laminar and turbulent
dumping [contact improvisation]: a sudden release of your «full weight» resulting in a fall (onto your partner or a surface).
dumping in contact improvisation can be dangerous, but doesn’t have to be. the ‘dump’ has negative connotations in ci practice as something that beginners do out of naivety.
having seen «chute» and fall «after newton» (see videoda) i question this perspective. i feel that the ‘dump’ was central to the development of ci practice, an facilitates a more balanced ci aesthetic.
pouring (and sloughing) is the universally applied solution to dumping. there is nothing wrong with the ‘pour’ other than it avoids the dump problem. how can it be improvisation if you avoid a specific context (the dump) all the time?
imagine you a being lifted by your partner, and fully extended above their head. the majority of practitioners will look for a smooth, «efficient» flow downwards. you may feel a desire to ‘dump’ (the what if?) but deny it.
the same is true for instigating contact, and aerial work. there is a learned bias for avoiding leverage that would lead to your partner involuntarily ‘dumping’*.
so the question i asked was «how to make the ‘dump’ safe?», and began to develop a practice to that end. without going into details now, i went «old school» ci practice and dropped most of the ‘fundamentals’ and «common» skills from my teaching.
the accumulated knowledge of ci (exercises, practices, philosophy) results in students being given the solutions rather than finding them «experientially». i’ve found the best ‘teachers’ are the 1st and 2nd generation (contact) improvisation practitioners from a ‘select’ lineage. they share, but encourage you to develop your own praxis.
so «dampening» is my (our) praxis, and this ‘fall’ is an example, its a small crop from a 10 min sketch that just ‘happened’:
dampening in contact ‘collisions’
it’s best if you download the ipod/psp version and view it with quicktime. that way you can scrub through the video s l o w l y. to us this seems a different set of aesthetic and options/chocices. something to add to the milieu of ci praxis.
more about dampening another day … thank you for reading.
*yes, i know …
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