Today we had another contact improv workshop
with the MFA students. The theater students didn’t join us, however, since
they’ve been doing a contact intensive with this teacher for a week.
Over all it was really fun. We started with
balances (ie: holding a partner’s arm and both leaning back and balancing from
each others’ weight) and then did a seesaw-ish exercise where you would hold on
to your partner’s arm, lower them to the floor, and then raise them up to
repeat the process on you. From there, we used the front, back, and sides of
our shoulders/chest to tilt our partners back. This was all fun, but mostly
things I had seen or done before.
We then began to work on lifts. We learned
the dead chicken (partner is over hip), the flying chicken (the partner is over
hip but with legs, arms, and head raised), and the koala (partner jumps up on
front of base to clutch the base with their legs [either bent or straight out
behind base]). I’ve done the dead
chicken before and absolutely love it so that was fun and learning the other
two was interesting as well. The koala lift was especially insightful both when
I was the base and when I was the koala. We then did an exercise where two
people would use their weight to lean back and sit down/come up and then
repeated it for groups of three through six, which was really amusing to do.
From there we did an exercise that had the
base have the partner laying belly down on their back. Then the base would
lower them and the partner would bend their knees and lift the base to have the
base end in a sitting position.
Now here come my favorite parts of the class.
We then moved into an exercise where one person would be base and the other the
lifted and then you would switch. The tricky part was that you were not
supposed to think too much between lifts and that you should not change position
too much to get into the next lift. We then did this exercise with groups of
three. And then again with groups of four! I absolutely adored my group of four
and I think that was the group where I really began to stop thinking and try
for subtle shifts to get really interesting results (once I had someone on my
back and when we changed, she lifted my legs so I was upside down and I lifted
some of my weight by wrapping my arms around the legs of another girl who was
being lifted). I was then in a trio again and that led to some really simple,
but very organic, lifts and movements.
From there, we got into large groups that
moved together without touching (it was okay, but not as fun as our group
lifts) and then repeated the constant lifting exercise in pairs again (which
was really fun). We ended with leading a partner around by their wrist and then
moving from that into contact jamming.
Overall it was a really enjoyable class, and
I really was glad to get to work with the MFA students again. I’m actually
really sad that this is the last contact improv class we’ll have this semester.
However, there is a contact jam tomorrow night that I’m planning to go to so I’m
sure more opportunities to play around with this type of movement will present
themselves.
I’ll try to post about Venice before break
begins, but we’ll see how tomorrow goes.
No comments:
Post a Comment