Dance Techniques 2010

Lance Gries — Release and Alignment Oriented Techniques
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Cunningham (for instance, ignoring the ego and training
perception for the idea that every thing in time and space
has its own essence); F. M. Alexander’s technique, which
she learned and incorporated into the ballet barre; and,
finally, her own research into kinesthetic questions, which
she presented as exercises to students of the University of
Illinois. They, in turn, created the term Releasing Technique.
6 She was interested in images researched by the
psychologist C. G. Jung, and also used them as archetypal
symbols. Nowadays, choreographers like
New Yorker DD Dorvillier come from a
Skinner–oriented education.
Another prominent representative of
release work is Mary O’Donnell Fulkerson.
She studied under Joan Skinner and
connected Barbara Clark’s anatomically–
based Release images to a concept of the
flow of force along energy lines through
the body. 7 Fulkerson defined her goals
as follows: alignment (the orientation of
body parts to one another and in space);
concentration; focus; being completely involved;
exploring one’s own constructional
thought process; simplicity in the approach
to everyday challenges; and active integration
of mind and body. 8 She taught a class
she called Anatomical Release Technique
at Dartington College in England.
In the early 1970s, Steve Paxton along
with Nancy Stark Smith, Lisa Nelson, and
Daniel Lepkoff, began to develop Contact Improvisation.
By the 1980s, this became a primary form for the
practice and development of Release Technique. Several
future dancers of the Trisha Brown Dance Company, and
future colleagues of Lance Gries, such as Stephen Petronio,
Randy Warshaw, and Diane Madden, connected with
this group at Hampshire College and became part of that
exploration. They learned to trust the structural integrity
of the body and qualities of awareness. “They were researching
the same questions, but they tried to solve them
through the problem of sharing weight,” says Lance Gries. 9
Mary Fulkerson simultaneously published her research in
the magazine Contact Quarterly, which gave birth to a
‘mutual growth’—a complimentary inspirational growth
process for the release–oriented techniques. John Rolland,
Pamela Matt, Nancy Topf, and Marsha Paludan further
developed this school of thought.
Trisha Brown also contributed to the development of
Release Technique—if only indirectly through her move-
ment vocabulary and its increasing impact. According to
Gries, she was not interested in being limited by a specific
dance technique and did not specify any expected
training for her company—except for masterclasses for
repertoire, composition classes, and / or demonstrations
on tour. The dancers organized their own training. As
the choreographic vocabulary became increasingly physically
demanding, for instance in Set and Reset, the dancers
investigated other training methods in order to be able
to physically manage the material’s demands. Several of
them, like Lance Gries and Eva Karzag, received private
lessons in Alexander Technique from June Ekman. In
her early years, Ekman was with Anna Halprin and had
danced in the Judson Dance Theater in performances by
Yvonne Rainer, and later, worked with these dancers in
reformulating and expanding exercises from Alexander
Technique to meet dancers’ current requirements.
Gries defines his work as having emerged from the New
York research community of the 1980s, where he was particularly
influenced by June Ekman from 1985–1991. Not
extensively knowing the work of Joan Skinner, he doesn’t
see a connection with it, as he does not use as much imagining
and imagery, rather he relies more on more purely
physical exercises with a practical, anatomical focus.
The term ‘Release Technique’ was not yet widespread
in Europe in the 1980s; in France, for example,
where Trisha Brown had been invited to more regular
guest performances than in Germany. Gries often taught
5 John Rolland defines ideokinesis as “the
connection between idea and kinesthetic action
or stimulation.” Rolland 2009, p. 123.
6 Joan Skinner, ‘Letter to the Editors’, Movement
Research Performance Journal, No.
19 / 1999, p. 3.
7 Claudia Fleischle–Braun, Der Moderne
Tanz. Geschichte und Vermittlungskonzepte.
Butzbach–Griedel, 2000, p. 141.
8 These are the goals of Release Technique
as defined by Mary Fulkerson on her website.
See www.releasedance.com on 14 January
2010.
9 From a conversation with Lance Gries by
Gabriele Wittmann, Frankfurt, 14 October
2009.