1st rehearsal composition number three

Viewpoints was interesting today. After just over two weeks moving our bodies through space we started to work with voice and text. We worked on a number of the same ideas such as tempo, duration, stillness, movement. We started by making a clump in the middle of the room and slowly raising our voices through vowel sounds until we were as loud as possible and then decrescendo as we came back together. A great sound. After Anne taught us a bit of dialogue form a Pinter play and we worked on voice across the circle in pairs playing with timber, rhythm, tone, pitch, and duration.

Suzuki was another fine points day taught by GM where we worked on specific basic movements. The other day we had so much tossed at us – adding hands, swords, knives (both wooden or pvc) to our movements its hard to keep it all in your head. I generally can concentrate on fixing one thing, and get thrown off when it gets too complicated.

Movement – a double session in the afternoon – was delightful. Barney started with some of the movement work Wendell had us do last week – mainly rolling around on the floor, stretching and loosening up parts of our bodies that never get loosened up. From there we moved to movement patterns across the room – leading with one body part or another. I have to say – I have never ever felt like someone who moved well, but there was a certain freedom in these exercises that was really fun to do. We then created small 7 step pieces, performed them, then paired up and taught each other our 7 moves. Duet performances, and then Barney started to put combinations together. It was amazing how quickly this actually looked like something – something like dance pieces.

Rehearsal for the third and final compositions started tonight. We met in the library to chat about ideas, and within about a half an hour had some good material to work with. Emma (our director) suggested we go improv on these ideas and so we spent about 20 minutes exploring space, movement, whatever was I the room and specific patterns based on the ideas we had generated. Emma had a few instructions during the improv to move us on to exploring new ideas. A couple of really interesting moments came out of this. The as we sat down to chat ideas just kind of fell into place. I think we have a really strong place to start shaping this piece. Emma is doing a great job providing direction and reflecting back to the group the ideas she hears. I’m looking forward to working this one out.