What's your story?

Day 8
The last session was mostly review of old movement and material. However, we focused more on intention and adding a storyline on top of the dance. We did the combination/routine multiple times, to different pieces of music. And noticed how that affected the quality of the dance. Perhaps each of you noticed what type of music felt better in your body, or what you can relate to. I mentioned that having just one story or one feeling for the entirety of the dance was not enough. That each movement, each phrase, each step, needed to have its own feeling and its own character, almost, in the story. This is how dynamics in a dance can be achieved. Now that the movement, in the combination and in the exercises alike, were more familiar, everyone was really able to get deeper into the quality of the movement. Now everyone was dancing! Congratulations on sticking through the entire 8 weeks and for truly opening up in your dancing. It was such a pleasure to witness.
Unfortunately, we were not able to revisit the improv exercise we did the week prior. But there's always next time! We are currently working on the schedule for next year, and the next workshop. So please stay tuned for that. If people are interested in getting together to do some of the Hino connection exercises, I can also set up a special class for that as well. Hope the holidays have been wonderful so far. Talk soon...

getting to the good stuff

Day 7
Today we got a little deeper in movement we’ve already done before. We did the connection exercise while walking with a partner, and noticed how keeping things simple helped to stay connected – when the walker was able to maintain a single direction (forward forward instead of up and down or side to side) then the partner was able to follow more easily. We began lying on the floor in our X and initiating with our finger or toes to bring us into a gentle spiral of the spine. Then moved up to sitting for some stretches. We revisited our pliés and tendus, really trying to fill up all the music by coordinating the arrival of the arms and legs. It’s nice to see everyone’s progress in the workshop by repeating these earlier exercises. Definitely more confidence as everyone danced through the material more, now that the movements are more familiar. Across the floor, we practiced being clear with our direction, opening the heart center as you move forward. We reviewed the combination, and when running the dance, we listened to our fellow dancers on their timing so that we can stay together as a group. To open our awareness to listening to others, we did a short group improv in groups of 3. The premise of the improv being that everyone moves together on a pulse, changing positions in the room, while maintaining awareness of the others and their position in the room in relation to you own. We went a second round on the group improv and added that you can choose to follow the movements of someone in your view, or choose to be a leader during any time. This developed into some very interesting relationships among the dancers in the improv, as some fell into unison or a solo emerged. Amazing job, dancers, with the openness and willingness to jump right into improvisation. It was really beautiful. We’ll get to do a little more next time!

back at one

Day 6

So I’m realizing this week that we’ve covered lots of ground as it is, and repetition of some concepts and lots of review is what is needed most. So this session we started on the floor and went over some things that we did the previous week. We practiced our basic roll across the floor - always remember to keep the pelvis as low to the ground as possible. Also finding the spiral in the forearm is really key in positioning your palm on the floor to help push you up or across. Step out to step up, so that you’re not having to push straight up with the legs. The more we can utilize the horizontal movement of energy and weight, the easier we can approach the floor, the softer we can come in contact with the floor. The pathway to the floor is just one large undercurve, so the shallower the curve, the less force I have to control the fall to the floor. We revisited our plies, which we hadn’t done in a while. It was nice to see everyone filling up the music more, and coordinating the timing of the upper and lower halves of the body…meaning, the arms arrive, the same time the legs do. We worked on some basic chainee turns across the floor. And leading up to it we practiced a walking pattern with two pivots. Remember that a pivot step is basically the same as a half turn. And then on to the combo. We didn’t add any new material, and simply reviewed the new stuff from last week. Next week, I think we’ll continue on this path of remembering. Perhaps learning the left side but not adding any new choreography to the routine. Keep up the excellent work, dancers! I hope you’re having fun.

BFF

Day 5

This class was all about making nice with the floor. The floor is our friend. And what better way to feel this than to get close to the floor and do some floorwork. We did our basic roll across the floor and had our partner follow us and push our bodies down. This allowed us to drop our weight and pelvis to the floor. Sometimes floorwork is counterintuitive for some dancers because we train so much in lifting up off the floor, and strive to jump high. But floorwork requires the exact opposite. We want to melt our bodies into the floor and continuously drop the pelvis. We improvised a little bit on getting up from the floor and moving down to the floor. Remember to roll down on the front of the foot and when getting up, take a big step out and connect the sitz bones to the heels. With floorwork, you also want to activate the meaty part in the legs and in the arms. Meaning when you are rolling on the floor, feel the spirals in the limbs that allow you to rest on the shoulders, forearms, shins and butt, so as to avoid the hard surfaces of the bones. Also, thinking about lateral and horizontal movement instead of vertical, so that we are not using only our quadriceps to move up and down from the floor. We added a little bit to the combination – just two rolls on the floor. We will review these and do a few more turning exercises in the next session. See you then!

Movement in Stillness

Day 4
So last sesh, we talked about balances/extensions/alignment…that sort of thing. One important thing to remember with extensions is to not get caught up in this idea of “getting your leg up”, instead you want to remember to stay grounded all the more. We did some standing exercises with a partner, where our friend patted us down and pulled on our heels. Automatically you can feel how your body must adapt to this different placement in weight. We also did a few minutes of standing meditation in tree pose. In this position, remember to feel the spirals through the legs and arms and to bend the knees and keep the weight in the heels, bringing the belly-button to the spine. We skipped the pliés so that we can spend more time stretching. This was perfect considering the weather was pretty warm out. A few things to remember: keep the knee above the ankle in lunge, and always feel the limbs radiating from the belly-button, even in forward folds – trying to make space in between the joints in the pelvis area (scooping out the belly helps with this as well). After a few across-the-floor exercises, we concentrated the rest of the time reviewing the routine. Great job with helping each other out and working without me to remember the dance. This kind of work is really important to practice in dance, because it requires openness and trust that your body remembers. So good job in thinking without your heads! …So as requested, I’m trying to get a video of the routine up on the blog. However, I’m not that technically proficient with things like this, so if anyone wants to help, then let me know. That would be awesome. Ok until next time…We’re going to get to do some floorwork - woohoo my fave!

Sparkling Eyes and Pelvis

sparkling eyes...
and pelvis...

movin on up!

Day 3

Sorry dancers. I’m totally behind on my blogging. A long long time ago, it seems, we focused on our upper body and our arms. The one image that I found helpful that day was an eyeball on the front of each shoulder. So when we think of our posture, it’s less about pushing our shoulders back, which often causes us to splay open our ribs. Instead this image helps us to think of simply opening our “eyes”, opening the front of the chest. In general, we always want to think of expansiveness, openness, three-dimensionality. And here we’re already multi-tasking…reaching our arms from our back, especially our latissimus dorsi muscles, all the while, still keeping our pelvis and tailbone dropped like how we practiced the previous week. Ugh, yes, I know so much to think about. But luckily the exercises we did across the floor, and the combination/routine we’ve been working on were very much the same as last week. Only this time we brought our attention to our upper half. However, we did do a few arms exercises in center: opening to second and closing to first position, shoulder and arm circles, etc. – that got a few people huffing and puffing! But hopefully the healthy burn made you more aware of some back muscles that you may have neglected in the past. Anyway, this week concluded our sessions that were focused on certain parts of the body and a little bit of functional anatomy. The following session, touches on balances and extensions…meaning lots of stretching! I’ll also try posting pics and hopefully some video soon…

the pelvis

Day 2

So we moved it on down to the pelvis today. We started by looking at some illustrations of the lower body and took some time to appropriate the images to our own bodies. We then revisited the connection exercise and added another similar exercise to our repertoire: we took a partner, got connected, and then one person put their hands on the other’s upper arms, while the other person repeated “Right, Left…”. And then we observed how the connection may take us somewhere. After some warm-up exercises and stretches, pliés and tendus, with our awareness on our pelvis and lower halves, we borrowed the “Right, Left” exercise for our across-the-floor moves. With our partners hands on our hips we took a low, low, low walk forwards then backwards. This allowed us to observe the challenges of moving with a partner and also the mechanics of the pelvis. With all this new info, we tried a few more across-the-floor exercises including variations on a triple step with under and over curves, triple steps with the pelvis in one plane (all in a deep plié) and some leg swings. We got through our first few counts of eight in our choreography, and really got our hips and pelvis movin. Next time, we’ll continue with this movement and add on, and focus more on our arms and back.

getting to know you...

Day 1

The theme of the first class was "getting to know you... (music plays)". We began by flipping through the pages of Albinus on Anatomy – a book introduced to me by Lisa Wymore. We looked at the illustrations of the full skeletal system and the many layers of muscles. We then observed these systems in our own bodies. Using our hands and our minds eye, we moved from the toes to the head, feeling our bones, then the thick sinewy muscles, and the skin. We then found our energetic bodies through a basic connection exercise (borrowed from Budo master Akira Hino, via Amy Raymond), where we stood in front of our partner, connecting to each other’s (energetic) “center”. This seemed to be a great ice-breaker and got the whole group talking. We then returned to the floor for some warm-up exercises, with our attention and intention on moving from our bones. As we moved to standing, we discussed alignment: keeping the floor of the pelvis parallel to the floor of the room, scooping the belly to open and support the sacrum and low back, and keeping the tailbone down and the weight towards the heels. During pliés, we discussed whether our legs in parallel or turned-out position was easier on each of our own bodies. During tendus, we practiced shifting weight from on foot to two feet, remembering to keep the heels always moving towards the floor and energetically connected to one another, even in the stretched position. We clarified some key terms regarding directions and movement planes: undercurve, overcurve, horizontal and vertical plane. And we put these ideas to practice through simple step combinations across the floor.

Whew! That was a lot of info to cover in the first day. Next time, we'll continue to practice these new skills and focus a little more of our awareness on the pelvis.

before the beginning

Janine Trinidad’s Dance Fundamentals Workshop is an 8-week introductory course designed to give an overview of basic principles in movement and modern dance. The workshop will cover exercises to prepare the dancer for floor-work, jumps, changes in direction and beginner turns, spatial awareness, balance and flexibility, performance presence, and improvisation. No prior dance training is required. The workshop is intended to provide a safe forum for experimentation, inquiry, and discovery of the dancing spirit and embodied energy in every individual. Questions are encouraged, an open mind necessary, and a good time inevitable!