Dance Techniques 2010

Gill Clarke — Minding Motion
215
volumes of the body, whilst upright, around an imaginary
plumb line, or midline; the simplicity with which the force
of gravity falls through the structure of the body (the compression
force), and the receiving of support and suspension
back up and out from the ground through the voluminous
spaces, extending through the body structures and
into space (the tensile support); the readiness of these volumes
and layers to constantly adjust to gravity in movement
as the body flows between momentary balance and
imbalance.
Closely allied to an adaptability to gravity is the degree
to which the whole body is responsive to a movement that
is initiated from one location within it. This is reliant upon
the elasticity of the fascia to support a sliding sequencing
of movement, or to facilitate a simple simultaneous agreement
by the integrated system so it might be directed as a
whole.
Within the Minding Motion work, this responsiveness
is often referred to as agreement, and implies a readiness
to allow movement to sequence through the body rather
than pre-empting this by external shaping or holding of
isolated parts. What might be obstructing this agreement
is a habitual, muscular holding pattern around a joint, or a
chronic imbalance between extensors and flexors, or a gluing
and lack of elasticity in the connective tissue. The anatomical
details underlying such elements do not constitute
explicit content within the work so much as they emerge
as indirect results of the close attention to breath, to experiencing
and directing movement as it is in progress, and
working through metaphor and imagination.
“It is never about right or wrong, it is
more about exploring. And the interesting
thing about it are the many options you
have. This differentiates this training from
other practices.”
Ante Ursić, student
Another clear feedback indicator that principles of the approach
have been embodied is the degree to which there is
a free and generous range of articulation of limbs around
their joints: a structural efficiency that minimizes unnecessary
tension, aids connectivity, and thereby releases energy
for expansion of movement into space.
This sense of efficiency can be misinterpreted as a desire
to impose a certain neutral look on the moving body, or
as reflecting a mechanical approach to movement. Rather,
with Minding Motion, the emphasis is on minimizing the
obstructions or unintended cluttering of movement including
the unconscious, parasitic aspects, or so–called sensory
noise burdening the nervous system. This un-cluttering is a
process that usually works through a refining of attention,
a sharpening of perception and discrimination rather than
through physical imitation. 11
It is a process of paring away what is not needed. Yet,
paradoxically this process can clear the way for an augmented
range of possibilities and degree of control in directing
or experiencing movement. “Most of the time we
fail to achieve what we want by enacting more than we
are aware of, rather than by missing what is essential.” 12
This, then, is a process not intending to ‘neutralize’
movement in the sense of erasing difference or individuality,
but seeking rather to allow the individual to emerge
from beneath the layers of unconscious muscular habit. In
fact, a very clear indicator of progress in the work would
be a shift from generalization in movement and towards
a greater individual particularity, which emerges through
close attention to one’s own process in the present moment
of moving.
If the movement sequence is not to be reproduced in
order to make it look identical (as would be the traditional
understanding in certain dance techniques), there are,
however, certain elements that come into play in Minding
Motion. For instance, the application of experiential
content to the movement makes for its special quality that
will become visible, for instance in the presence of the
performer. The Wiedererkennung, the recognition, is less
about formal aspects of a gesture or step, but about the inherent
quality and concentration. In this way there would
be a distinction, but often also an intertwining of ‘neutral
body’ and ‘personalized body’, a body that adapts itself to
a certain movement pattern / technique / quality, and a body
that ‘embodies itself’ as it were—a body that has its own,
personal shape.
Part of this personalization is the ability to relax those
muscles that are not immediately in use. The physical
tonus seems to be less defined by a constant activation of
certain muscular groups, rather more by an articulation
of using and resting. In this sense, there might even be
a technical ideal: being clear, easeful and ‘light’ in doing
integrated movements.
If the aim of movement exploration within an artistic
education program is to generate movement that is not
necessarily dance–like but somatically induced (as an
infant’s might be, or an animal’s), then the intention of
movement would not go towards shape (and form–related
aesthetics) but towards the unfolding (i.e., realising the inherent
potential of the body for movement).
This dialectical link between ‘aesthetic’ and ‘inherent’
creates new possibilities for the interaction and combination
of the visual and perceptual. While unfolding the
potential movement within a context of artistic strategies
of composition and temporality, Gill Clarke’s Minding
Motion approach constitutes—or offers, suggests—an
individualized means of finding form. The way in which
the possibilities for interaction between construction and
inhabiting of forms are combined, suggested, and enabled,
is the core of the method.