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On October 6, 2020, I had an improvisation with Rick, related to the shoulders. My feeling that day was pretty mundane but I felt that I needed a lesson to change and discover other movements because I got stuck in the same gesture. My arms were the start of my movement all the time, which was boring.

Before dancing, Rick Nodine explained to us what the shoulder is, which is, collarbone, scapula and humerus. It was very important for me to describe it, touch it, feel these bones in order to understand this part of the body and to be able to play and dance with them.
When he was explaining the anatomy of the shoulder, straightaway I took my anatomy book to see the bones.

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So Rick asked us to start the movement by our shoulders. When we started to experiment, it was complicated to stay in the rules but after I found new steps and movement that I will not try naturally. I felt that dancing more with my shoulders was easier to move my feet and doing torsion. They made me turn a lot like a puppet ! I imagine because my attention of my shoulders was a lot up and going in and out.
You can see on the picture on the right the image that I had in my head when I was doing that.
It helped me to travel also.
However, Rick asked us during the process to try finding a connexion between shoulders and pelvis, and it made a huge difference. I used level changes, travelling and movements totally in a different way than before. I was more on my feet, more stable.
At the end, I felt the fatigue of my shoulders and that my body worked not like usual. I found new pathways and travelling, movements and even if I didn't share this improv with someone else, my creativity and my positivity came back again !! It gave me thinking of new things when being in your room was getting boring and repetitive.

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This is a picture which made me think about the improvisation with Rick Nodine. I was moving a lot my shoulders to make move my body. Felt that if someone took my improvisation in pictures, it will look the same. This picture is from a pice that I performed a year ago with Alexandre Lesouef. The name of the choreography is CHAOS CARNAVAL.

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8 October 2020
This improv class was an optional course that I took in zoom as well. My body that day wanted to move and use the space that I had ! This is exactly what I needed for Jovair Longo's lesson. The only instruction at the start was to walk then he explains the rules little by little. I remember being super happy and excited to do this class with Domenico because I love his work and when you like the musician the lessons are often very fun.

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Feel your feet and the body changes you make when walking, was the first rule. I really like to walk and feel my body before dancing, you can feel its support more.
After, dance can fit into these steps. It's very agreable to add movements and try to change the rhythm of your step. It's difficult to keep the rhythm in your feet and continue to walk while you develop your movement in the up of body. It gives me so much energy and adrenaline, it was very excited for me to do this improvisation. Maybe because of the rhythm but I think also because of Domenico who played something very nice and

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Also this improvisation made me think about Yvonne Rainer in the way of composition, she uses a lot the walk in some pieces that I saw from her.

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12 January 2021 (This course was zoomed online, during the lockdown. )
Before this class I remember the energy I had.
I had rested well and when I have this energy I know that I will enjoy an improv class and be curious to search and find new pathways and movements. On top of that, I was at home in my living room, the space was not small and I was alone, no one could distract me.

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For an hour we danced without stopping. His working method made me think of the motion  "Gaga", a method that I already practiced. You have to  dance for an hour without giving up while the teacher adds "rules".The work was totally different because we had to dance from the step. Then this improvisation made me think of Rudolf Laban. The rules was step by step using his four major axes which are Body, Space, Effort, Shape. Firstly, we worked about the initiation of the different parts of the body. We start with the feet up to the eyes. Then, we had to chose between two parts like head and pelvis or fingers and toes. It was very nice for my body because it's pleasant when you warm up by letting your body guide you. It’s quite liberating. The music he put on was recorded. We didn't have live music but his playlist gave me a lot of energy and it inspired me new movements, especially in the jumps, which I'm not used to.
Next, we played with speed and slowness which the idea of changing straightaway the energy or in crescendo and decrescendo.
Next we worked about dancing and travel or dancing on a spot. Also we used the stillness.
The complicated thing to me was to surprised me when I have to play and choose when I want to stop. Sometimes is very nice to let someone tell you when you have to stop because you are not ready and it changes the pause and the movement.
At the end we tried to mix all of this rules and play with it. For me it was nice and I felt mostly free because we had so much informations and ideas different that our instinct let us doing new interesting things. I couldn't be repetitive and it felt very enjoyable when you are alone since a long time and you push hard yourself to try new pathways and movement.

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On Monday March 8, 2021, I returned to London so I could have lessons at school and on zoom.
I had the opportunity to take improvisation lessons with Rhys Dennis. I already had technical classes with him in first term, but it was very different because it wasn't improvisation.
Online, these improv classes used a lot the speech, but one time he asked us to do something very different.
The exercise was to shake our body  for 15 minutes and trying not to stop. But also to increase this shaking, throughout the body starting from 1% to 300%.
When he was explaining this exercise, I was both worried because I have already exercised the shaking in my courses at the Batsehva intensive or Hofesh Shechter intensive and it is a quality of movement very hard to find for me and even more to keep for several minutes. However I was also very curious and happy to exercise it alone in my bedroom because I could work at my own pace and really find out how to "shake" my body. I was especially happy to learn it at school and to work on because it's a real difficulty for me in dancing.

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During the improvisation, it was both complicated and at the same time liberating. The fact that Rhys keeps talking and telling us the parts that are still too tense and managing the time, the crescendo of shaking, has allowed me to really take care of my body and my work.
Closing my eyes also helped me feel each part and stay in the exercise until the end.
My problem in dancing is often the breathing and I felt that I had finally found the relationship between breathing and rebound in the body. It was quite complex and as soon as I lost my rhythm I would stop for a few seconds and then start again.
The more I do improvisation lessons, the more I realize that everything is connected, and that breathing helps movement.
The words that came back several times were head, neck, breastbone and shoulders. These were the hardest parts of the body to release for everyone in the zoom.
I imagine that we think so much about bouncing in the legs and pelvis that our upper body doesn't think about slacking off and when finally you find how to relax it, it's much easier to shake your body.
I learnt a lot from this exercise and it helped me for the other improvisation or even technical classes. It facilitate me to release my body even more. I hope that I will have the opportunity again to work on an exercise like this one, alone on zoom or even tried with other people in the studio !

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Picture of dancers doing Gaga dance, created by Ohad Naharin

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Ben McEwen, loop, reverse, retrogade motion

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Ben McEwen, loop, reverse, retrogade motion

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This improvisation is part of the end of the third term, Monday June 14, 2021 with Ben McEven. We did several exercises and then we talked about LOOP, REVERSE and RETROGADE MOTION. He explained to us the meaning of all the words and then we were able to experiment it. During the explanation, the images of Ben seemed pretty clear to me but when he showed us an example I was immediately confident and figured out what I had to do, which is very nice. When I'm not sure where the teacher is trying to guide us, I get quite confused and can't fully concentrate on my work. This time, I knew what I had to search and how.

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We research this looping alone doing a long time, which was quite interesting. Then, Ben guide us to not keep this repetition and a the stagnant movement and gives us different things that we can try as travelling with the looping movement or enlarge it or change the speed. Any part of the body can be used so it's quite complicated when you don't choose the arm but it's challenging ! I like when the movements are circular and even more when you can repeat them because you can play with them. I did not know looping before but it is very similar to what I like to do and so I had a lot of fun doing this class.

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Solo research around ballet and contemporary 

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Solo research around ballet and contemporary 

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Today is June 25, 2021, and before finishing my first year at LCDS BA1, I wanted to improvise on my own, with rules that I impose on myself. In the year I had for the first time classes dedicated only to improvisation, so I followed the teachers, their rules, their aids, .. When I was alone, I took the pleasure of not giving myself any rules except to try to play with the music, which I put randomly.
In this half of the term, I feel that my body and my mind are working a lot on ballet dance, maybe due to the change of teacher.
Here's why, for the first time, I want to try an improvisation of ballet dance broken by contemporary dance, we can call it Neoclassical because this word means "Who looks like classical art, seeks to imitate it/ relating to, or constituting a revival or adaptation of the classical especially in literature, music, art, or architecture.". I think it's a great challenge and research that can be interesting today, because of my experience after weeks of intensive work on this discipline, which is not my original dominant.

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After dancing and watching this video, I feel that it was complicated to try to mix those both disciplines. We can see on the video the way that I try to find a balance with my body but also a balance with those dances is unstable.
I feel disappointed a bit about the result and I want to work more on it, maybe a day when I will have a better level in ballet or try it on another music. Maybe on a abstract music it will be easier. Trying to follow the music wasn't helping but gave me more sense and mouvements in this improvisation.

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When I'm watching all my presentation here, I feel that I did a lot of improvisations alone and I wanted to write them more than the others because I didn't exchange or have a discussion about them with someone.
I am lucky, I did a lot of improvisations in group in my classes and we talked a lot about each after so I still keep them in mind and think of them.
Also I never had proper contemporary improvisation class before and I learn a lot this year about each and I think that improvisation alone on zoom allows to look deeper and enjoy even more your own research in those classes.