bones” and your pubic bone (the front of the pelvis). This region on each pelvic half is called the ramus—one of two feet of your pelvis.
• Notice if you can rock your weight on the “long walk” between your sit bones and pubic bones—the rami—and stay relaxed in your thigh muscles, separating leg from torso muscles.
• Continue rocking forward and backward, bringing stimulation to the full length of the rami: this long bone on each pelvic half makes a V to the front of the pelvis, like the prow of a ship. The right and left pubic bones connect at the interpubic disc, creating two joints at the front of the pelvis, one for each side.
• Option: you can also bring awareness to one ramus by lying on your side on the floor. Lift the top leg slightly so you can use your hand to trace the “long walk” from sit bone to pubic bone. Change sides. Notice how the bones meet in a V, creating an attachment site for the front triangle of the pelvic floor.
Occipital Condyles of the Skull
Seated or standing, lightly touch the outside flap of your ear that covers the hole (external auditory meatus):
• Imagine your fingertips on each side of the skull meeting in the middle of the head, creating a horizontal axis through the skull, linking ear to ear.
• Nod your head “yes,” and feel the place where the skull meets the top vertebra, the atlas. This one-to-two-inch-wide joint also connects from back to front of the plumb line in efficient alignment.
• Use your hand to feel the curve of the occipital bone, the back of the skull. The condyles are part of the occipital bone, in front of the hole of the spinal cord. The occipital bone is one of the three primary bones linking front to back in the body.
Integration and Differentiation
• Take a walk, feeling the spaciousness of these long walks, these three landmarks in your body. Notice if they increase your sensation of depth, front to back. We often think of our bodies as flat, from photographs and mirrors. But actually, depth is essential in dancing.
TO DANCE
Presentations—Building Duets (Paul Matteson)
30 minutes
Sometimes you get stuck moving in one place; presentations help you get started extending beyond your comfort zone.
Starting seated on the floor with a partner, touching back to back:
• Dancer A presents a limb in space (arm, head, shoulder, foot). Dancer B extends the presented line in space, using hands or other body part to create an energy line.
• Dancer A follows the extended line wherever it takes him or her until the energy resolves. Dancer B accompanies the journey.
• Dancer A presents another limb in a clear directional path. Dancer B extends the line or vector in space and follows through space.
• Stay alert: use strong enough touch to mobilize the presented limb without forcing, or overextending joints.
• Repeat for 5 minutes: presenting, extending, following, until it resolves.
• Change roles. Dancer B presents a limb; Dancer A extends a line (using hands or another body part) and follows it in space, using any body part to reach, any part to extend (5 minutes).
• Alternate presenting, extending the line, without talking. Stay in continuous motion (5 minutes).
• Explore dancing the duet with no one leading (5 minutes).
• Show your duets (5 minutes each).
• Construct set material from your experience, collaboratively building a short, choreographed duet. Retain the freshness of the improvised experience, while remembering landmarks.
• Show and discuss what you find.
PearsonWidrig DanceTheater
Photograph © Tom Caravaglia
TO WRITE
Creative Conditions
20 minutes
You’ve been thinking about your values and longing. Now go a step further. Describe your creative process. What works for you? Consider time, place, and useful stimuli. Identify one aspect of your process that could be more efficient or effective, and explore how that could manifest in your studio practice.
Photograph by Erik Borg, courtesy Middlebury College Archives
STUDIO NOTES
PENNY CAMPBELL leads a warm-up for a Performance Improvisation course at Middlebury College in Vermont (2007):
Dance begins in sensation. It starts with you.
Lying down, eyes closed:
• Begin each time where you actually are, how you feel in this moment, in this place. Notice sensation. Begin moving, finding impulses in your own body, however small or large.
• Don’t judge at this point. Be curious. Just follow the movement that emerges. Notice when you get those little sensations of “yes, this feels right” or “no, don’t want to go there.” Follow the “yes.”
• If you find yourself in familiar movement, look for new initiations, investigate possibilities. Change one little thing, just a little bit. Stop rather than go, go rather than stop, or change level.
• Feel your skin on the floor; gradually warm up through muscles; notice bone. Remember that movement comes from and creates sensation. Follow sensation.
• Return to your breathing; connect to your inner experience.
• Begin as a soloist. Root the whole process in you. Grow a deep root, a strong connection, so when you add vision and dance with others your choices are still sourced in you. Let things unfold moment by moment. If you lose that connection, close your eyes for a moment and reconnect; start again.
• Dancing can begin long before we are actually warmed up. It’s a state of mind, focused attention and intention. Notice when warming up becomes dancing.
• Change levels and explore new spatial orientation. Stay rooted. Don’t judge. Let the little ticker tape of self-criticism become background noise that you ignore. Return to sensation.
• Move each body part: from feet, to ankles, to lower legs, to knees, and on up through the body. Open through your shoulders. Find back-space. Continue moving. Be very specific (the left-nipple dance, the back-of-your-ear dance). Take your time.
• Try a duet with two body parts talking to each other.
• Make a different dance with each arm: find two voices. Feel your head
