Reading Notes on the Alexander Technique and rehearsing Rising Tide

​July 17, 7:50 pm
AT Project Work
 
Notes on Solo run for Marissa
Pacing in the beginning is nice, going from moments of focused, contained, even tone to quick bursts
Habits of phrasing and repetition – can I stay with it longer or let go of urge immediately?
Deliberate, attentive
Jumping section – shift that worked
When I am shaking head – shift from what I am seeing to the action itself – why? How?
In between focus – clear with gesture, clear with big movement, unclear other places
 
Vocabulary of dance is set, however the intention shifts? The experience of sensation shifts?
How to invite new vocabulary into dance, how to incorporate it so that it feels as integrated as the rest
 
“This approach to one’s self and one’s training requires a radical shift in attitude. Instead of seeing the body as a static set of conditions to be positioned, corrected, tamed, and polished, we become a continually changing process of events, responses, and choices that may be observed, quieted, redirected, or left alone” (Bluethenthal 1996, 84).
 
“Real change means an increase in kinesthetic acumen – changing established ways of moving rather than simply layering more “moves” or “skills” over your existing habitual movement patterns” (Vanier 11).
 
Choice over habit
 
“In the Alexander Technique we learn to pay attention to a number of things simulatanesouly: we can attend to how we are using ourselves while we notice who is around us, what the temperature is, what the teacher is saying, what the musicans is playing all at the same time. We try not to narrow our concentration or limit ourselves to one perspective; rather, we try to be available and versatile so that we do not get caught in just one train of thought” (Vanier 85)
 
“Having the ability to inhibit our usual way of performing something allows for choice, letting us be selective in determining not only what we need to do, but what we need to stop doing. If you are interested in changing the way you perform a certain movement, you cannot implement the change once you have started doing the movement. You need to stop first, and give yourself time, even if it is a nanosecond, for something different to occur; otherwise you will be “off and running” into your habitual movement pattern” (Vanier 112)

​“… More important, you are allowing your system to reorganize itself” (Vanier 113)
 
“But it is not simply a matter of stopping the jump itself; it is stopping your desire to complete the jump. It is this desire, or stimulus to jump, that triggers your habitual way of jumping” (Vanier 114)
 
“Nothing on Count One” exercise
“It is interesting to notice what you tend to do on count one. Becoming aware of your impulses at this moment is instrumental in discovering your patterns of movement” (Vanier 115)
 
“Boiled down, it all comes to inhibiting a particular reaction to a given stimulus. But no one will see it that way. They will all see it as getting in and out of a chair the right way. It is nothing of the kind. It is that a pupil decides what he will or will not consent to do” (Alexander 1995, 203).
 
Back of sitz bones staying connected to wherever you are sitting – moment in dance when I am sitting on my heels
 
Where do you feel work / effort? (Ask this as I solo)
 
Mapping of ankle joint
Mapping of hip joint
 
I can not let go of the image / languaging of folding in the hip joint or a hip crease
I can not seem to imagine another possibility
 
I can not suspend my belief, I know that the femur continues beyond that place…but I don’t “know” that….
 
It is shifting my thinking higher? Forward and up?