Thursday 22 October 2015

Martha Graham and George Balanchine

Martha Graham and George Balanchine
Notions of knowledge,certainty and body positivism.
I've really enjoyed looking at these two incredible people who had such a huge impact on American dance and also dance worldwide. They came from very different perspectives in Graham wanting to dance in an expressive way that wasn't controlled by what she saw as the confines of Ballet technique. Balanchine came from a very classical  view point and wanted to to see this ballet technique developed. Graham created a movemnet vocabulary for the human body to express itself whereas Balanchine used the existing ballet vocabulary to express. I beleieve both had an uderstanding that their bodies were able to express and learn through movement often by-passing their brains. Balanchine is quoted as saying, "Don't think, dear, do!".

Graham is quoted as saying "I wanted to begin not with characters or ideas, but with movements... I wanted significant movement. I wanted it to be fraught with inner meaning, with excitement and surge." Balanchine also often started with movements rather than characters and was the first to develop a full length ballet without story line in "Jewels".

Whilst Graham wanted to impact political and social views in society with dance that reflected much of this, Balanchine wanted to create an audience that could appreciate the Arts in all their 'beauty'. They both were challenging the world around them but in very different ways. Graham's way was far more raw and wanted to get to the heart of issues whereas Balanchine wanted to create culture in America and it to be American not European.

They both believed that the body was an instrument to be used to communicate experience as action. Not necessarily stories but they were able to show the experience they had of life through the body and therefore understood the body could gain knowledge through experience. Therefore they both must have beleieved in embodiment.

Tuesday 6 October 2015

Skype call 4th October 2015

Finding Time
We spent quite a while talking and sharing about ways to 'find time' to study for our MA. I found this extremely useful as I tend to be the sort of person who likes to block out chunks of time and if that gets interupted I struggle and feel like I'm on a slippery path away from ever getting to do the MA. Some useful advise was to make sure your family are on board ,which I know mine are. However sometimes they forget!! Also to get work on board which I know I haven't particularly done and will try to do.
The next thing was to find small pockets of time. I get to the point where if I have a spare 30 min I think I haven't got time to get anything significant done, so I don't. Some of the others on the skype call were encouraging to say use this time to read even just a few pages of a book or go back over something already done. If I can make a list of things that I need to do then when I have a few moments then I can jump straight back in where I left off.
Another suggestion was to keep notepads and pens around the house so that if you think of something that is related to your MA you can easily jot it down. Helen was also suggesting that if you're in the car to use voice memos.
Finally having cut everything into bit size chunks the other suggestion was to take a whole day and sit in a library without your phone so that you can get away and really focus,
I'm hoping to try a combination of the above and really hoping that this term goes really well.