WEEK 3 Close your eyes and look!

An Outside Eye

Due to an illness, I sat out of class today. This was a very interesting experience. I find that as dancers, we tend to forget to stop and look, to observe what is really happening around us. 

Watching my colleagues experiment without the use of sight, I saw that everyone had developed a fear as they were holding back, perhaps they were scared of bumping into each other or hurting each other. Everyone cares for everyone and this fascinated me, you could see that the movements were small and timid, but once you gave their sight back the movements were a bigger, prouder and less ambiguous and timid. 

Another fascination were this pair of long term best friends dancing together. They were almost in sync with matching and complimentary positions. It looked so natural and effortless! Compare this to a different combination of dancers that didn't know each other that well and you could see the hesitation and sometimes the panic in their minds. 

I think in order to fully experience the world of improvisation, we need to get rid of that fear, hesitation and panic, and learn to adapt quicker in fast moving situations. 

Today I found out that you really need to trust yourself as well as your friends and the environment to truly vibe off each other to create a performance of improvisation.