Unknown Location (1) experiment

Materials

• 2 dancers - Amy Bell and Terri Carter
• 2 pairs of goggles and cotton wool to eliminate sight
• Voice recorder and/or video camera

Improv. structure

Starting point: Atrium building. Amy and Terri place goggles with cotton wool in over their eyes.

Amy and Terri are guided, now completely sightless, to Location 1.

Note: Goggles were applied before reaching location to experience a journey without sight and so that they had no visual reference points that would influence their movement. This was to ensure movement purely comes from touch and sensations.

Arrive at Location 1.

After being placed in the unknown space, bring awareness to surrounding atmosphere - noise, air, texture of the ground beneath feet. Take a moment for stillness and then bring awareness to the body - breath, how do you feel? i.e. nervous/claustrophobic or confident/free. Is this reflected in posture/movement?

	Space	Time	Balance	Touch/sensations
i.e	Restricted/open	Slow/fast/broken	Controlled/falling	Soft/rigid/attract/repel
Terri	Space feels small, conscious of walking into obstacles, uneven ground.	Journey to location felt long. In location – nearby car noise gives a sense of regular time. As the experiment progresses to quieter area, time feels longer – maybe because she cannot use car noise as reference. Journey back to campus – quick.	Off balance when ground is more uneven i.e. slopes to paths.	Cold stone/walls. Dry hands. Disorientated. Using shapes of objects as reference points. Dark areas/sunny areas in location – affects temperature. Repelled by soft furry textures – moss/webs. Movement is small, nervous “I don’t feel like I want to do any dancing” even in an open space. Repeats padding of foot a lot. “I don’t think I can”…do proper improv.
Amy	Space feels open, like a “big bubble”, air feels thick through fingers – like water. Hair keeps tickling face. Soft grassy ground.	Long journey to location. Now in location, time feels normal. Intensity of lots of sensations affect sense of time – time begins to drag. Journey back to campus – quick.	Feels grounded – balance not affected.	Car sound really close. Disorientated. Repelled by cold, stone, rigid objects – imagining gravestones and sentimental value. Dark areas/sunny areas in location – affects temperature. Attracted to softer textures – grass. Tends to reach and extend to feel surroundings –fairly confidently - with occasional padding of foot in smaller spaces – “I know that that’s a really key movement I’ve done”. Agree with Terri – moving/dancing properly seems unachievable in this environment. Hypersensitivity in touch and sound begins to make her hungry.

Location has remained unknown to Amy and Terri to prevent visual/concepts to influence movement.

The experiment did not go exactly to plan, but was still very productive. Originally, movement was to be improved in location, however, the experience was much more intense than predicted - making the girls feel that it was not possible to begin to dance when they had not yet felt comfortable in moving normally without inhibition. Though this feeling of stunted physicality was shared by both Amy and Terri, their movement quality on location was contrasting.

Amy was generally more confident without sight, she took my hand on journey to location, where as Terri felt more comfortable by linking arms. Amy's movements were generally open and stretched out, regular speed with occasional padding of foot or tracing surfaces to help with spatial awareness. Terri's movements were minimal, lots of padding her feet and feeling objects in location. Movements from each dancer reflects their initial response to the space - where Amy felt like she had lots of space to move freely in - like a "big bubble" around her, where as Terri felt the space had obstacles that she was worried about knocking into.

Terri and Amy's experience was then used as the stimulus for a short improvisation back in the studio - attempting to recreate postures, sensations and movement they used on location. They also drew pictures of what they imagined they had touched and wrote down what they felt to be key in the experience - which was reflected in movement qualities and shapes during the improvisation.

Next step - adding audio, playing with speeds, playing with placement -on Mon 19/5/14