energy upbeat. As if you are dancing that last dance before it stops and when you still want to go on and on. You dance in the group and with the group.

- Automatic moving: Begin moving and allow it to continue. Something presents itself and you take it, letting it be followed by the next thing in an endless 'flow'. Duration is between 20 and 30 minutes for these days here in Grenoble. It is primarily a solo structure although you are present with the others in the space.

- Automatic Speaking: Start speaking and continue without stopping. 5-10 min

Monday:

(group body - individual body)

Started from lying down in semi-supine. Talked through putting attention to places that touch or not touch the floor. Continue with focusing on the eyes. Move from eyes -first small movements then larger involving the whole body. Always initiated by: seeing, moving eyes, moving head and letting that travel through the body.

Sessions of:

-Dancing

-automatic moving

-automatic speaking(things I can't see but know exist)

From there we worked with different constellations where A moves and B speaks.

First the speaker remains on the edge of the territory of the mover, then the speaker moves into the movers space in such a way that it makes a difference. Ending up with changing roles by the mover starting to speak.

Tuesday:

(awareness of others in the space)

Structures of walking and running, standing still and moving combined with eyes closing or opening.

Sessions of

-automatic moving with an awareness of the others in the space

- dancing

- automatic speaking without any specific subject

Structures to do with ways of following when someone speaks:

Approximating(from prosody; the use of pitch, loudness, tempo, and rhythm in speech to convey information about the structure and meaning of an utterance), sampling(both inspired by Litó Walkeys work).

The emphasis lying on the attempt to follow someone as they are speaking.

Applying that in moving by taking up the structure from yesterday where A moves and B speaks but adding someone who approximates or samples the speech of the speaker.

Wednesday:

(as one)

A 'Dancing' session followed by a walking structure: walking when someone walks , standing when someone stands. Continuing with 'Flocking'. The group walking together. Not one leader but whoever happens to be in front is followed by their neighbours in approximately the same speed. A safe distance is maintained so one does not step on someone else's feet but staying close enough together so the group does not loose cohesion. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flocking_(behavior) ).

A session of 'Automatic Speaking' with only asking questions.

Continuing with speech: sitting opposite of another person and forming words together at the same time. 

This is a fascinating structure both to do and watch all preliminary movements of the face in forming syllables and guessing where the sentence is going. High demands are placed on staying in the process and not rushing ahead of your partner in the desire to get 'your' sentence spoken!

Revisiting yesterdays structure of A moving, B speaking and C approximating or sampling. Added the possibility of the asking of questions to the mover(without them answering)

Thursday:

Sessions of:

-Automatic Moving. Picking up material from others using the sampling or approximating technique. Keep with your own thread.

- Automatic Speaking while walking around. Allowing yourself to pick up snippets from other peoples speaking and incorporate it in your own speaking.

In pairs:

Move as one in the same way as when words and sentences were formed together. We started standing facing each-other but soon moved from facing to being beside each-other as the participants were associating to the 'mirroring' exercise that many of us are familiar with, which wasn't so inspiring. It added another element to the structure as it wasn't possible to check if one was in effect doing the same movement. There is an assumption and an intention of doing 'as one'.

Exercise to initiate touch:

In pairs. A puts hand on a body part- Let it become full and then empty it when taking the hand away. The person being touched changes positions.

Next stage is A puts hand on B, B moves away from the hand and direction of touch. Changing roles and ending up with both touching and moving away.

There are many possibilities in this exercise. It can be used as a beginning or a deepening to dancing with touch(contact-improvisation) or in a more psychological way; to become aware how you feel about being touched. Here we used it as a structure on its own.

Friday:

As it was the last day we continued with the material from the previous days. Combining flocking and speaking, walking and standing in different combinations.

- Sessions of 'Dancing' and automatic speaking.

- Automatic moving with moving in and out of each others material using approximation and sampling, which means going in and out of the 'automatic' mode. Letting things come and then decide to superimpose another task on it.

- Hands filling, hands emptying, moving away from the touching hand. When you put a hand on, you ask a question that is not answered. What happens when questioned in this way? What kind of meaning is attached to the interaction or the body?

Throughout the week there were two threads. One looking at how speech and movement can come together without attempting to tell a story or seek to represent either the movement or text. The other was different forms of being 'one'; a group made up of individuals performing the same task but independently from each-other or a group acting and moving as one; having one task in common and having to collaborate or coordinate to work with this task.

The people coming to the classes were very inspiring for the teaching. At times I felt that the material was maybe more suited to a workshop as participants changed. Yet there were always enough people that had attended the previous class(ses) to carry the material through.