Park | the-sense-of-place

This is the documentatino of the second session.

The text connected to each video is concerned with the instructions that were given to the dancers. In some parts, it also refers to the actual score.

The aim of such composition is to observe how the information given is manifested in the dancers actions. In it, one can observe variety of interpretations and responds to it.

The participants acknowledged that the exploration in this site was much more inspiring than the one in the dance studio. One student admitted: “I felt more inspired than in the last run because of all the different environmental and natural impulses such as sounds from cars and birds, or flies flying in your face. It made me more interested in the place I was in and had an influence on my movements which got more exploratory”. Discovering that in this site the ground was not flat, another student said: “the things you touch [are] not always safe”, and added that when lying on the ground he could enjoy that there was something “alive under”. Yet another person described the experience in the following way:

"I had a natural response to everything that happened around me. I started to feel curious about my surroundings and just tried things and explored things like a little child. And I noticed that if you are aware, you can get a lot of inspiration from the world around you. Feeling the sun made me feel warm and happy, the air made me want to move light, the stones on the ground made me walk carefully. There is a constant dialogue between the outer world and what I receive from [it] and how I respond to it."

Some dancers discovered that their movement was influenced by a number of stimuli present in this site. Furthermore, they admitted that the site was influencing their emotions and perception. Not limited by the walls, the open space had an impact on the perception of their inner spaces. Some students said: “feeling the space around me made me feel the space inside me more”, “this space was much bigger than the ballet studio, which gave me more self-confidence”, “I felt that my body and movements were so small because the space was so big”, “I felt connected with the places in the sun because I like how it influenced my emotions”. Another student admitted: “Places with light made me feel light and somehow free from worries. I also felt comfortable at places that were higher and gave me the feeling of being above, above everything that was happening”.

The video materials and text are not intended to be look at from the beginning till the end, but rather scanned through and observed accordingly to own interests. Helping to visit the practice or suggest outcomes of the research.

1. The materiality of the place

In this video the dancers actions are concerned with arriving into the body while actively observing and exploring the site.

Observing and exploring takes a form of walking throught the space and looking at the place, its details.

Also, participants are encouredged to focus on information derriving from other senses. From touching the grass, smelling the place, hearing the sounds arriving from the cars passing, focusing on the quality of air, temperature, wind, light.

2. From an alien to an inhabitant

Here, participants started to share more weight with the elements of the site without the guide’s call for it. In this run, the planned course of the score, including arriving into the body, exploring the site and giving weight to it, was not followed. Instead, the stages merged in the participants’ performance.

Further, this part was followed by choreographic possibilities. In this video they are visible from 1min 48sek on.

3. Attach yourself to the place

Note from the score:

Drop the group activity. Come back to your individual exploration of the site. Touch, respond. Check all the places you haven’t checked but wished to check before.

At the same time look for different spots in the place and yield to them. Give as much of your weight as you feel appropriate to the place. Keep changing until you find a place to rest.

Rest. Let the senseability rise from the effortlessness.Come back to the idea of the body as a place. Focus on the place inside you and begin to move

4. Becoming one

Here, the intention is to become one with the place. To do so, the strategy is to focus on the movement of the place inside the body and at the same time observe the movement outside the body.

This task of becoming one is to be solved by the work of attention. Yet, it manifests itself by variety of movement qualities - observe the video.

What are the similarities in dancers movements?

5. Becoming active and Open score

note from the score:

Keep doing what you are doing and begin to recognise the actions of other people. Start relating to them. Build a sense of a group between all of you.

Become more active, creative and playful in how you relate to the group. Suggest, follow, change. Take an active role.

Invest your time and your energy. Tease, touch, provoke, initiate, play.

Find an end.

In which places are you most active? In which places do you engage with most pleasure?