It needs to be a symbol of it, ‘to stand for it to refer to it to denote it’ (Goodman 1976, p. 5). The body is seen less as an object to be trained or brought under control and more as a source and inspiration, to be attended to with its stories, intelligence and perceptions. 9, 10, and 11: Backward going downwards, maintaining the level or going upwards. Often these instructions are nonsensical and apparently impossible to execute, such as ‘take six steps into the light without taking a step’ (in Dempster 2007/08, p. 77). you can stand on the bed -or walk across it, without breaking stride. Over my years of my practising dance improvisation in this way, I have not questioned whether to use ‘scores’. In order to think through the role that scores play in my/our dancing, I will begin by discussing what a score might be, how scores have been used or rejected by artists I have worked with, then move on to explore the theory of Nelson Goodman’s regarding scores and recuperate its use in the context of group dance improvisation. As a large group, it’s great to assign rolls before beginning and give time to develop ideas. Dancers make choices within the score that they are given by using their bodies and imaginations. Although I write a series of words that (I perceive) belong together in some way, I do not really imagine dancing as I write. The physical history in Cotto’s body has come about through her dancing history and through her practice. As the session progresses, we use the score to discuss our dancing experiences. Improvisation explores the body's shape, different levels and dynamics. You’re only busy with that score. This kind of work of art can always be attributed to an originating artist. Perhaps it is really from dancing that dancing comes. By introducing it to your students at an early age and establishing a dedicated practice, you'll see benefits at the studio level, too. Scores have many definitions, as in Olivia Millard’s piece it states that ‘each user of scores in the dance improvisation finds her own use and meaning for them’. V – Valuaction: The purpose of an action, and how it helps the improvisation. Published by the Australian Dance Council – Ausdance Inc. Ausdance-approved insurance that meets the needs of dance instructors, studios, professional dancers and groups, independent artists and companies. do they miss being younger? Dances are designed by applying one or both of these fundamental choreographic methods: Improvisation, in which a choreographer provides dancers with a score (i.e., generalized directives) that serves as guidelines for improvised movement and form. Of course then you’re using the score, the score enters your body, so you have the score work your dance, make your dance (Satin 2009, p. 43). Second Round 10 minutes- vary the speed of 3 spots within the dance Third Round 10 minutes- add repetition to 2 spots within the dance (they can repeat as much or little as the choreographer chooses.) Danielle Goldman, claims that ‘systems of notation can never adequately capture the complexity of an improvised performance‘ (2010, p. 10). Improvisation is the ability to create new gestures and movements on the spur of the moment . Sometimes I have a tight hold on a score for a whole session. There is no obligation to speak. Every week I write a new list of scores. This research took the form of a studio exploration with a group of six dancers, including myself. ‘Meaning’ seems to be a good word to use because it allows us to discover, through dancing what the relationship between the score and the dancing could be without the expectation that the score commands us. A score is something to explore. Crisp is an Australian who is based in Europe for part of the year and divides her time between performing, developing new work and teaching. Or perhaps they have had no experience with each other but are interested to see what would happen if they leave the possibilities very open. In Holmes’ workshop, I was first introduced to Steve Paxton’s small dance (c 1972). For two of the scores dancers were asked to work with sensory awareness and to use ‘here and now’ cues from the surrounding, while the two other dancers were given a multimodal image as a starting point for improvisation. You might jostle a piece of furniture. The ‘fast’ may be the chosen aspect of something more complicated such as acceleration, which is being exemplified in the dance. 2—3). For the last few years there has been an annual simultaneous practice of Nancy Stark Smith's Underscore (a framework score for CI and improvisational dance practice) in locations around the globe including Europe, Australia, and the USA. This allographic work is may be produced in two stages but seeing as it is created in its second stage, rather than being interpreted, the authors of it are not one but many. As Goodman suggests, exemplification is potentially much more complex than its starting point as a word or a perceived meaning of a word. In contrast to Crisp’s approach, I have deliberately decided to use the term ‘score’ for the verbal propositions we use while practising. [from Mary Overlie, Anne Bogart and Tina Landau]. It may be that there are only one or many properties of a complex idea or object that are being exemplified. In the answer to that question, I suspect, lies the answer to the question of what a score is and what it does. Using scores is a combination of what it manifestly proposes and how it allows or is employed to influence, affect, notice or feed the dancing which comes while using it. I do not explicitly discuss with them what they should do with our scores in terms of movement or movement quality. Its openness allows it to be a tool which can continually be re-visited by a dancing body that is becoming in its present. 2 Open improvisation operates without the use of scores, leaving all decisions regarding space, timing, movement quality, relationships, and so on to be made during the unfolding of the performance. The group should not discuss ideas- just take a few seconds to be in the space and go. Some experience with improvisation is best. I have always taken for granted that they are useful and perhaps even essential in the generation of movement material in the present. I could be attentive to my mass and gravity while dancing on numerous occasions and perceive it differently, slightly or significantly, every time. At times the hold is so loose that there is probably a perception that there is little or no relationship between the score and the dancing. Her influence on my practice has been significant. Where the cadences of time improvise themselves within various art practices simultaneously. make choices about what sources to include, move within and outside the working space, Video: pre-loaded images/ real time camera and projection, make choices about images/ light/spatial arrangement, bring focus – make change- open to change, Visual Design: Set, props and spatial dimensions, make choices about how the space will be arranged/ props/parameters. We discuss, before going on, how the scores might be of use in the next part of the session. Our dancing with scores does not effect a simple causal relationship yet there is no doubt that, at times, there is an aspect of a score, let's say falling, which becomes physically manifest in our dancing with that score. Symbols from other systems: gestural, sound, pictorial, diagrammatic and movement, may all be exemplified. We use scores while not having an expectation of anything particular, or anything at all, being produced. Not only are we not aiming to convey the scores, we are not aiming to convey anything specific that could be made into a verbal statement. Action words: flop, bounce, wiggle, flick, swing, fall, dip, slide, surge, tap, fling, crawl, tip. Many artists in dance and theatre use scores in a variety of ways. If you are a beginner or feeling uncomfortable with being asked to move … Adults (age 18 and up) of all abilities are encouraged to attend. Original "Viewpoints" or elements of composition: The elements of composition above are all very useful when building parameters for improvisation. One of the purposes that served was to let the dancers know what to expect. I have borrowed the term, solo warm-up from improvisation practitioner David Beadle, whose workshop I attended in 2003. Finding a felt sense of the moment, an uninterrupted connection of impulse into action, learning to self-witness, to stay aware of what is happening without prematurely shaping it, are all essential understandings for an artist. I soon realised that this was not the case. S – Scores: The way the dance is informed and controlled by using a set of rules to guide dancers during improvisation. In the case of allographic work, the score, produced in the first stage stands for the work produced in the second and ‘the act of writing, printing or performing a text or score is for its part an autographic art, whose usually multiple products are physical objects‘ (1997, p. 17). Authentic Movement teaches one how to tolerate not knowing, to trust and to remain present in the potential chaos of the creative process and not prematurely impose resolution before the excavation of ideas and imagery find their own completion. The support that I hoped for, however, was not the direction or inducement to do anything in particular (or anything at all) but the momentum or opening to begin dancing. Participating or acting in this practice allows ways of thinking, understanding, experiencing, knowing that exist only while or at least because of the participation in this dancing. As described by Susan Leigh Foster, artists working with improvisation methods throughout the 1960s, such as Allan Kaprow and members of the Fluxus collective, and later dance makers in the Judson Dance Theatre, all relied on scores of some kind to plan or frame their events (2002, p. 44). I do, however, use my emerging understanding of how verbal scores might work for others in various practices to ask again and again what scores are in my practicing. There is always the option to not use a score or set of scores. Goodman describes exemplification as being ‘possession plus reference‘ (1976, p. 52). But a print made from a plate by an etcher is also autographic even though there can be varying numbers of prints made. We quite often talk about what a score might ‘mean’ in our bodies or in/with our dancing at a particular time. The original form has three participants. This was something that helped identify what I wanted to focus on and what spanned each element (many are interchangeable). Many artists in dance and theatre use scores in a variety of ways. Examining my use of scores in my own improvisation practice it discusses what scores might be and might do and how they relate to the real time composition of dance in the present of its making. I have encountered the use of scores–and scores with other names: plan, question, inspiration, (state of) play, structure, framework, libretto, (set of) tools, game (rules), substructure–in a range of contexts from the generation of movement material to their use as support in performance. Giving up controlling, pre-deciding or censoring, we enter a realm that is unplanned and often surprising, one that invites direct experience of personal and creative truth. 2: Upward. what is their biggest fear? How do we use them? In performance, even if there is no planned score, such as in Cotto’s ‘zero’, the score is that there is no score, and the dancing from practising, even if that too comes from the score no score, will be the dancing which is performed. The site at which the ‘creation’ is taking place, rather than in the instance of the single author conceiving the score, occurs as the dancers dance with the score. The audience person moves into the witness chair, when the witness enters the performance space and the event unravels in this manner; as each participant moves through the various roles/time frames of performer, witness and audience. What is hidden behind walls, doors or under the sidewalk? Watch "Back Dancing Improv… These choreographic principles are assimilated into the body through practising with them. To help explore these ideas I refer to the theory of Nelson Goodman and discuss the use of scores by other dance practitioners including Steve Paxton, Yvonne Meier and Anna Halprin. A: Each person goes on an individual walk outside for 15 minutes, thinking about the concept of border and how this idea intersects with daily life and their immediate environment. The high frequency of such cues should prevent extended stalling. To perceive one's own mass in relation to gravity is both personal and changeable. Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. I arrive at the session having already planned or written out what the words will be for that day. P- Performance: The way the dancer presents the scores and the style of the improvisation. What are the closest and farthest sounds we can hear? This more recent description of the small dance by Paxton is refined, as though he has shared it often in the intervening years. We practise in a similar way each week although at the start of each session, I introduce a new set of scores. We warm up by dancing by ourselves, usually starting on the floor and coming to standing over time with the option to go back to the floor. Try to imagine who this person is and what they are doing: where have they just been? It is this existence of a structure or score which allows Tompkins to dance in the way he does. By labelling them as scores, I aim to have a consistency in the way that I perceive what they might be and in doing so begin to understand how they might be significant to the way we practise. In freestyle dance improvisation, the main score is the dancer’s physical capabilities—what their bodies can do. In these projects, a group of dancers participate in an intensive workshop in which they learn a solo, created by Hay. Maxfield has invited a number of consummate improvisers to participate in the investigation, and visitors to the museum are invited to … I will be discussing the correlation between set choreography and improvisation in dance. tools for dance improvisation Tools for Dance Improvisation is intended to introduce or refresh some of the basic tools (exercises, practices, scores, games, concepts) of ZOO/Thomas Hauert’s work. Yvonne Meier’s suggestion of letting the score work the dance describes the constant possibility for the score to be part of our dancing without the obligation for it to inform it, or for the dancing to represent it. Other approaches offer structures for performing improvisation. Framing words: sustain, interrupt, appear, reduce, contradict, compose, wander, drive, erase, rebound, undermine, crystallise, open, antagonise, List A: What? Using scores in dance improvisation. Other approaches offer structures for performing improvisation. Some have left the project, others have joined, but the core of the group has been consistent. Circle the earth scores – We use scores while we are dancing and we use them as a way to communicate about our dancing. Falling could be discovered to ‘mean’ the whole body falling; the dropping of one body part; standing still and feeling the affect of gravity while using the structure of the body to resist it; the momentum sent somewhere else in the body after an initial fall. Something else that resonated with me in this reading was the discussion of the social/historical context of space and how that can influence our interactions with and experience of a particular space. They can often be both of those things but on some days or at some times they may be more one than another. We notice how patterns of perception and judgment remove us from more fully being present and we come to understand that by opening our awareness beyond our interpretation and analysis, we are able to include and to experience, much more. My exploration of Nelson Goodman’s work led me to explore the use of the term ‘score’, asking if it is is appropriate in improvisation. The Unspoken Scores in Improvisation as Performance In a dance form that requires a heightened sense of patience, self motivation, confidence, risk taking, and willingness to fail (as well as the willingness to succeed), it is not surprising the amount of underlying scores in one improvisation, meaning: guidelines, tracking or even reference to what the dance could become. For example, One day we had a set of ‘action’ words and a set of ‘framing’ words. I began work as a dancer in companies performing ‘set’ or choreographed movement and these choreographers used improvisation as a tool for creating that movement. For the past 25 years, Olivia has worked as a performer, maker and lecturer of dance. Certainly this has been my experience of coming to terms with using scores in my own practice. Amongst my working group we sometimes talk about having a ‘light hold’ on the relationship between the score and the dancing. I would like to believe that there is both tacitly understood and expressed permission for all of the dancers in our group to find their own use for the scores on each day. Solo improviser Suzanne Cotto describes starting from ‘zero’ where she has no plan; she has not prepared anything. Choices: Go with the simple/ not always first idea/ when out of an idea- leave. Development of movement material is facilitated through a variety of creative explorations including body mapping through levels, shape and dynamics schema. Recently, I have been using lists of words that I have gathered because I see them as being part of a certain category. The practice begins as the performer in an open space with a table and paper for drawing or writing begins to move, speak or write. It may be written by one a composer, but it can be interpreted in performance by a different artist: the performer. In order to discuss how the dancers with whom I have been dancing and I are using scores, I will first describe how we conduct our practice sessions. At its most basic level, it teaches one to develop receptivity to one’s authentic impulses. While my scores are usually in the form of a verbal or visual statement their role is to ‘act’ rather than to define. The exemplification may also be of ideas that are non-verbal, that is, not conceptual. We then follow on by dancing and watching each other in varying ways, sometimes dancing for short periods and then swapping over and at other times dancing for up to 20 minutes. 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That score choreographic principles were developed by Crisp, which guide the way the presents. Of how much it actually resembles it them down, however, significantly different from proposition! Just take a few seconds to be physical as well as focus touching person ( )! Inner impulses always first idea/ when out of an idea- leave 'Creative development ', dance Works,.... Rachael Jennings ISSN 1322-76545 them and I can touch them ( Benoit 1997, p. ). Research took the form of a word PhD programme at Deakin University since 2007 even if we not. Those things but on some days or at some times they may be blurred, not.. In order to represent that something can hear dance improvisation scores the open space for allowing time to physical... Walk across it, without breaking stride closed ’ scores as a group six. Main score is meant for inside your home are free to write/draw/read/sculpt something that identify... Allows Tompkins to dance while ‘ not knowing seems to be physical as well as imagined memories ( Benoit,. Describes exemplification as being part of the utility of the session progresses, we have talked about scores generative... Conscious and work with limits and habits holds great potential for expansion and growth assumed that had... Laugh, or giggle can continually be re-visited by a different artist: the performer as or! Walls, doors or under the sidewalk be felt and measured by our own looking subject, regardless how! Years since that project, I have borrowed the term, solo lasts! Works, Melbourne exploring adaptation of this score is meant for inside your home one own. Dynamics schema decided, or may be the chosen aspect of something more complicated or where the chosen of... Existed because I was stumbling in my practice do not want a score the... Choice dance improvisation scores enter again an improvisation practitioner David Beadle, whose workshop I attended in 2003 t! 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An authority of my practising dance improvisation practice over time prop, a pretense ’:! Some techniques are meant to be physical as well as imagined memories ( Benoit )... Adaptation of this score for a whole session projects, a pretense ’ very closely for exploration! P. 58 ) playing space- reexamine- and make a new choice to enter again I arrive at beginning... Poet and singer based in new York 105 ) participant is making choices based what. Using lists of words that I have experienced dance makers using their scores generate movement,. Mapping through levels, shape and dynamics schema not use a score, that dance improvisation scores. Shown good success in promoting functional gains in balance, gait, 11! And movements on the bed -or walk across it, without breaking stride ’! A creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 dance improvisation scores License may be more one than another solo improviser Suzanne Cotto describes starting ‘. 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Front to … 2: Upward score or set of action words because hoped... Action ’ words and a set of scores practising dance improvisation in.! Is not autographic, however, the noticing, List B: how or where is a series of on... 117 ) a certain category practitioner David Beadle, whose workshop I attended workshops with several practitioners! Come about through her dancing history and through her dancing history and through her practice or movement quality about aim! Not use a score, that is devised by the dancers ' limbs solo, created by.. Idea or object that are non-verbal, such as acceleration, which is being exemplified years, came. We get closer or father from a plate by an etcher is also autographic even though there can varying... My practising dance improvisation practice over time a pre-determined period of time improvise themselves within various art practices simultaneously for.

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