From the reading Moving from the Skin, the key point that stood out to me was ‘We can never touch just one thing; we always touch two at the same instant, an object and ourselves’ (Heitkamp, 2003, 258). This made me think about how and where my clothes are touching me, but not being aware of them and why this is.
Contact improvisation is about expecting the unexpected and the video of Angela Donny and Athos made me consider something. There is no right way of moving with someone, even when someone surprises you with a move. Although they are both professionals, at times there looked like points of struggle. When a moved surprised them they did not make it awkward, they just went with what their body was telling them. From this I learnt that if something goes wrong or not how you intended it to, just fall into another movement and keep the flow of movement going.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0OmQaLaj6c
Each exercise incorporated some form of trust. A few individuals made me feel comfortable and the moves flowed one to another, others I felt we needed to experiment more since we have not worked together a lot. Other individuals I could not gel with. The moves did not flow and came to a standstill, or we reacted the same way every time when a certain body part was touched or pushed. Although not being able to gel with certain people is a downfall, I still had a positive outcome from it. I now know my habitual moves because I was not comfortable with these individuals, I automatically reverted to what I found comfortable.
What I found surprising was how much pressure of someone’s touch can influence you on the moves you choose to do. When someone either lightly touched me, or touched me with one finger, my instinct was to go slow, or when a lot of pressure was applied, I allowed my body to go where they were pushing me and not think about what I was doing. Another automatic response was to roll or slide, or go in the direction of where their hand left my body, when they did a swiping or brushing action.
I really struggled with the weight bearing exercises. Certain exercises myself and the person I was working with could equally distribute the weight between us. Like with the exercise when we held each other’s wrists, had our feet next to each other and lent away. However, with others we could not get the hang of it. I found it hard to get the right balance with the other person, I either gave too much weight to them or not enough, we just needed to find the right balance. I especially struggled on the exercise when we were back to back and had to walk across the space.
Improvisation is not my favourite thing to do, because I end up panicking on how to move. Therefore when contact improvisation was introduced, I had the same feeling of not feeling comfortable. However, I feel I need to push past the barrier of feeling awkward and get on with the experience. Everyone in the class is in the same boat, therefore I need to forget about people watching and forget what I look like when I move.
Heitkamp, D. (2003). Moving from the Skin: An Exploratorium. Contact Quarterly/ Contact Improvisation Sourcebook II, Vol. 28:2. Pp. 256-264
KriyaLv (2010) Angela Donny & Athos – CONTACT IMPROVISATION 2009 IBIZA
. Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0OmQaLaj6c [accessed 28 September 2017].