Technique Technique Technique

So far in my time here we have been looking at Graham technique, Contact improvisation, ballet and Jazz technique. I’ve looked at the first three previously. My experience with Jazz however is next to none.

In recent years I haven’t particularly been a ballet lover asides from teaching it to the little kids and I think that’s mainly because I let my focus shift into contemporary but straying from it almost completely means I lost a foundation area of my training which could have instead been continuing to grow stronger. Taking ballet twice a week reminded me how beneficial ballet can be alongside the contemporary training, it’s something I’m going to keep in mind in the future. As already I can feel a difference in my dancing, I can only hope the extra ballet training continues to build my strength and flexibility. Aside from that I’ve remembered why I loved ballet as a kid, why from that first class I decided that I wanted to be a dancer.

Graham is one of the core contemporary techniques and admittedly again it’s one I didn’t particularly love in first year, however I have changed my opinion, whilst I stand by that it’ll probably never be my favourite area of technique I do find myself more able to enjoy it now. When we studied Graham in first year it was mainly the floor work I disliked I found it always left me with masses of tension in my back no matter how much I tried to breathe into the movements or find space, I finished that semester with a shoulder injury as a result of a mass build up of tension in my upper back. Whilst I don’t blame my injury completely on Graham I pretty sure it was a major contributor. My hips also hated having to sit in second for extended periods of time. So yeah I wasn’t a fan in first year, but going into it now both stronger and with a greater somatic awareness, I don’t experience the same masses of tension and where I do find tension I understand more how to breathe through it and find the space to avoid it. As a result I’m able to pay more attention to improving my technique and enjoying it.

So then there’s contact, I thought this would be harder this semester to begin with at least because I was going into work with a new group of people that I didn’t know at all , but beneficial for that same reason. As it happens they were so quick to bring me into being a part of the group it didn’t feel like I was working with strangers. Regardless of that it is interesting to work with a fresh group of dancers with new ways of moving. By having contact two semesters in a row, I feel like I’ve now been given more time to develop and play with those skills I learnt last semester. It’s also a chance to continue working on becoming more comfortable with lifting other people, I’d much rather be lifted than lift another. Already I’m getting better in that way so I’m hoping that by the end of the semester I’ll be over that fear completely, therefore becoming more free to experiment and play within the realms of contact improvisation.

 

 

Now Jazz, after the first week I was already saying, yep now I remember why I don’t do jazz but maybe I was being a bit premature. It’s unlikely to be an area in which I pursue a performance career but I’m not as a bad at it as I first believed. At the end of last week something felt like it clicked and I made it through the choreography without completely screwing up. So I’m slowly getting there, but I’m determined to be semi comfortable and confident in jazz by the end of this.

Also in this week…