Notes on Anja Bornsek’s class,  “IN- FORM(ED) – flow”  by Sebnem Yuksel

 http://www.idocde.net/idocde/idocs/223 is the link of the class proposal of Anja Bornsek.

 What you will read below, are  the notes that I took as an observer...

In the beginning of the class, we sat in a circle and Anja gave very clear information about the class. She told the participants that she will jump from one thing to another, which may interrupt some people and added that this will be the way of this class. And also mentioned 3 different ways of documenting the class ; 

1- From participants point of view, 2-  from the teacher's point of view( the relations she talks about, her way of teaching, dynamis changes, etc.), 3-  asking a question (or 4- up to you)

 I decided to choose the 2nd option.

 Next, Anja talked about her background and education. She pointed that it is not a BodyMindCentering class. 

 The class began with standing at one point with closed eyes. Anja didn't join in the exercise and stayed with open eyes until the end of this task. 

 The class proceeded to shaking. During the exercise of shaking she had a calm and steady yet alive tone of voice. While information got deeper she began to walk around the participants. She was still not doing the exercise. 

 After a while, she put a piece of music and opened up the space for the participants to move. The music was an authentic -oriental music. Drums and flute.... This music piece completed the rhythm of shaking.  

 Then the music piece finished and the next track started. Participants were still shaking their bodies with a totally different kind of music.

 Towards the end, as Anja took the volume of the music down, she asked the participants to bring the volume of their shaking dance down. Her voice was calm. 

 Anja paused the class and led the class into walking and joined in walking. As the sound of the feet got louder, Anja began to speak a bit louder in relation to the sound of walking. 

 Anja's focus was on transferring weight from outside enviroment to the body. She showed this image by touching to a brick in the room and then she continued to talk about the principles of this excercise.

 When the participants  began to try out the transference of weight, the energy of the class has changed, got heavier. She stopped talking and let the participants explore their own physical relations. After a short while, she began to ask questions at intervals by still letting them make their own explorations.

 Then she stopped the class by saying "find an ending, i will show you something" This was a very cear information.

 People gathered around her.

 She showed a picture of spine from her computer and a picture of diaphragm  muscles from a book and from a computer. 

 Plus, a curved spine. She told the class what they will work on now.The exercise  was based on the difference between a curved and a flat spine.

 One of her quotes in this part was , "Everything of the body is connected " .

Then the participants reacted energetically for the question , "Have you ever hold a baby?" .

 After the talk, she invited the participants to get up and find a partner to explore the spine by touch.  Anja, herself physically showed what they will do with a partner before showing what will happen on her own body.

 She mentioned that she doesn't want to talk much and left the participants to explore it physically. 

While the class was doing the partner work, she continued to go around the studio ( not going in between the people) and talked with a calm and steady voice with some dynamic changes.

With the change of the roles, she started to walk in between the participants. 

Towards the end of this exploration, she stopped talking at all, let the class listen to their bodies.

 She gave this whole thing at least a half an hour or 40 mins. 

 After the spine work, she jumped to another spine image by gathering people around her.. As she was about to show the image on her own body, she decided not to talk and show anymore and led the class to explore it by themselves. 

 The voice and rhythm of her talk didn't change. She continuously gave information and  asked questions during the imaginary scan of the body from head to toes. Some of the participants closed their eyes.  She walked around and in between the participants.

 The class began to flow, the energy has changed once again.

 She put some  music and stopped talking. She watched the dances in the room. 

 As the last proposal of the class, she showed something with partners. Touching and moving your partner while putting an emphasis on the architechtural structure it creates. Here, Anja talked about bones creating space from inside. 

 She put an authentic African music and began watching the dance.

 After the roles changed, she mentioned that the touch should be real , that the partners should really feel the weight of the touch.

 While this music was playing, it was the first time that Anja talked from a high toned voice, she was even shouting.

 Before opening a space for improvisation she added more information for the last part of the class. An image, a quality that everyone discovered, spatial relations between the structure of the bones, something that  wasn't clear for themselves or an unresolved thing. Here, Anja mentioned that there are three things to be concentrated. The participants could choose one of them if they like.           

 1- Information,  2- spatial relation, 3-  a question, plus something that was not practiced in class which was, for example, thinking about the bones’ connection with your blood. 

 She asked for a transition from the exercise to improvisation without talking. 

 After a while, she asked some questions while walking. We could see her energy rising and her body getting involved in her sentences." How can you open up a performance space?" was one of her questions. The class continued to dance and to improvising. 

 She said that until everybody decides to stop, there will be no stop in the dance. 

After a while, when everybody stopped there was a real intense energy. 

 A transition was made to sitting in a circle for feedback session. 

In the feedback time, she made the documenters talk first. 

 When Anja answer the questions of the participants some new questions like;

“How do you share information?” , “What works more than something else? “

“A big question, what a technique class is? “

“Anatomy can be a relevant point for research. How can it be linked to creative practice?” “Working with what is there and layering something abstract.” 

“Mind frames, different problems to solve if you have four arms.” 

"At the very end of the class, Anja explained her point of view as, “Usually when people has a certain projection of how a class should be, there is usually a resistance to the amount of information in my classes. I am trying to cultivate different frames of sharing. “

 Class ended.

 p.s. Some photos and a 'roughly edited' video can be found below.