How to develop a WITNESS in Improvisational performance

I was running late. A torrentious down pour was hitting the front range and flash flood warnings were happening in Denver- something that is very rare. With a couple a major traffic lights out of commission and an accident on the highway, I was running behind. When I got there though, the door to the studio from the outside was open and two company members were seated near the doorway. Already deep in there seated meditation with the steady rhythm of rain just beyond the doorstep. I set my things down and took a seat near them to drop in. I have to remark that we generally always have some kind of semi-formal if not casual conversation at the beginning. It was a really freeing experience to just come in, be seated, and slide in, without talking.
(the photo is from the recent opening at the DAM... don't know the artist. sorry)

Rain.
Meditation.
Moving in.
I saw the Columns for a moment here and there.
Landscape.

O B J E C T S. I drug in a couple large white acting boxes. A light blue acting box was pulled out. I'd been perched on it for a little. I also pulled out 6, I think, blue tumbling mats. I arranged them in the space so they drew a kind of curved path/wall/boundary along the middle of the space and then kind of played open at each end. The spatial relationships and shapes of the objects shifted throughout the improvisation. It was a lot of fun to play with material like that in the group. I have a regular practice of working with sculptural material at home and in my own personal art work but had never really brought it to the MIL. It was mentioned that it really provided a kind of landscape and defined qualities of space (inner, outer, exterior, interior, along, ontop, etc...) IN THE FUTURE: I would like to bring in some sculptural material that we can play with. The white paper? Fabric? Furniture? Grass?\

Dictionary.
Truck Load of Meaning.
Talking into the Boxes.
Her Skin Was ____ with Glass.
Instruments.
Sliding boxes.
Trio.

SCULPTING THE PRACTICE WITH THE VIEWPOINTS. I'd kind of wanted to do a similar thing this MIL that we'd been able to do this last time: Discover and articulate specific qualities within the viewpoints to focus on. I felt it had kind of happened naturally. That we'd been able to settle into the groove of that MIL with the rain, the mood, the temperature, the day... more naturally. The following is a summary of what I could remember a company member saying in response to me sharing this observation, and I felt it was really powerful:

I have internalized the viewpoints more. Like it's a part of me. Like when you notice your thoughts in meditation, I notice the viewpoints when we are performing. We are our own individuals, and we can really each have our own experience here, but it is such a group. I feel like whatever it is that is moving through me isn't mine- it's the whole groups cause we're all here. We're so in it. Together.

Perhaps the bridging of Contemplative Movement and The Six Viewpoints develops a witness for the improvisational performer that can recognize the ephemeral material as a more readily accessible and welcoming unknown.


During the improvisational score I'd recognized that we each had our individual style of working within the performance. And as much time as we spent watching one another, feeding off one another, repeating, and flocking we still managed to hold on to this... personality... that set us apart. The training we'd collaboratively moved through and digested develops this common consciousness though that allows all our unique perspectives and styles to kind of cooperate and communicate more fluidly. We'd never really instilled a specific kind of dance or performance technique. I feel like what we've mainly been working with is concepts, theories, personal practice, and group awareness. Listening. Responding. Trusting. Letting. Waiting.

If we wanted to codify all this a bit we could say:

0. Regularly practice Improvisation with an "Open Score"
1. Begin with the Columns.
2. Eventually allow the Columns to become a Grid.
3. Simultaneously continue building ensemble skills with various supplemental exercises.
4. Introduce the Six Viewpoints Theory and Practice.
5. Isolate, identify, observe, and participate with ONE viewpoint at a time. (One viewpoint per meeting first).
6. Get to a place where the group can more fluidly practice shifting from one viewpoint or lens to another.
7. About the same time start a regular Contemplative Movement practice: Integrating the vastness into personal practice into open score.
8. Continue to overlap seated meditation, personal practice, isolating the viewpoints, and transitioning into "open score."