Nobody’s Dance Milan April 2016
Facilitators: Sara Leghissa, Eleanor Bauer, Annamaria Ajmone, Elisabetta Consonni, Elisa Ferrari
Documentation: Maria Giovanna Cicciari, Luca Chiaudano, Nassia Fourtouni, Eleanor Bauer
Participants: Annamaria Ajmone, Francesca Antonino, Eleanor Bauer, Sarah Barberis, Alessandra Bordino, Emanuele Braga, Glen Caci, Ilenia Caleo, Biagio Caravano, Mara Cassiani, Sara Catellani, Luca Chiaudano, Maria Giovanna Cicciari, Elisabetta Consonni, Marzia Dalfini, Matteo De Blasio, Erica De Crescenzo, Francesca De Isabella, Laura Dondi, Liber Dorizzi, Gloria Dorliguzzo, Simone Evangelisti, Elisa Ferrari, Elena Fontana Paganini, Nassia Fourtouni, Maddalena Fragnito, Giulia Franceschini, Chiara Frigo, Ginevra Ghiaroni, Hélène Goutier, Alice Guazzotti, Jacopo Jenna, Francesco Laterza, Sara Leghissa, Maria Giulia Leuzzi, Roberta Mosca, Serena Malacco, Gilda Manfri, Jacopo Miliani, Paola Stella Minni, Roberta Mosca, Laura Pante, Camilla Pin, Lola Posani, Titta Raccagni, Alice Raffaelli, Konstantinos Rizos, Cristina Rizzo, Michele Rizzo, Carlotta Scioldo, Valerio Sirna, Barbara Stimoli, Davide Tidoni, Gabriele Valerio, Flora Vannini, Ariella Vidach
List of practices:
Monday 18 April – Macao
1) Name: Untitled practice
Shared by: Elisa Ferrari
Origins: a practice that comes from a choreographer Ambra Senatore and Raffaella
Giordano
Notes: –
Directions:
– The focus of the practice is to arrive to a movement quality that is more
influenced from the others than from yourself- come altogether, almost in contact
– Follow the natural oscillation of the body
– When you are touched by somebody, you follow that
– You try to feel each part of the body that is touched and also the parts of the
bodies of the others that are touching you
– Eyes closed for the first 15 minutes
– Continue with eyes open
– When you open your eyes you also can try to leave the group, always keeping this
kind of quality, and starting to get in relation with space around you
– When you are completely alone, with no more contact with other people and you
are sure to get the quality you can also start to work with dynamic and (the first
part of the practice is really slow)
Duration: 45 minutes
2) Name: Unlearning process
Shared by: Gabriele Valerio
Origins: a collective in Berlin, MataNicola, proposing Unlearning Method which is a
box with tools for improvisation and composition, coming from exercises of Meg
Stuart and more.
Notes: –
Directions: In music, do a movement in a loop and change it every 5 seconds
(indicative time, it just needs to be short with sharp changes). When the music
stops, you keep doing the same movement you are doing at that exact time until
the music starts again.
Second phase – in two groups, one group is watching and the other is dancing –
keep the same rule but now the music stops only once (indicative, you can do
longer sessions and decide with the group how many stop there will be). The last
stop makes the group come together, phisically close to each other. Every single
person keep their own loop, until the closeness with other people transforms the
movement and create a common thing. This “thing” can be an appearing of a new
common movement, rhytm, shape, energy, or everyone gets influenced by the
stronger one, or there will be splits into smaller groups or, or… – repeat one more
time, the same practice in two groups.
Duration: 1 hour and 15 minutes
3) Name: Walk like an Egyptian / the frontal issue
Shared by: Gabriele Valerio
Origins: his own practice
Notes: –
Directions:
– In duets
– Performing in front of an audience
– Frontal relationship to space
– Keep in mind the basics of improvisation about space and architecture
– There are not set rules for this practice because he is still experimenting
(listening to the other person dancing with you and to the music, creating
architectures in space in duet, playing with the gaze and with the intersection of
the two bodies in space, moving together: appreciated)
duration: 15 minutes
4) Name: –
Shared by: Eleanor Bauer
Origins: a practice by Olga de Soto, from her piece Murmures. It is a practice she
has used as a process of creating material, but is itself also an interesting practice
as such, related to one’s own movement vocabulary.
Notes: On memory and relation to the unknown or yet-un-learned. Interesting in
relation to recognition in improvisation, recognition of habits, education, reference,
etc.
Directions:
– The aim is to dance a dance that you don’t know.
In couples, one is dancing the other is observing. (then inverse the roles after
going through the whole process described below)
1) The first person dancing performs movements that they have never before done
for 7-10 minutes.
Stillness is included as inhibition from moving in automatic pilot, to avoid recourse
to habits.We acknowledge that everything we can imagine or do is in some way a
composition or recombination of things we already know, but we still aim by
whatever means — of outlandish imagination or by “weirding” things we know or
otherwise — to invent movements we have never ourselves done before.
The relationship to memory for the dancer of this 7-10 minute dance comes by way
of doing things you have no previous memory of having before done.
2) When the dancer finishes her/his 7-10 minute dance, the observer who watched
the dance performs the dance to the best of their ability and accuracy, as they
remember it from having seen it just before. – 3) ADDITIONAL STEP (from Lisa
Nelson’s tuning scores, shared in Nobody’s Business Brussels by Dolores Hulan)
Then the person who performed the dance in step 1 and has now seen its
reproduction by their observing partner in step 2, performs for the observing
partner the way that they just watched the dance 2, reproducing all the
movements they executed while observing the other person dancing. (added from
Lisa Nelson’s Tuining Scores – proposed in Brussels by Dolores Hulan)
Switch/invert the roles, repeat steps 1-3.
Duration: You will observe that the dances 1-3 become shorter and shorter, as
memory of what we’ve seen has holes in it, and memory of what we’ve done while
watching also has holes in it.
5) Name: –
Shared by: Sara Leghissa
Origins: a practice that they have developed with the dance company she is
involved (Strasse)
Notes: This is a practice about looking/watching, and observing a performance
anywhere. The fact of doing it in a group produces a certain kind of performance in
itself, as we are placed as an installation of a group of people watching in a single
direction, to a passer-by we are unusual, but our aim is not to perform but to watch
what is in front of us.
Directions:
Choose a place in public to sit together and observe in the same direction for 20
minutes. The field of view in front of us/the group is the frame of the action.
After some time, minimum 5 minutes, individuals in the group can choose to leave
the observing group and enter into the scene/field of observation as an actor, but
with an effort to blend in with the happenstance performers/passers-by, trying to
blend into the given scene, rather than to stand out as unusual to the rest of the
activity in the given field of action/observation.
Duration: 20 minutes
19 April – DID Studio
1) Name: an automatic writing practice
Shared by: Paola Stella Minni
Origins: She made it up now, for the concern tonight
Notes: –
Directions: aim – to make a nobody’s song for the concert tonight
– Choose a practice to do for a minute (fast breathing, being conscious of your
breath, etc.)
– Automatic writing for 45 seconds- send all the material to her and she will make a song of that
Duration: 2 minutes
2) Name: a meditation practice
Shared by: Elisabetta Consonni
Origins: from Vipassana meditation
Notes: Directions: – In a circle, everybody is sitting on the lotus position, use a
pillow if you want- Eyes closed or eyes open
– Take care of not allow your body to collapse, but keep your attention and stay in
the position
Duration: 30 minutes
3) Name: Sensible practice
Shared by: Valerio Sirna
Origins: 1) Sensible movement, 2) Authentic movement (Waterhouse), 3) a video
from a performance by Tino Sehgal, 4) a video/excerpt from the Sleeping Beauty
Notes: –
Directions:
– In two groups, 10 minutes for each group
– You start from a standing position and you go on the floor in your own timing
– You think that all movement is initiated by the torso and that the limbs are only
supporting
– Do the practice twice inside, and twice outside
Duration: 40 minutes
Name: The Clouds
Shared by: Elisa Ferrari
Origins: Matteo Ceccarelli from a practice invented by Stephanie Tirsch
Notes: –
Directions:
– It starts in a standing position close one to each other. Following the natural
obsillations of the body we follow the input that come from other people and we try
to pass the physical information to others. I should do it in a quite scientific
way,\but I can decide how long and intense should be the movement. Also, you can
decide how big it should be the movement.
– The focus of the practice is to experiment a movement quality that is not
necessarily decided and really goes into the sensation shared by the group.
– in two groups
– and then in one group
duration: 20 minutes
4) Name: 2k16 iconography
Shared by: Mara Cassiani
Origins: her own practice
Notes:
Directions:
– the practice is divided in three parts
– 1) dance a song
– the more pop and the less contemporary you can
– 2) then watch altogether the video clip of the song
– the next song will be more minimal, less contemporary, more pop- now the dance becomes more concrete
– 3) divide in two – contest/battle
Duration: 50 minutes
5) Name: –
Shared by: Maddalena Fragnito
Origins: –
Notes:
Directions: a game of questions
– Did you find yourself losing time in your practice? a) where/when, b) with whom,
c) ‘we’ did what/how
– Did you discover something unexpected in the wasted time? a) where/when, b)
with whom, c) ‘we’ did what/how
Duration: 50 minutes
20 April – Circolo Everest
1)Name: Untitled practice
Shared by: Biagio Caravano
Origins: a method that MK dance company used in the process of working Jules’s
Verne “Around the world in 80 days”
Notes: –
Directions:
– all the work is to try to arrive the further you can from your physical body and
arrive to create a posture of the body through the other bodies, the bodies that are
close to you
– leave your self and your body available to get information from the outside in
order to transform this information and give back this information, in a different
way
– you put your body in a condition that is not the one that you usually know
– propose and be influenced
– your personal dance exists from the moment that you allow the dance of the
others to exist around you
– keep in mind: use all space, inside and outside space, tempo
Duration: 30 minutes
clouding: Eleanor – a relationship of this practice with David Zambrano’s “Passing
through”
2) Name: Untitled practice
Shared by: Jacobo Jenna
Origins: a practice that he explores in his work, he experiments with different
groups
Notes: –
Directions:
– in two groups
– to move in a way similar to free stream of consciousness
– the only restriction is to choose a horizontal space, a line in space and move only
in this line, freely, like thinking
– in music
– embody, dive in a form
– 20 minutes each group
Duration: 40 minutes
3) Name: continuation of yesterday’s practice
Shared by: Mara Cassiani
Origins: –
Notes: –
Directions:
– first song: dance the less contemporary you can
– then watch altogether the video
– then divide in two groups in space and do a battle – with the same song
duration:
4) Name: The feedback practice
Shared by: Davide Tidioni
Origins: his own practice
Notes:
Directions:
– On the one side of the space, there is a speaker and the microphone connected
with it is on the other side
– One by one should take the microphone and try to prevent the feedback from the
speaker while going towards it
Duration: 40 minutes (10 minutes per person)
5) Name: Bad things
Shared by: Francesca De Isabella
Origins: her own score, based on her interests
Notes: –
Directions:
– You are listening to a song and you dance
– You are listening to the same song and you repeat your dance but in a way that
you don’t like
– Three people each time
Duration: 1 hour
21 April – apache teatro
1)Name: a voice warm-up exercise
Shared by: Paola Stella Minni
Origins: Sofia Diaz and Victor Roriz, Portuguese performers that work with voice
and use this practice in the workshops they give
Notes: –
Directions: Dance with your soul, dance with your soul dancer, dance with your
soul, Lord is gonna save your soul – she made up the words, the initial words were
something about water, maybe a baptism song
Duration: 10 minutes
2) Name: a voice practice
Shared by: Jiulia Francescini
Origins: Alecio Castellacci, a workshop in SMASH Berlin, three years ago
Notes: –
Directions:
– In two groups or altogether
– Use ear plugs in order to concentrate on yourself and the sounds of your body
– For five minutes, write down what you thought or discovered
Duration: 45 minutes
3) Name: a speaking and moving practice
Shared by: Francesco Laterza
Origins: a variation of a practice from Guy Cools (dramaturg), that he proposed this
practice
Notes: he has an interest on narration of not important things and the relation that
is based on the rhythm of the words/sounds and the listening, but not in a
theatrical way
Directions:
– one person talks about what they do in the morning, the other makes sounds and
the other moves
– each one is on their own trip but also connected to the other two
duration: 15 minutes
Paola refers to Jennifer Lacey’s exercise, where you don’t say what you did in the
morning but dreams
4) Name: –
Shared by: Paola Stella Minni
Origins: –
Notes: –
Directions:
– In the circle again, the same as before
– “I am not a lazy dancer” in a chorus
duration: 10 minutes
5) Name: Cherry blossom scene
Shared by: Roberta Mosca
Origins: Braingym Method invented by doctor Dennysonn, principles of Laban
theory and Forsythe choreographic tools and artists involved in the creation of the
pieces of Forsythe company
Notes: this is coming from a scene she made with another dancer, George Reichel
when they were in the studio, and there was a window you could see a cherry tree
Directions:
– Crossing movements: crossing the central line and touch the opposite side – the
basic crossing movement and variations of that
– Imagine of specific points in the body and then in space
– Experiment with this movement and see how it moves you
– Play with these points in space around yourself
– Try to catch the points, see how many points you have
– Touch the point with one part of your body or more body parts
– Direct or indirect
– Grab a part of your body and move
– You can now connect two points either with a curve or a straight line or otherwise
– Move from one side of the room to the other with the same idea
– In trios, while moving from one side to the other, you use the text: Hey you! Who?
George. Look. Where? There.
Duration: 45 minutes
6) Name: Corpo sonoro
Shared by: Elena Fontana Paganini
Origins: Sabine Uitz, an actress , director and teacher – her group is called Via Rosse
Notes: –
Directions:
In couples, one person manipulates, the other person receives
The person who is manipulated is th one that let the sound go out, closed eyes,
pen mouth, almost passive, trying to not articulate the voice and the sound, trying
ot to control it. The person who manipulates stays behind the other one and pays attention to which movements touch permit to the other person to let more voice go out-
then, the manipulating person leave the other that continues to experiment alone
Duration: 10 minutes each person
7) Name: Danza trapassante
Shared by: Ginevra Ghiaroni
Origins: by Claudia Castellucci, in a workshop called La cadenzaNotes:
Directions:
– In darkness
– Constant transformation
– Music supremacy on the knowing of the body
– Phenomenological movements that can be contained in a continuous history
– Music piece: Giacinto Scelsi – Maknongan, per contrabasso, 1976, Joelle Leandre,
Le reveil profond, Olivier Messiaen – L’alouette calandrelle, Gorecki – Goddnight –
3. Lento, Largo: Dolcissimo, Cantabilissimo
Duration: 20 minutes
Friday 22 April — Spazio O’
1)Name: BoleroEffect
Shared by: Cristina Rizzo
Origins: piece called Bolero, by Cristina Rizzo, 2014
Notes: This is the movement principle and practice that is also the piece, this is a
concept or possibility within the body that found a form, a form with many levels
with a simple common point: an interest in movement itself, with no extra
representational or personal layer, but impersonal and without intentional
meanings. Working with the score of Bolero (Ravel), which sounds quite simple but
involves complex participation of a large orchestra, and which Ravel wrote while
going mad, and asking what is the impact or meaning of this famous piece of
music today, she worked with a DJ to compose a DJ set for this dance that gives a
“Bolero Effect” (it starts slowly, rises, grows to a climax, resolves, and finishes in a
party). Danced with a partner, or a group, the movers support one another in the
ability to dance without stopping for 50min.
Directions:
The proposition is to adhere completely to the music and to what music evokes and
inspires.
With all the levels of complexity that can arise, but the first relation to the music is
basic, while you know you can reach a kind of refinement and precision.
Dancing side by side, the practitioners, in partners pairs, do not look at each other.
They can talk and they can move through space but they maintain a side-by-side
relation. Both leading and following, the aim is unison with the partner.
Duration: of the piece, 50min, of the practice, variable but minimum 40min
2) Name: Higher
Shared by: Michele Rizzo
Origins: from his last performance project called Higher (2015) inspired by the
experience of clubbing
Notes: my intention as a workshop is not to recreate a club, but to reflect on
movement and on dance, and the inevitable question of what is dance. There is a
research on “flow” following a psychologist named Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who
speaks about how we arrive in a flow without even knowing it, but when we arrive
in it we recognise it, from which we arrive at an ability to control the flow, which
produces a state of relaxation because of being able to control it, which passes into
a state of apathy, which passes through worry, then anxiety, then excitation, and
back to flow. One state follows the other and produces a cycleDirections: Following a DJ set, taken from a club in Berlin, whose volume goes up &
down, with instructions ongoing. Starting introspectively (as an “inside job”) and
then opening.
Instructions (with music)
Start in a space with a radius of 1m surrounding you
Listen to the beat and try to stay on the beat
First thing to do is to realise that you are working on dancing alone, by yourself, try
to alienate from the group.
Focus on yourself in spite of the instructing voice.
From this oscillation, move towards stepping with the piece
Music have the supremacy now, this is the principle
You are activating the music
From stepping start moving through the space
If you have a problem to choose where to move in the space, try to imagine that
you are not in a group of people, but in a group of things that are moving.
With two elements: 1) the binary movement 2) the space that is opening around
you. Continue to abstract yourself from the group, it is the most difficult thing to
maintain, but treat it as a simple fact without value judgement.
Step up to the double tempo. As the volume of the music raises, raise the intensity (amplitude and/or frequency) of your movement (still binary, still traveling through space) [music raises]
Continue with little variations of the base of binary movement, keeping in mind the
idea that you are producing the movement, particularly with movement of the legs,
and with the image of the hands/arms as steering the boat
Keep your eyes down because it will help you to be focused inward [music raises
again]. In the next part we will start to raise the eyes, and start to look at the other people we were previously considering objects.
Even if you start to consider that you are in a group of people, continue to dance
for yourself, not with the others. Explore the use of your own eyes, seeing the others, but not interacting with the others. If you meet the gaze of the others, you will probably produce a resonance which effects your movement, but try to continue to dance for yourself without escaping the eye contact with the other.
Try to give equal importance between the moment of meeting eye contact to the
moment of breaking it.
[music raises again for a long time]
Additional proposal:
Now all starting from one side of the room, for 15 minutes, one by one go on the
other side and dance alone, and the one on the other side dances thinking he’s
alone, without concern of the others. After the solos, finish in a circle.
Duration: minimum 45min, variable
3) Name: (Untitled)
Shared by: Davide Tidioni
Origins: Davide’s work on listeningexperiences/performances/practices/interventions
Notes:
Directions: Everyone in the group chooses a position in space. One person closes
their eyes and moves until they touch another person (without reaching with hands
or feet, just the sensing proximity with the whole body). The two then move
onwards (not necessarily in touch with each other, in any direction) until they meet
with others, who then close their eyes and wander, etc until everyone in the group
has their eyes closed. The last person claps their hands to indicate that everyone
has their eyes closed. Then the structure reverses: the wandering people with their
eyes closed move until they touch someone; when they reach someone they open
their own eyes. (The people with their eyes open can also avoid the touch) until
everyone in the room has their eyes open.
Duration: as long as it takes
4) Name: (Untitled)
Shared by: Maria Giovanna Cicciari
Origins: three years so far of collaboration with Annamarie Aimone, and also Sara
Leghissa, working as a filmmaker/videographer and also being interested in the
movement of her own body as a mover of a camera within the work.
Notes:
Directions: One person has a camera and the other creates a “narration” with the
person with the camera. The aim of the exercise is to create a subtle relation
between the person dancing and the person filming, as a duet. The body can be
filmed whole or in detail, anywhere in the frame, partial or whole. The person
dancing makes a relation with the
Duration: 10 min nonstop
5) Name: (Gaze weight shift thing with blind follower open/closed eyes)
Shared by: Eleanor Bauer
Origins: –
Notes: –
Directions:
Duration:
6) Name: Spirit Animal Cards
Shared by: Sara Leghissa
Origins: –
Notes: All the animals are good
Duration: open
nobody's business 