La Mer Movement

Here you can see a table of the different movements we used in our groups movement piece for the La Mer-show. A lot of the different types of movement came from different exercises we did during class, for example the tableaux. In the exercise there would be one person who started the line by positioning themselves in the room, starting the tableaux. Then, the rest would attach themselves somehow to the first person, creating a line. Also, whilst going into their position in the line, everyone would have to travel differently to that place, trying to push themselves to travel in imaginative ways.  Then, from this position we had to somehow change the position we were in to fit the personality of our character in the scene we were working on. We transferred this exercise into our movement piece almost exactly the way we had done in class to have a connection to the different scenes and our characters within them. We took "follow the leader" and the end swaying from our exercises used in class. Swaying was part of our falling unit, where the main focus was being able to shift your weight along your body to create a believable swaying motion, like in a rocking boat. We didn't really use falling in our piece, which is sort of a pity, since it could have looked impressive.
    Most of the rehearsing we did for this piece was in a large space, where we were really able to spread out and use a lot of space to do the different movements, but when we started rehearsing in the actual performance space, say before the show, it was obvious, that some changes needed to be done. They weren't huge changes, more of just tweaking the existing positions, from being in a straight line to a semi-circle and having to be more aware of the space around us. We also had to be more careful when running towards the audience, to not run so fast, but rather have the power, we wanted to get trough, come from within and how we held ourselves.

La Mer Movement Rehearsals

We started working on the La Mer Movement- piece with some exercises with spacial awareness. What we had to do was to walk around the space with our hands on the side of our head, and see how far back could we hold our hands until we lost them from our vision. It was important for us to hold the hands as far back as possible, but still seeing them barely in the corner of our eyes. This was to help us with our spacial awareness whilst walking around the room, and learn to use our   peripheral vision. This way, we could move around the stage during our performance, without bumping into people, and as we got better at it, we could move around the room at a faster and faster pace. 

Another thing we did were the trust exercises, to really get comfortable with each other. What we had to do was to go in pairs with someone the similar height and then do the three different kind of trust falls, from the side, from the back and from upfront. This was to ensure we were able to trust each other, but also to trust ourselves and be more comfortable with other people being in charge of our safety.

After learning to trust someone to catch us when we fall, the next things for us to do was to learn to trust ourselves to catch us when we do the falling exercises. This might sound easy, you just don't let yourself fall on your face, but it actually harder than it sounds. Catching yourself from falling was not the hard part, but rather making yourself fall naturally, and let yourself relax while doing it. It was important that the movement from falling to standing in neutral again was smooth. We also practised falling in unison, using complicity to do so. I found it quite hard to do this exercise, since I think I don't have enough trust in myself to do the falls properly. During this class, we also practised a little bit of balance by pretending we were on a boat, swaying with the waves. We had to try and make it as believable as possible by controlling the way and amount we did the swaying movement. 

We also did a exercise about leading from the different parts from our bodies, like stomach, head or knees. We had 8 beats during which we had to get from one place to another with the body part we chose to lead with. We did this five times, leading with different body parts. This was to explore different ways of travel.

After this we started to choreograph our piece. We decided to use  the jumping exercise we have been doing in start of some of our classes before. It is where the group are put into lines(in this case, three different lines) and line at a time, we need to a certain amount of jumps in 8 beats. The jumps would go down like so: 8,8, 6, 4,2, 2, and then one full turn. After jumping each group of jumps, the line would turn around and the line behind them would start the next beats. After finishing all of the counts, one by one we would start travelling to the back of the room to our tableux.

Silent warm up

The start of the class was very confusing, since we had no idea, what exactly was going on. There were no directions given to us vocally, so we had to interpret the gestures given by our tutor of figure out what we had to be doing. This required a lot of focus from everyone, which I felt most had. There was little to no talking during the warm up, since everyone was trying hard to follow what we were supposed to be doing. Almost immediately we were lead to do jumps, turns and clapping. I found this exercise to be a nice change to what we usually have, since in complete silence everyone was able to concentrate and do the exercises in a more focused way.

This can really help us in devising by  letting us focus more on the movements and different gestures we are doing, rather than just talking about them. Being silent also pushes us to communicate more with our bodies and really think about how we use our bodies in different ways.

23.10.2013

Photograph 3 gestures

(Sorry for the lack of photographs, couldn't move the pictures from my cellphone to the computer at school, but I will do it as soon as possible!)

02.10.2013

What exercise have you had difficulty with? How can you improve?
    When working on the Alexander techniques and the different exercises used in it, I have found most of them doable. Still, I find difficulty with  the exercise where we are laying on the ground in the Alexander position and we have to lift our pelvic upwards, so that our back arches in the air. This part is easy, but when we have to come back down to basic position, by rolling our back one vertebra at a time, making it a one smooth movement for the back to hit the floor once again. I find it very difficult to do this, since I am not apparently able to differentiate my vertebra's from each other and so, instead my back hits the floor like a straight plank. It will probably help if I start to focus more on the flexibility of my back, doing exercises like the spinal roll and try yoga in general to further better my flexibility.

25/09/2013

What is the Alexander technique?
   The Alexander technique was created after F.M. Alexander found out that a bad posture can lead to pain, but also have harmful effects on over all health and well-being. So, he created a technique that can restore natural balance, improve mobility, and help release pain and stress.  It is the technique to unlearn bad habits and improve your lifestyle. In the Alexander technique you train on how your move, how you breathe and how we organize awareness and focus.

What part of your body you need to work on?
   I feel like I was lacking all of the exercises that required me to be standing and bend my back towards the ground. My back is not the most flexible area of my body, so I would like to do more of the exercises that train the back and stretch it. Also, when I was laying down, I felt that the position my head was in was very unnatural and uncomfortable. A some kind of support could help, lifting my head up and straightening my back to its natural position.