Improvisation is slowly becoming a habit.  I find the urge to improv happening regularly, and now I find myself dancing just about everywhere.  This journey has brought me back to my childhood.  Remember when you were a kid, and it didn't matter who watched, you just had to move?  I think improvisation has changed how I feel about dance.  It is no longer about technique, perfection, being the best, getting into companies, or cast lists. Dance has become a way to be the truest me.  So there have been many undocumented improvisation sessions. 

I do want to continue to blog, as a way to see growth and change over time. 

Day 50 was inspired by a solo I am working on.  The solo starts with me seated on a chair upstage right.  I recite the following monologue:

It all started in kindergarten.  For show and tell, one of my classmates brought a video of her tap dancing to Billy Ray Cyrus's Achy Breaky Heart. I was completely mesmerized. At the end of that year, on a cut out cardboard diploma, I declared,"When I grow up, I am going to dance on the stage." 

So today's improvisation is tap dance meets modern dance in a chair. 

This week in rehearsals with Sandra Organ, I have been so mesmerized by the way she uses her back. As a dancer, I have a tendency to move from my extremities.  How can I find a way initiate movement from the inside of my spine? I tried to channel that feeling by thinking of the resistance you find when moving through water.  

I was looking through a book to come up with ideas for today's improvisation.  Nothings was jumping out, but as I flipped through the pages, I realized how interesting it was to flip through the pages.  Aha!  There was my entry point. I couldn't use the book I was looking at as it was a borrowed book, and I vow to return books in the condition I receive them.  So I went to my bookshelf and grabbed The Vision of Modern Dance.  As I started dancing, it just felt right to read.  And I learned the other day that improvisation and talking at the same time is quite difficult.  So I read aloud, and let my body move on autopilot, as the words of modern dance's greats washed over me. 

Claire School of Dance
Fidget, bouncy, and twitch.

My sweet friend Janette loaned me a copy of A Map of Making Dances by Stuart Hodes.  This book is filled of interesting projects to explore and generate movement.  Today, I improvised from the ideas of Project 7: Movement from action: physicalizing.  What every day actions can inspire me?   How can I make sweeping, cleaning, reading, writing, and watching TV a dance? 

For my second go around, I went with the action, to watch. What does it look like to really see, look, and observe while dancing? To perform is to multi-task; one must observe and respond to their surroundings while simultaneously engaging the audience through a purposeful focus. What if that purposeful focus is to simply watch?

I am currently in the process of choreographing a show with the working title How I got here. The show is part narrative, part solo dancing, sharing my journey and the moments that shaped me into who I am today.  One of those stories is about my first experience with improvisation when I was in 4th grade.  My intention is for the movement to be improvised during the show based on how I felt in that moment as a child.  Here are two different sessions.