Dance Techniques 2010

Lance Gries — Release and Alignment Oriented Techniques
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an improvisation context, not everyone has to work hard
alone but instead can, through responsiveness—a trained
ability to quickly respond to the environment—draw
ideas, imaginations, movements, motivation, energy from
the environment, and from the bodies that coincidentally
happen to be present in the here–and–now.
When a group works with energy, individuals determine
and inhabit their personal energy level. In an improvisation
exercise everyone stands in a circle and holds
hands. Each dancer then slightly turns the back of their
hands alternately inward and outward at their own pace,
in relation to personal changes of state inwards or outwards.
This shifts the presence of the energy in the process:
When turning the hands inward, the presence also moves
inward, whereby the sensing of oneself now emphasizes
inner closure and rest—analogous to other curves of the
body, like the eyeballs for instance, which should sink into
imagined round sockets in the back of the head. In turning
outward, the presence then moves outward and the body
tosses the collected energy out and passes it into the space
or to neighboring bodies. This continues as long as the
stream of energy lasts. When this energy begins to wane,
the body turns ‘inwards’.
Dealing with the space is analogous to what has already
been said about dealing with energy: as the body is imagined
as a continuation of energy directions in space—with
lines of energy that sink into the floor, that move ‘up, out
of, and forward’ from the head, and from various anchor
points for horizontals—the space is also understood as an
energetic principle that permeates us. If the space is constricted,
the energy moves inward; if it is opened and widened,
there is an exchange and giving of energy outward.
Directionality can change depending upon the research
function or style of the dancer. Trisha Brown in the 1970s,
for example, had already internalized a continuous, rapid
play with changing directions through a long improvisational
phase and was able to harness this in preparing
pieces like Locus (1975). For Gries, these spatial dimensions
go out far beyond the body’s skin boundary: it is
about exchanges of energies—alone, in pairs, in a group—
and about use of collected energies for the purpose of clear
attentiveness and devotion. In doing so, the focus in space
can be architectural points, as in Locus, or a reconceptualized
energetic space, infinitely dimensional with the potential
to expand or contract.
The rhythm is determined by the dancer’s chosen presence
in each case. As is the case in some graphic scores
of contemporary music that no longer have any predetermined
pulse, each dancer can perform the score or
improvisation exercise as they see fit—depending upon
which research interest they have currently chosen. Thus
an improvising group may not necessarily have a common
rhythm, instead, each dancer acts in their own time.
Changes then occur, for example, through the shifting
presence—here meant as a steering of the consciousness
of the energy inward (being conscious of oneself) and outward
again (being conscious of others).
Breathing provides neither rhythm nor beat, but flows
freely and unhindered. It is there to support the movement.
Dancing happens “on top of the breath,” surfing it,
so to say, whereby the dance composes its own voice and
is not perforce dependent on the breath. Additionally, the
use of music—since modern, and this holds even more true
for postmodern dance—is not mandatory. Many hours of
training are dedicated to sensing and utilization of inner–
body organization, often in resting positions on the floor
during which music would be more of a hindrance. Only
in training larger movement phrases—as, for instance, in
the sometimes very physically demanding postmodern 18
dance of the 1980s and 90s—is music used. But in this
case, phrasing is not necessarily executed analogous to
the music; instead, the energetic impression of the music
is used.
Since the Release Technique is by nature open and varied,
there are no fundamental movement principles. More
so the converse applies: the technique is adapted to the
style and movement vocabulary of the respective dancer
and choreographer. Despite this, there are a few key ideas
that are experimented with repeatedly.
Research in the 1960s was more focused on fundamental
pedestrian movements like laying down, sitting, standing,
walking, and hopping, and thus it is these movements,
or those derived from them, that are found (at the latest)
in task–oriented improvisations. Stability / instability has
been an area of interest in modern, later also in contemporary
dance, since Doris Humphrey. Trisha Brown was
interested in specific variations during the middle phase
of her creative work in the 1980s, for example in Set and
Reset, in which, along with falling principles, appear tossing
(throwing individual body parts into space), dropping
(letting individual body parts fall), breaking (allowing a
shape to explode outwards with its energy), and organizing
(bringing individual body parts into stable organization,
aligned on top of one another). In those years, execution
always focused on what is ‘real’: with Gries tossing
does not lead to a fully executed and perfected swing, nor
does a breaking arm hold back its energy. It is necessary to
really and truly hit the middle: execute simply and clearly
the real energy expenditure of a tossing motion originating
from the joint. 19
Breathing can also be used in a variety of ways: Gries
says, “Let your breathing do what it does, don’t interfere.
Give the diaphragm its independence.” Breathing is a distinct
movement of the diaphragm, an independent voice
beneath the dancing phrase. As the body is somehow always
working in suspensions between directions in space,
jumping becomes lighter and more like a momentary escape
from gravity—the body stretched through space like
a cat in flight. Turns are also not necessarily made more