Unison Movement

This may be my last post about this group.  We will finish up the semester in a week and then I will be away, teaching in Arizona.  (You are all coming to the workshop, aren't you?  See an early post to get the information.)  When I return I will be focused on teaching my course Group Improvisation at Hampshire College. 

This week I wanted to find a way to feel us all moving together as a group.  In some ways, this is more my need than my students' need.  I think the students get a lot out of being active, of moving in ways that they don't get to move at other times in their lives.  There is the social component, as well, of just getting to interact with other people.

Still, as I have said in previous posts, it often feels doubtful that I have reached everyone or helped everyone engage in their movement.  And we don't always achieve a unity of feeling as a group.  So I followed a thread of unison movement throughout the class, to see if I could heighten that sense of moving together.

We began with our names and movement activity.  I took it from there into exploring the parts of the body- how can you move your fingers, your elbows, etc.  This direction gives me the opportunity to notice what someone is doing - which may be totally unrelated to the group - and to say "so and so is moving his head.  Let's see if we can move our heads in the same way." This can pull someone into the group process. 

When we stood we took turns leading group in different ways of stretching and twisting.  From there I just noticed what different individuals were doing and then amplified their movement and had the group join in. We did some shaking and some turning.  We did some wiggling.  We began to do some flopping:  flopping our arms and our legs.  I had people stand facing a partner holding hands while flopping one leg and then the other. We decided to swing and after experimenting with different ways to swing we held hands in a circle and swung our arms in and out.

While still in a circle I asked the group how could we move together (still holding hands).  One person led us in and out, then led the circle around to the left and then the right.  The group followed well, but had a tendency anticipate the changes.  I asked them to wait a moment, and "let the group finish what it's doing.  Our leader hasn't started moving yet." 

I felt things had been tightly controlled for long enough, so I had the group break apart and start walking.  I called out:  Walk behind some one.  Walk by yourself.  Walk behind a different person. 

This turned into a very fun chase as we naturally formed a line and the leader tried to "catch the tale" and have someone to walk behind. 

Then we scattered again and I called out:  Walk beside someone. 

Then we walked towards someone and then away from that person.  I found that I had to use specific names, i.e.  "I am walking towards so and so and now I am walking away."  X is walking towards Y.  Now can they walk away."  This also turned into a spontaneous game of dodge and weave.

We followed this with relaxation.  We sat on the floor and alternated making ourselves tight and loose.  Then we tested each others arms to see if we could really relax our arms.

Our final activity was unison movement in couples.  I had one pair of dancers at a time stand in the center of the room.  One led and the other followed.  First I asked the leader to "make interesting movements" and I asked the follower to try to do the same movement at the same time.  Then I said to the leader, "If your partner is doing your movement, can you change what you are doing so he can be with you?"  And I said to the partner, "Are you really doing what your leader is doing?  Do you need to change what you are doing?  Maybe you need to look at your partner."  For some of the couples this worked very well. 

Overall, the class went well. I felt we achieved the group sense that I wanted during our walking activities. 

When we re-convene after the holidays, it will be a slightly different group.  I need to change the meeting time to Monday afternoon and some of these students have other commitments on that day.