Every joint of our body has its range of movement and there are countless combinations possible to coordinate those movements. Every dance, every move is drawing it’s forms from the possibilities and restrictions of our anatomy.
The body can be seen as an extremely versatile instrument producing movement. There may be movements that are strongly connoted and others that have no significance outside of their properties as movement. Taking the anatomy, the mechanics of the body as a basis for creating movement allows an approach to choreography that is not conditioned by cultural references. The body itself becomes the guideline for the research.
From experience we know that the body can learn to do a particular movement by repeating it. It’s as if this movement is being engraved or carved into the body’s memory, deeper with each repetition and certain skills and strengths are installed. A pattern or a habit is being created and the body is likely to follow that track. This is an extremely useful even vital process but can also limit a creative use of the body.
There’s a lot to be said for the efficiency of certain conventional dance classes. Useful skills and strengths are being taught. But the routine repetition of movements and movement qualities installs patterns in the bodies that can be obstacles in contemporary choreographic processes, interfering with the artistic freedom of dancers and of choreographers.
Because most dance styles are defined by a specific set of movement patterns, shapes and qualities that reflect the aesthetic ideals of the artists who developed them, dancers have been, and are being trained in techniques that teach them to move according to pre-existing, and historic, aesthetic ideals.
Unless dance history is a specific artistic reference point in the content of a choreography those patterns are irrelevant.
The argument of injury prevention achieved by the training and “conscious” use of the body is often used to defend this form of class. No question that increasing/maintaining physical strength is necessary, the trouble is that dancers are taught to feel safe only in movements and shapes that are familiar or that they can monitor via what we call consciousness. But there are ways that prepare the body for moving safely and inventively by putting the dancer in a state of ‘dynamic awareness’ in which the body is taking care of itself whatever movement it is doing, engaging and trusting the body’s reflexes rather than simplifying the movement to what can be grasped with our analytical consciousness. The body possesses naturally a great practical knowledge about its anatomy and its mechanics, their actions and reactions, and their interactions with external forces (gravity, centrifugal- and centripetal force, another body etc.).
We are able to analyze and evaluate movement continuously on a physical level via our senses - a physical experience that engages a global awareness of the body and its situation in space and time -and to use that information directly to react and transform.
A complete picture/sense of the body rather than a list of cerebral criteria allows for far more complex movement (forms and qualities) because our attention can concentrate only on a few things at one time while our body is able to combine a great amount of information in an ever changing, fluid sense of orientation. This integrated global physical awareness can serve as a sensor for potential movement, and allows dancers and choreographers access to the creative potential of physical intuition - a creativity that comes into existence by purely physical circumstances, where no thought is necessarily formed between the moment of ‘inspiration’ and the realisation of the movement.
Our physical intelligence goes way beyond what our consciousness is able to process. Our body is able to deal with a huge variety of impulses and mechanics in movement and at the same time can give them a specific quality.
Technique is not linked to a style but is dealing with the mechanics of our anatomy, managing the movement possibilities of the body. Meaning: isolating, disconnecting or coordinating the movement of our joints (in as far as possible) and working with the internal and external forces and their interactions (balance, off balance/falls, turns, suspensions, jumps) as well as interacting with other bodies and objects (like the floor).
The body needs time to integrate the principles of a skill. Practicing basic coordination patterns is necessary for the body to understand a principle. Technique should be applicable in several circumstances and the patterns must be transposed to other movement as soon as they are understood in order to avoid creating a repertory of habits.
From this perspective it seems clear that an exercise for a specific skill can have many shapes. Rather than spending time memorizing and practicing a set sequence one can work on the skill within the frame of an improvisational task. That task in turn can be designed to challenge the dancer by leading her/him away from habits and at the same time forcing her/him to apply and practice the skill in question. While new sequences are being created and explored constantly, the dancers develop a way of thinking about creating movement that is extremely valuable in the choreographic process. This also means that the dancers’ attitude towards the work and their view on themselves as artists, and on their role in the process of creating work have to be adjusted. Dancers are no longer (and haven’t been for quite some time now) merely interpreters of given material but the experts on their instrument contributing their know-how and creativity to the process, taking a great part of responsibility for their own material and for the art work as a whole. This role is certainly not new but it doesn’t seem to have reflected enough yet on either dance training or dancers’ self-image.
This approach to technical work teaches the body to take the freedom to access the creative potential of our anatomy in interaction and allows for a different approach to movement material in choreography. It makes it possible to define parameters for moving rather than setting phrases. It enables the dancers to keep exploring a specific task on stage, making use of their technical skills while feeding the choreographic potential that lies in the complex interactions between the internal and external forces, the mechanics of our anatomy and our conscious and unconscious creative choices, accessible to our bodies in action but impossible to preconceive in detail.
Training is creating. Re-creating is not necessarily creating, nor is it always effective training. Considering the time and energy necessary for becoming a dancer and maintaining excellence, it seems essential not to repeat and install existing patterns for re-creation, but to train for creative processes that extend the art form beyond its current achievements and limits, and that acknowledge, make use of and trust our body as the wonderfully sophisticated instrument that it is.
Thomas Hauert
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