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APPROACH TO THE CULTIVATION OF AN ARTICULATE, FLEXIBLE, AND BALANCED PHYSICALITY
By DD Dorvillier
Joan Skinner has been developing her approach to movement training over
the last forty years, distinguishing it specifically as the Skinner
Releasing Technique (SRT) and certifying the teachers she trains. SRT
is a dynamic and long-term approach to the cultivation of an
articulate, flexible, and balanced physicality. It's principles are
widely relevant to any person engaged in an activity that requires
articulation, strength, fluidity, stamina, concentration, etc.
The
approach is based on principles of economy of movement,
multi-directional/multi-dimensional balance, with no assumption of a
single fixed center of gravity, and no "up" or "down". With an emphasis
on releasing excess tension and tapping into one's innate strength
rather than force, the class includes the use of tactile and movement
studies with a partner, guided poetic imagery, checklists which
heighten awareness and encourage letting go, carefully selected music
and carefully selected use of silence.
In what Joan Skinner
refers to as the Foundational work, there is a set of 15 carefully
crafted classes that last around two hours each. These classes are
designed as a progression of ideas, despite the fact that the nature of
the work and the learning process is akin to holography, where what
rests in the kinetic memory is a layered experience of information,
images, and actions, rather than a linear procedure. The classes are
best in a context where they can be experienced as a progression with
ideas overlapping, referring back, and evolving.
Strength and freedom of movement
SRT develops
increased strength, flexibility, and freedom of movement without the
repetition of specific movements. There is no need to push the body
beyond its limits, and no adherence to a principle of overload as a
necessary tool for strengthening.
My first encounter with SRT
was with Stephanie Skura – a choreographer who has become a crucial
part of Joan's training course in Seattle. This was in a 15-day
workshop in 1988 at Movement Research in New York. At that point (other
than studying voice with applied Alexander techniques) I had not
encountered any other internally oriented, or self-driven approaches,
in my 12 years of previous dance training. It was the first time I was
not given a step or gesture to repeat in order to achieve a particular
result. One of the most significant memories of this time, for
instance, was during what I later learned was a „checklist", where the
teacher goes through the body bringing awareness to different areas and
encourages the student to practice letting go of excess tension she
might notice, usually in preparation for an „image-action" or
„totality", where the student is able to connect more deeply with an
image while lying on the floor.
I was lying on my back and
Stephanie suggested that we make very small subtle movements of the
head to occur in order to feel the separation of the spine form the
skull, all the while with an image of suppleness in the tissues at the
back of the neck. I had an immediate realization that physical training
does not necessarily have to be large and visible. There was no
question of permissiveness, or discipline, only openness, which lead to
a great desire to learn and an almost automatic ability to concentrate.
I was being encouraged to sense the autonomy of the skull through the
delicate detail of that tiny movement, and it felt like an enormous
step.
I also realized early on that instead of applying an image
(be a leaf) I discovered that I could receive an image and let it
influence me. Obviously it is not the single blow of an image that
moves you, but a swift, complex, and continuous accumulation of
synaptic and energetic articulations, sensations, inundations,
impulses. There is something outside of you, an image that you can
merge with, where you aren't inventing gestures, and moving is
happening.
This idea of non-invented movement, although not
stressed as such in SRT, but a significant bi-product, has had a great
impact on my conceptual approach to choreographic work. By nature I am
interested in stretching the limits of detectable boundaries, out of
curiosity and an excitement for the unknown. To work in the field of
dance and particularly in an experimental and "ultra contemporary"
milieu, moving forward and seeking the new, while simultaneously
cultivating the idea of non-invention, seems like a contradiction. In
making dance, if the fabrication of movement is not the priority then
what is?
I connect non-invention with not-doing, or more
specifically, to acting without force, to listening while doing, to
awareness, ultimately to a sophisticated thought process that
integrates the senses and the intellect and enables you to see what's
going on, what is already in the making, not only because you willed it
so, but because you are participating in it. It is impossible to truly
move forward without an acute and subtle awareness of what is there,
and what is happening.
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