The first section I am going to discuss is about "Chance Encounters", where Buckwalter describes Katie Duck's "time art" (60). Buckwalter paraphrase Duck beautifully, when she said "time art" is "a performing art, or an art form that unfolds in time"; the idea that improvisation is dependent on time for its creation of art. I like that. The enfolding of art out of dancing, Buckwalter points out, is different depending on if it is performance or choreography. This is obvious. What we choose to do in improvised performance is not always accepted or encouraged in choreographed movement. With the later, time and movement are constructed around a structured idea, usually “in time” to music or counts; so personal creativity is funneled into a particular form. In improvisation, we have a choice in deciding when, where, why and how we will move to create a dance. Those series of choices create the art. Buckwalter says, choice "drives the dance initially" and it multiplies from the very beginning (61).
I am interested in producing a particular type of art, with the freedom of time and space to experiment. I am interested in aesthetic complexity (either through the construction of complicated or simple shapes and movements) and the meaning tied with such expressions. There are multiple components that add to complexity. One, is knowing and using an eye practice.
What does it mean to return to a natural pattern of an eye practice? Katie Duck offers three modes of seeing, short-range gaze such as for internal types of movement, mid-range gaze for interaction with others and a long-range gaze incorporating the entirety of the space, often coupled with large movements. In any of these, to stay relaxed in the gaze is crucial, says Duck (120). The part that I found interesting in this section was that Duck is pulled to not only experiment, but notice what kind of patterns come naturally, and if they "jibe" or not with dance movement" (121). This brings our personal mentality back into the ensemble. The idea of bringing our eyes into the dance, rather than glazed over some horizon somewhere, suggest that we get involved with others, while being open to read the space and energy. What Duck calls "eyeballing" (120). I think eyeballing our environment gives us the choice to engage or disengage with it, two options we have.
Duck's aesthetic come from the "aesthetic of chance"; when “choice and chance” play as the “composers in improvisation” (61). "Duck asks dancers to make choices that "create space" (or possibilities) for the dance to happen amid", such as the space that creates a mood or relationship (61). I don't know if we need to hold onto those creations, especially to the effect that Buckwalter suggests: "there is less freedom for individual choice -- suddenly a dancer can't do just anything (61). Could it be possible to hold onto our personal choices and freedoms while also co-creating a composition? I think it is possible to get touched into that level of creation where I can get synched to myself as well as the "others". Like when we played with taking on the flocks of birds, or the group of frogs. What I am getting from Duck's perspective is that she is interested in creating aesthetically interesting works that come out of a series of chances and choices, essentially the framework for Life.
Its only now, that we have deeply en-cultured ourselves, that we “believe” we cannot understand, yet alone embrace, choice and chance. As if they were elements we have to control or dominate. Buckwalter puts it best when she says, "after all, excitement of improvisation is in chance happenings; what need to be created are the conditions for those chance encounters to occur" (62). Precisely! To create the conditions for the causes (all out of chance), while simultaneously allowing ourselves to let go of the impulse to do the happening through force. Realizing that what is, is. To change that, Duck offers that we can only create space for the possibility, the chance that something manifests itself.
The other important eye practice Duck focuses on is with our potential to create relationship with the audience. Buckwalter writes, "eyeballing creates an excitement by evoking "biology", an interpersonal chemistry between dancers, that pull the audience in and gets them involved in the exchange emphatically, or she [Duck] suggests, even hormonally" (120). Yes, bring biology back into our scope of awareness. Our body's biology, the crowd's biology, the environment's biology -- the the organic component that make us alive. Why not incorporate biology's presence into our awareness?
According to Melinda Buckwalter, Katie Duck says "improvising isn't about generating new movement" nor is it about the "specifics of how a dancer arrives at his or her movement"; it is the spatial skills, such as " remembering to exit, and using 'biology” that create improvisation (Buckwalter 19). Essentially, it sounds like Katie Duck is more interested in the content when it is composed with and in relationship to others, staying aware to the subtlties of energy and timing. She's not as interested in the movements themselves, as much as the “art” that it create in the present moment, however fleeting it is.
As Melinda says, Duck is concerned with presence (Buckwalter 19). This is interesting for me. I have noticed there can be an exaggerated emphasis on process and and going into our comfortable place, but can kinesthetic delight be taken to the edge. How can we bring our presence to the edge? The edge of movement, as when we are pushing our bodies to their "limits", experimenting with our preconceived limitations to see where else we can take ourselves. To grow and expand in our bodies, just as much as we nurture them, and bring in the small dances. I agree with Duck, who supposedly believes that technique blended with our personal understanding of our "limitations', can bring us deeper into dance, through improvised expression.
I'd like to see kinesthetic delight coupled with kinesthetic technique (the development of the body-mind into its full potential), the bridge between meaning and form. So that we can take the time to go into our psyches, our soma, our primordial brains, indulging in the exploratory processes; while also staying aware of what our form implies; what it communicates. "To that purpose, [Duck's] dance technique class combines elements from ballet, modern dance, and Contact Improvisation and includes postmodern techniques” – especially release technique (a way of freeing the body from tension, opening the body up to greater possibilities) (Buckwalter 19).
I looked at Duck's website, katieduck.com and I found some interesting things. For one, Duck offers a summer workshop along with a guy named Alfredo Genovessi, who say "They do not approach improvisation as a subject on its own in arts practices but rather take a microscopic view on the role improvisation plays in the creation process". If life is one big creation process, evolution of species and form, than we are a part of that process, naturally. On the website they say, "Duck values technical training, and her dancers are often highly trained. But in improvisation choosing and editing are also key skills." I would like to be highly trained. I would like to develop my coherence in movement expression and work with others in this way.
Katie Duck says, in a conference with Dr. Lee Kyuag, “Awareness is easy. Awake is something else. It has more to do with how we are able to perceive time moving. Even someone in a coma is moving. They are thinking or dreaming and therefore they are moving.” (website)
In 1996, Duck formed Magpie Music Dance Company, where "improvising musicians are featured equally with dance as the company suggests," (112). The set was set up that both dancers and musicians were part of the stage, including all movement into the performance. What I liked most from reading this section about the possibilities with music was that "Magpie encourages practical dialogue" between both parties. I think by doing this, both input and multiple perspectives bring an extra layer into improvisation. If the dancers and musicians can create discussion, I am interested to see what can happen. I have experienced that the these kinds of play create interrelationship that develop organic and interactive events.One such memory comes from my time spent in Sydney, Australia during summer 2009. On a Saturday afternoon, during a Contact Improvisation Jam, we has some very special guests visiting. Two guys created music -- symphonies as well as a range of other sounds from car horns to bird calls, solely through their mouths. One of the guys also sang beautifully, and they synthesized beauty completely from their voice boxes. It was extremely interesting having the chance to listen to their improvisations while we danced ours. In closing circle, we all had a chance to discuss what came out during our time together, which was eye opening for me. The musician commented on their experiences, what it was like to watch and be influenced by dancers, and that they haven't had many situations like that. That they could think of a sound by a dancer's movement all on the spot.
It was also interesting that there was a space to not be influenced by each other. We had the power to choose whether to directly engage with one and another, shows the potential of possibilities in these kinds of interactions.
I would personally like to explore this type of play with musicians and dancers during my time at Naropa. I have already engaged in dialogue with a couple of students studying music, and we have all shown interest in working together. They have expressed the challenge they foresee in doing everything improvised, and we have discussed alternative possibilities, like playing something on loop, while improvising. Or having something recorded and creating new sounds on top of the recordings. During one Contact Improvisation student group gathering a couple of weekends ago, we had a drummer come improvise while I facilitated a class. It was the drummer's and the other students' first time improvising to each other's form. We all loved what came from this kind of experience, especially the part about feeling deeper connection with each other. Music facilitates that. The spontaneity and presence offer a rich environment to understand one another.
