Benno Voorham's second TI class session, June 10 2008 - notes by Jennifer Keller

[ken manheimer]

[below is an HTML version of jennifer's notes from benno voorham's second training intensive class session. also attached, at the bottom, is jannifer's original notes as an ms word document.]

Benno Voorham’s class – Tuesday June 10, 2008

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Scribed by Jennifer Keller
Students present: Jennie, Jennifer, Jeff Bliss, Andrew Wass, Su Li, Tina, Mary Prestige, Nancy, Beth, Alexis, Ray Schwartz, Sean, Leslie Skates, Emily, Margaret Paek


Note: quotations are not exact but my best attempt to replicate Benno’s delivery

We began sitting in a circle, with Benno explaining our beginning activity. “We will warm-up within a score. It will be a gentle, open score to take time to get into dancing. We may go back to yesterday’s score.” Benno asked if there were any questions before starting.

Benno traced the lineage of this score to an American teacher (male, couldn’t remember name). He learned it in Pottsdam in 1999.

“We all start standing. Eyes closed, by yourself. The eyes are closed when not in contact with someone. Sooner or later you will bump into someone (in a manner of seconds or minutes) and you immediately open eyes. Start a duet/trio, or choose to immediately leave each other again. There are two things you can do with eyes closed:

1. you can stand
2. you can walk

Don’t go into the floor.”

This is a chance composition. “The people with eyes closed anchor the space.”

The people with eyes open are:

1. in duets (or a trio, quartet but not likely more than that)
2. aware of the space

“Do you welcome someone into the duet using a round robin format? Do you leave to make space for the new person to join or do you [and your partner] move out of the way [of the person with eyes closed] to continue your duet?” The score allows you to make choices.

“Don’t be too ambitious. Take your time in the contact improvisation to get yourself moving.”

“We will do it to music – 16 to 17 minutes. It’s a training. Do I want a duet at this moment? Don’t enter out of politeness. It’s also a training for ending a duet – recognizing if it’s complete…How you walk is up to you.”

After the 17 minute score, the class again gathered in a circle and discussed the exercise. Benno asked, “Did you manage to open your eyes?” The class responded that there was a reluctance. Benno encouraged everyone to “Still, make that shift. There’s a distinction between having eyes closed and open. It’s concrete. It’s prosaic, not poetic.”

“We meet someone from this dream landscape and what are we going to do?”

Benno discussed that people are magnets. Even in a big studio, we gravitate toward the center.

Jennifer: The score challenged me to flip-flop my habit of assessing the space when standing, and becoming more internally focused in duet dancing. This score teaches you to become aware of the composition of the space while engaging in a contact improvisation.

Benno: “In this score you have a surprise meeting. You don’t pick your partner.”

Andrew: I started a contact improvisation with the feet which is a more unusual starting point.

Beth: Each duet was like a snapshot.

Benno: “Let’s do another one. Let’s put another option in. You have the choice of leaving the floor to observe. We will go to the window side [of the room] to define clarity of who is out and who is in. We will put another music on – shorter pieces with different textures.”

Nancy: “for sixty minutes?” [class laughs – earlier Nancy mistook 16 minutes for 60 minutes]

Benno explained that he will let us know the last song. We will end in standing.

After a 42 minute, 17 second improvisation, Benno said, “Let you start this time.”

Sean: I really love this score.

Andrew: I could be more compositional [during this second round of the score],

Maya: I played with the stance in the standing part…

Nancy: I felt like I was at an unusual dinner club. It was classy and elegant.

Su: I watched someone cross from upstage to downstage and not get hit.

Benno: I found myself behind the curtain, in a dark tunnel.

Ray: the waiting [with eyes closed] was a “state.” I felt presence, quiet, openness, fear, the need to rest but fearful about how to engage.

Josh: I watched people watch the dance.

Jennie: I entered a state that gives juicy dances. I go inside, tracking my body, and come back out – it has that oscillation.

Margaret: I was having dances with my imagination while my eyes were closed.

Jeff: While my eyes were closed, someone backed away from me…many times! [class laughs]

Alexis: I was walking, and walking but hearing people giggle. I was in a forest of pixies.

“Work in duets. Room dances. Two people are in a small room.” Benno asked Mary to demonstrate with him. The room is not much bigger than a floor board (4 x 5 feet). There are distinct roles. There is a mover and an observer. The mover plays with eye focus in three states:

1. play with the focus on your own body
2. play with the focus on what’s happening in your “room”. That includes your partner. We don’t literally have walls but limit your focus as though we do.
3. Play with the focus out of the room. Out of the house.

The observer watches the mover. Her task is to witness my dance. It is a duet but with different roles. At some point Mary starts a duet in contact primarily out of which we disengage again and we switch roles. Until I decide to engage myself with a contact duet with Mary. You create a history with your duet. How are my decisions effected by constantly being watched by someone? This training avoids ‘foggy presence’ and ‘gazing.’ The clarity of focus directly clarifies the movement intention.”

Afterwards, each duet took time to discuss, then the class came together as a whole.

“This structure is a vehicle. What became apparent was clarifying intention in the duets and taking time for that. For example, Su was on Andrew’s back like a monkey. Usually, that is a transition place. But to be there fully and experience what is there, I really like to see that. Sometimes you process what you are doing while you are doing it; sometimes you have the idea first.”

Jennie: I had a moment of interaction with my neighbor like looking through a window.

Su: Putting eye focus into a ci dance gave a dramatic intention to the dance.

Benno: You may want to have a smooth, juicy duet but this may give more theatrical play and emotion. Using the eyes and listening to the skin are complimentary.
They are two sources of information that run parallel and intertwine… I guess it’s time for lunch.”