Dance Techniques 2010

Gill Clarke — Minding Motion
217
own movement in response to the ongoing verbal input,
the aim being to maximize the awareness upon which
these movement choices are made. The use of language to
facilitate rather than instruct movement reflects the differences
in intention between ‘technical’ and ‘sensed’, or between
‘training’ and ‘release work’. In this sense, Minding
Motion is language–driven, but sense–led.
Other working methods that have influenced the development
of Minding Motion can, of course, be fruitful as
complementary experience, such as Alexander Technique
or Ideokinesis.
The choice to work with, rather than against, the structure
of the body is an inherent part of the Minding Motion
learning process. In this sense it could be said to resource
the dancer in preventing injury.
Movement Characteristics
and Physicality
“A major focus is on the spine and its large ‘architectonic’
function. Also, the point of entry is skeletal (as
opposed, for instance, to BMC with its focus on fluid systems),
that is to say the bone structure and its links to
the muscular system are the focus. There seems to be an
accumulative aspect of experience, a ‘growing scope’ of
movement values and coordinations. While an important
part of Minding Motion is sequential, the aspect of being
in each movement with all of the care and attention developed
in earlier phases of the process remains central.
This has to do with the key terms and concepts of easefulness
and low effort. Krafteinsatz (applying strength) is not
aimed at.“ group comment
Areas of the body, or aspects of body function are seen
as differentiated anatomical units of exploration in Minding
Motion sessions. However, the aim is not to consider
these elements of the body as fragmented, rather to sense
them as integrated. It is important to state that compared
to, for example, William Forsythe’s Improvisation Technologies
14 and the spatio-visual explicitness fostered in it,
the Minding Motion approach is not effect–driven, nor
is it segregative. It aims to develop an awareness of the
dancer’s physiological and anatomical structure that will
be the basis of movement generation and understanding.
The body is always considered holistically, both in relation
to its various regions and its layers and volumes.
When certain elements are isolated in order to be studied
in depth, they are always considered in relationship to the
whole, never as an independent part. Thus the analytical
separation of corporeal elements does not insist on immobility
of the parts not concerned. However, on the level of
the nervous system, the neuronal messages directing movement
can be more effectively clarified when attention is
focused for a while on one particular aspect of movement.
The different aspects of the work can be seen as helping
the body chart a road map upon which to travel. Within
this territory, various qualities and their origins (elasticity,
swiftness, power, strength, eruption, force…) can be identified
and described / visualized.
The work does not explicitly articulate an approach to
building strength and muscle tone. Nevertheless, the practice
encourages and nurtures a rebalancing of tonic muscle
tone through its attention to efficiency in relation to gravity;
it fosters an active dialogue between the ground and
directing the oiled, articulating skeleton in space. In this
way, attention is paid to balancing extensors and flexors,
to re-enlivening an elasticity throughout the body. The
muscular qualities prioritized in Minding Motion are sustaining
rather then explosive, and strongly linked to gravity.
A specific notion of strength can come from clarity of
direction and connectedness through the body, rather than
holding by small / isolated muscle groups. The notion is
about working with the grain of the bony and fascial form
and function of the body rather than forcing or countering
it: to increase its range, its integrity, and to release it into
expansion. An easeful interrelationship, for example, of
the volumes of skull, rib cage, and pelvis will relieve excess
and superficial muscular holding through the torso, and
activate deep integration and support.
“It seems that there is a vision of ‘multi-centeredness’,
of organising principles that can differ: They are more
implicit centers, movement centres that are not made explicit.
At the same time, the various notions of the ‘domes’
(skull, diaphragm, pelvis, feet arc) can serve, in specific
sections or periods of the work, as such centres of attention,
of dynamics, and of articulation, including breath. So
the plumb line that can and does always shift and change
according to the positioning of the body as a whole in
space redefines and redistributes the ‘centeredness’ of the
work. It is integral in deploying the inner volumes into the
space 15 and in shaping the body in doing so. The points of
attention that are called upon during the Minding Motion
sessions articulate, as it were, the shifting centres, both
spatially and internally.” group comment 16
Different qualities of seeing are explored and utilized
during various phases of the work. While doing sensing,
partner–work tasks, and through initial elements of the
‘shared familiar form’ phase, closed eyes are an option that
might aid the attention to other perceptual systems—in
part through stemming the incessant flow of visual stimuli.
The closing of eyes, by suppressing the habitual, sharply
focused vision, can paradoxically expand both peripheral
vision and perceptual attention. 17
Progress in the discovery of movement potential is
distinguished and gauged by paradigms other than the
‘right’ shape or the ‘true’ energy flow. The idea is to be
non-normative, without implying that there is no rigor
of intention or differentiation within achievement. This