...or how to trace a melody through dance
Photo by Dorina Köbele-Milas
Thoughts about traces
...to understand music as an audible, but invisible, movement, as a movement energy or as a trace to something hidden,...
Traces which dance and music leave behind are difficult to grasp. They are invisible, inaudible and yet they are there. Of course, I do not refer to traces in the actual sense, but to abstract actions of laying and reading traces.
Laying and leaving traces is something that has always fascinated me in dance. Some dancers are particularly good at this "art". They are able to draw their lines of movement in the space in such a way that they become "visible" and emerge. In my opinion, intention, clarity of form, sense of space, quality of movement (in other words effort) and the gaze play a decisive role. Laying a trace through dance can be perceived as writing, as drawing or as a more expansive painting. Also, it is possible to lay the form of the whole body or individual parts of the body with emphasis in the space.
A precondition for my research is to understand music as an audible, but invisible, movement, as a movement energy or as a trace to something hidden, something not directly visible. What evolves is the interplay between musical and dance movements is that no clear distinction can be made between cause and effect and yet this interplay is not random.
The most fruitful approaches and tasks are briefly outlined below
All the tasks I listed in my last blog post about imitation can also be applied with a focus on laying traces.
A first step towards traces is the conscious awareness of what you leave behind when you dance. What trace have I left in my movement from A to B, from the past to the future?
A parallel or second step would be to follow your own movements with your gaze. Repetition of movements is also helpful here. For both gaze and repetition give them emphasis.
A possible third step is to "pick up" and "express" the movement energy of the melody, what refers especially to its dynamics.
Furthermore:
playing with resistance and muscle tone
laying the traces of the melody with the extremities
For me it was helpful, for example, to experiment first mainly with the arms, then with the legs and then with the head. Then I combined them.
playing with the axis of the upper body and initiate the traces from there
helpful keywords: conscious shift of the axis, crown-coccyx connection, exploring and combining possible directions of movement of the spine, upside down, continuing movements of the body axis into the extremities or placing them in opposition, take risk
laying traces with given shape:
straight lines
curves and circular movements
zig-zag and oscillating movements
(re)drawing the melody on paper while or after listening to it (It doesn't have to be pen and paper. There are, of course, no limits to creativity here).
use the drawing as a basis for spatial paths, involving all levels
free improvisation with the memorised trace
let the "traces" of the previous research work, trace them, sometimes let them collapse and build them up again
...to be continued
Observations
Because I am very curious about the quality of trace-laying as such, I have at times used other music and then later brought it back together with the Slow Airs. Since imitation is very present in my body at the moment, the double transmission between melody, trace and movement became a great challenge at times.
What the exploration of traces has brought me to, or perhaps what it has reinvigorated, is a more complex understanding of space. Laying and leaving traces in the space around me in interplay with the melody gives the movements (of music and dance) a less ephemeral character.
Nevertheless, my research and thoughts about traces are still very much unfinished. I will continue to search to find out how else traces can be traced, linked, constructed and rethought. I am interested in working out even more what influence the melodies of Slow Airs have on my dance traces. For this reason, I would be very happy to receive comments or private messages with ideas and suggestions.
Don't hesitate to comment or to contact me!
For my next blog post I am planning to post a video. So finally, something to see. But I won't reveal the topic yet.
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