17B. Jog Patterns

• Repeat exercise 5B.

The first few times students explore Jog Patterns, their patterns are general, generic. For example, they may run back and forth across the space, in circles, or they may split into two groups and move toward and away from each other. Perhaps, they may explore diagonals. Their main concern is not the use of space, so much as keeping track of everyone in the room and refining their communication skills as an ensemble. Now, with more skills under their belt, they're freer to create intricate spatial designs and relationships. They're no longer just bodies in space. The basic form of the jog hasn't changed, but the subtle expressions on their face and shifts of energy and posture indicate the story of the jog.

They're all running after each other, round and round. They're trying to catch up to one another. The spirit is playful. One splits off and runs to the corner, then jogs in place. The others notice. Some continue in the circle, but others peel off and race to the corners of the room. Soon, all the corners fill up. A challenge sets up. You can see it in their eyes. Who's going to leave the corner first? The tension builds. Suddenly, they all break out, wildly running in haphazard directions just barely missing each other. Gradually their run cools down, loses steam and they're in a line headed backwards toward the rear wall where they sedately jog, their chests slightly raised, in place, facing the audience ...

We'll bring the peculiarities of solitary investigations of Eyes Closed into communication/relationship, as Jog Patterns did.

17C. Shape/Space/Time

• In partners, do a movement improvisafion. Focus on time, space, shape and dynamics. Relate your time patterns, your speeds, when you move and when you don't. Be aware of how you use the space in the room, collectively and individually. Contrast your shapes and energies, at other times be alike.

• We have isolated all of these elements in previous exercises. Now, we are putting them together.

• Be sparing with your movement: concise, precise, conscious. Fill every movement with clear intention, so that your partner understands your intention with a particular movement at a particular time. The movements will have a particularity to them because they're about you. They are your responses to whatever is going on with your partner at that moment. Stay awake.

What's a dream? Isn't it an accumulation of images and stories that erupt from our mind and appear to be real? Don't we believe our dreams while we're in them, while asleep? In the morning, when we wake up, we discover that we were dreaming and that the episodes weren't real after all, but dreams. Sleep is what we think was real. These improvisations are dreams. They're not too different from the dreams we create while we sleep. And, in a sense, not too different from the dreams we create while we're awake. Aren't the day to day perceptions that we create in our minds dreams, too? Aren't we always giving meaning to what has no inherent meaning? Shapes, color, movement, smells. Aren't our interpretations like dreams? So let's make dreams here with time, space, shape, energy and feeling. Let's make stories.

We improvise. Story unfolds. Story is made up from a series of episodes, a chain of actions, causes and effects. There may be a crisis, resolution, question. The events may make sense or they may not, they may be cohesive or not.

Our job is to accept the story as it is, just notice it, and refrain from planning ahead, or writing a script in our minds. Mental work lures our attention from the present and we miss out on the current activity. It's particularly dangerous because our partners can't read out minds. We lose contact with them; they lose contact with us. Then, our actions seem to come from hidden agendas (unexpressed thoughts), and our partners can't understand us.

Because Space/Shape/Time is a movement improvisation, dance-trained students tend to relate to the movement through the form, kinetically, and neglect the story. It's important to set an intention for the improvisation before it begins. It's true that in many of the exercises in this training, we isolate and focus on form, but our intention here is to connect through story.

On Day Fifteen, in Face the Music, we specifically lived through our face. Let's focus on the face again. Sometimes, the expression on the face and the actions of the body are incongruent. Or, the face doesn't match up with the feeling. Let's practice putting the two together.