Navigating into Spherical Space
We started by reading these two quotes from the video, “Fall After Newton.” This video traces the first eleven years of development of Contact Improvisation.
Quote #1: “Over the years, the principles underlying our movement remain the same. As the senses expand into spherical space and the muscular system learns to respond to touch on any surface of the body, any point can be the fulcrum for leverage and continuity.”
Quote #2: “The main focus of training is retuning the senses. It isn’t just the sense of touch which must be expanded, but all the senses must become elastic enough to navigate through spherical space, to handle any position, any change of acceleration.”
Here are some of the comments at the end of the jam:
*** There’s a WHOLE world BACK there!
*** It made me dizzy when I began to spin and spiral through the space.
*** I found that when the feet stopped clinging to the floor, when they became more mobile, the sphere around me opened up.
*** We found that the focus led us to extend out into space. There was a lot of extension. But at one point we did the opposite, we pulled in to tight balls. We shrunk the sphere. There is power in a pulled in sphere -- it can spring out. There is latent power in the ability to go from contracted to larger spheres.
*** My core opened up -- I found myself moving around different axes passing through my body at different angles.
*** I generally equate spiraling with being spherical in my dance. Tonight I worked with being spherical, in the 360 degrees -- but doing it in a single plain rather than entering spirals to get there.
*** In the warm-up when we were walking with no particular direction I found I kept merging with other’s peoples dances. This theme continued through the evening, by being spherical the dances became more permeable.
*** The group awareness seemed greater tonight.
*** I found a lot of stability by holding on to space, by reaching past myself into all the different vectors around me. The focus allowed me to make space tangible where it could support me and my movement.
*** I allowed my intelligence to be throughout my body and not just in my head.
*** I had this image of beach balls dancing with each other. The image was so light and filled with air. Until I fell hard from about two inches away from the floor and realized, oops, -- I’m not air.
*** The sphere came to signify wholeness and completion.
*** I noticed different levels to work in: the body exists in a sphere and can move out into that sphere. Every body part exists in it’s own sphere and can move in any direction in that sphere. The room is a sphere, and one can imagine the sphere that extends out past the horizon.
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