— please stroll down for Turkish—
Notes by Emilia Swadowska
Workshop for Beginners with Defne Erdur – 23.11.2014
- Sitting in the perfect circle we are checking our attention of the presence of others making sure if we can see everybody’s faces (do the participants have expectations? Can they witness them? Or maybe just to acknowledge them is enough? Feel… Share … Accept the fact they existed, don’t rationalize them. Observe…)
- Can we look at the others as if they were flowers, with no expectation, with no value judgement. Discovering the unique scents? Maybe some fragrance remind you something, or another make you simply sneeze…? What about their colors? Are you attracted by any of them? Can we look at human beings putting aside the criteria of beauty? (Aren’t we most beautiful in the world, all of us here and now? )
- Still in the circle: with close eyes focus on the part in your body that needs more attention today and ask yourself why you are here. Express this by means of some markers, pencils and the paper that are in front of you, before sharing with the group.
- Can we also verbalize why we are here, today? “Because I like to touch people, because gender doesn’t exist here ( or maybe its presence is articulated stronger then in the daily life but its safe here to be exposed to the other gender in that group of people I know? ). I want to be more connected, to observe impact of this experience in my private relationship with people, for me dance is like a story-telling( Bana dans hikaye gibi geliyor). I need to expand and extend. I need to be at my center. I want to explore my body. I want to talk with my body. I go beyond my soul, I see with my 3rd eye, to increase my social capabilities. I came here to develop my forgetting abilities. I have resistance against touch, I wish to overcome this here. I wish to seek harmony. I feel stuck, I hope to flow. I am so much in my head, want to connect with my body.”
- Now we are standing in the circle and we start to shake our bodies but with the feeling that something is pulling us up by our rabbit ears. We keep on shaking. All parts of our bodies shakes, now our shoulders (as if repeating ,,who cares,, who cares,, ,,who cares ).
Come to the sillness and start to balance your body, still having in your mind the imaginary ears of the rabbit that you have. Shifting balance, feeling the energy, the flowing sensation, being aware what happens with your breath.
- We touch our own bodies. Don’t forget about your feet and your head. (Here and now its the place to bring back importance to our head. So overused in daily life, often being subject of efforts. We can be gentle and indulgent to it again).
- Walking in the space, we concentrate on ourselves. We walk in the space but being aware that something is drawing us up. Find your place in the space and stop. Initiate a contact with your own body, explore your skin, your borders, your 360 degrees – Skinesphere (isn’t ridicilous that just here under this skin , this flesh its You but just outside same skin, even 1 mm from the skin but outward your body, in the same space filled with same energy is Not You anymore ? )
- Move in your kinesphere, as a bubble. Reach your peripheries. Feeling the bubble surrounding you. Painting it with your extremeties.
- Change your level. Traveling kineshperes : Crawling and rolling on the floor searching for boundaries and beyond boundaries of our kinesphere in different directions trying to activate parts of the body most of the time forgotten in our daily lives (elbows, behind the head etc). Now whole group is marking directions of the space getting throught the space on the commend: ,,now wall,, and ,,now window,,… ( How can we organize our body when the direction is certain, when one object is the orientation point and its us that need to arrange our bodies towards it? It’s not free improvisation , its not our body that is orientation point and the space can be just attracted or grabbed by it…can you think about your body being still and the whole World is turning around you. Another point of perceiving movement.)
When we as a group move toward indicated direction (for example door or window) we imagine one part is always dominating (,, legs up,, ,, and now ears ,,up and down, toward and backward).
- Now moving, you approach to somebody and when you find this partner imagine you are in one bubble with the partner, without touching the others body arrange your movements utilising the negative spaces around your partner. Fill the gaps in this ballon between your partner and the inner part of the ballon, keep on approaching and going backwards, its like composition of music, decision, pace, rhythm, form that you create together…
- Slowly find a way to the floor, feel your own body as you lay alone. Check how you feel. Feel the support of the earth under neath you. You are here. However you are now, be with it. You are enough!
- Slowly roll to your side to get up to standing.
- Find your partner. Stand face to face. Look at his/her eyes as if you are looking into the mirror. One person starts to initiate very slow movement – starting with hand its easier. The other tries to mirror. So, one person follow and imitate this movement and they become mirror. There is no leader. Both people can initiate this movement but they don’t stop moving. The person who is leading will understand the moment when other is taking initative. We don’t intend to trick partner and mislead him. We wish to become one.
Note: don’t hesitate to drift away from your partner, you can still be mirror not being in the touch distance.
We are slowly coming to the end. Are you sure you are still your reflection? Try to find the final pose with your partner to that journey. Close your eyes and recall all memories from that dance.
- Skinesphere to Kinesphere parnter dance: One partner stands still and follows all the changes in his/her body (small dance), other moves in the kinesphere of his/her standing partner – composing, responding, resonating in the negative spaces. Dancing person finds the source of energy in the standing person energy. 3-4 mins each partner.
- Visiting the imaginary house of your partner ( Ryuzo Fukuhara’s exercise) Again dancing in the negative space of your standing partner, imagining a house in his body and visiting these rooms of the house as you dance around him. Dancing with our body and imagination. Try to really imagine details in the rooms as you dance there. 3-4 mins each partner.
- Rebuilding a house together with partner – Both partners are moving together in and around eachother and building a emphemeral, imaginary structure in the space by utilising all the tools they have achived along the previous exercises.
- Coming to stillness and listening to your own body.
- Sharing the first words that come to your mind at the end of the session. Sharing them with the whole closing circle: “I’m staying in the circle. Suprising. Moving and Listening at the same time. Soap bubbles. Small details. Glue. Lots of movement. Stillness. Stillness. Stillness. Moving without loosing the contact. Different Bodies. Şşşşş. Difficult sometimes. Travel in the mind. Freeway to imagination. Cotton. Relaxed. Feeling of drowning in laughter. Baby like grasping. Relaxation. Ohhh. Experience.”
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