Getting to grips with the underscore is challenging, even when Nancy Stark-Smith explains how she came up with the underscore. She mentions that the symbols are the nature of each stage without words (Stark-Smith, 2013), which if you do listen and look you can see it. I saw the symbols as prompts for my body and some of the prompts like attraction and repulsion helped when initiating movement. With these I changed the distance between myself and my partner and weight bared in different ways, like repulsion I resisted and pulled away. Some other prompts such as collision was difficult. The first initial thought was to run into another body at speed. Although after that encounter, I tried to experiment with the momentum but apply it to a certain body part instead. Trying to apply the same quality to my arm was still difficult, however it did create a new dynamic when moving. When introducing empathy into the score I experimented with my weight. I included the activity 1,2,3, falling without saying it, and the move was unexpected to my partner, although they did sense I was going to fall because more of my weight went into their body.
From week 8 I mentioned about there to be no hierarchy, although I did intervene and take lead when it came to a sticky situation. Ever so often we would get into the motion of moving around the body on the spot, and repeating so I would initiate a lift or level change to get out of the motion. We would then return to sharing the responsibility of leading.
I no longer find jams daunting. Whenever I enter the space I will move and wait for someone to make a connection or I will search for a body, not a certain person anymore. Even if everyone is working with one other person, I do not feel awkward to go and interrupt that now. I feel more confident working within a group, and I am now able to use symbols from the underscore when there are too many bodies moving. I use touch and the skinesphere as an option to explore my body and others, and experiment with what body parts can touch my partner and what that touch will do to their movement, and then how that influences my next. Introducing the underscore has helped my practice because I now know if I do get into a habitual pathway I can take symbols from it, or even graze from symbol to symbol to keep my partner and myself on our toes.
Finally, I have worked with Fenia and it was a great experience. Having an experienced body to work with influenced my body to move in different ways and it was peculiar. Even though I had never worked with her, I trusted her and had no fear.
I have been worried about improvising for a long period of time for a few weeks now, and thinking how am I going to keep creating movement for a long time, and not get tired or bored? Although it was not that hard. Once you are focused on the connection of bodies moving, all other aspects disappear like; time, the weather or who you are working with or near. I have really enjoyed learning how to move in CI and feel prepared for the upcoming assessment.
Dancetechtv (2013) An emergent underscore: a conversation with Nancy Stark Smith, London.
Available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzG609NWp1Y [accessed 30 November 2017].
Stark Smith. (Undated) Underscore-sheets-3. Available from http://nancystarksmith.com/underscore/ [accessed 30 November 2017].