initial phrase.

Here are some videos from my first attempt to mobilize and visualize aesthetic ideas that I was otherwise theorizing about.

concepts for constructed improv:

dead weight

tracing-- tracing in sand, on body, on partner's body

restraint

sequential tension/release in certain parts of body: fingers, elbow, arm

Then we learned this phrase:

The phrase was initially inspired by a feeling of dead weight that I felt in my right arm after my ganglion cyst surgery. The story goes: my arm was still under the effects of anesthesia but the rest of my body was coherent--as I was sitting in the recovery room, I began to notice my right arm slip from the pillow on which it was resting. I reacted how I normally would; somewhere in my motor cortex, a sequence of action potentials told my arm to pick itself up, except it was completely immobile. My left arm came to the rescue. Now, at this point, while others may have reacted in panic or discomfort, my only thought was, I need to choreograph before this sh*t wears off!

And thus:

We then paired off and continued to improvise responses to each other in the negative space around partners who were performing the phrase. There were no set directions for the improvisation other than work around/with/under/over your partner. However,

3 relationship dynamics emerged:
Rafael--Sasha: Symbiotic

Morgana as the caretaker/sympathetic voice for Corinna's affliction

Dana--Robert: Antagonistic

Finally, I began to conceptualize the piece in space keeping with the same aesthetic impulses of dead weight and restraint. This is the beginning of that exploration.