Improvisation class in a dance studio (video)

Improvisation in dance

Improvisation in dance is the ability to move without memorized movements, without any patterns or combinations. How can this be achieved? Easily! How to learn? The most difficult question.

We have some tips. First, buy a player or record music on your mobile phone so that music is with you more often, it will become easier for you, you will begin to feel it better! And someday try to walk your way from the metro or stop to home to the music, let your steps fall into the rhythm, turns fall into pauses, and jumps into sounds. Try changing the music in the player, and each time your path will be more interesting, it will be different. Try to change the styles and rhythm of the melodies, and the path will become faster and slower, the accents will fall on different segments.

After such training, it will seem to you that the whole world is dancing, that everything is subject to some kind of rhythm. That's right, we often encounter at least two rhythms every day. This is a watch and a heart. And each heart has its own rhythm and it is always with you. (I guess this is how I danced before - I didn’t listen to the music, but I listened to my heart). And as soon as you start playing music, it seems that everyone is dancing: someone in front falls into the rhythm of the melody, cars slow down at a traffic light during an interesting pause in your song, a traffic cop funny waved his wand in a beautiful accent, a couple of people tripped unsuccessfully, clearly falling on the change of rhythm in the composition. You just have to imagine, and you will see one beautiful dance that lasts a lifetime. And everyone has their own. The main thing is to find yourself.

If everything works out for you, try to transfer all your skills to dancing. Choose a place where no one will distract you from your studies for at least an hour and a half. Turn on the music and remember your way home. Remember how you fell into rhythm with your steps, how funny you jumped over a puddle, how you slipped and tried to hold on by waving your arms. Listen to the melody, determine the rhythm of your step and start moving. Add turns, shorten distances, a little more arm movements, stops, pauses, waves. You should succeed, not right away, but then it will give results. It seems to you that you can do everything or that you already know how, and you begin to get hung up on the same thing, and there is a lot of repetition. Easy to diversify. Draw small squares on the asphalt or floor with chalk. Move along them, you will see how difficult it is to take simple steps, getting into the squares and, of course, into the rhythm. If you're tired of this too - turn the dance around, start it on your knees or even lying down, this will immediately diversify your set of movements. Try to move to the same composition both quickly and slowly, because the same melody can have several performances. Try to translate the words of the song, because when the meaning of the song is clear, you can reflect the feelings with which a person performs it. And some moments can even be depicted with movements, and some ordinary things will turn into beautiful dance movements. Many Western choreographers specialize in this. This is called illustration.

Use insulation. It's a fun way to improvise. It is often used by breakers who dance the robot. This is when parts of the body move clearly in turn, first the arm, then the head, then the right leg, again the head, left arm, left leg, etc. This will force you to come up with new movements with individual parts of the body. You will be forced to make your imagination work so as not to repeat yourself. The options are endless. Imagine that your hands are tied, but you need to dance, dance with your feet, or vice versa - you are standing knee-deep in cement, but your arms, neck, and back can move freely. Mentally transport yourself to Africa, dance on the hot sand barefoot, or to the Arctic - slide on the ice. Show what you can do in a room with a low ceiling, or maybe even in a small room filled with furniture, or in zero gravity, or maybe waist-deep in water or completely immersed in it. Your dance and your possibilities are unlimited, turn on your imagination, your dance will become unique, your style will be special, express feelings and emotions through movements. After all, this is exactly what our ancestors did. They could explain sympathy, hunger or hatred only by movements. So you will plunge into this world of dance.

I remember the words of Leur (this French woman came up with her own style of Ragga Jam - she talked about her friend from Brazil, who dances house on the ground (lots of moves close to the floor) better than anyone she knows (and she knows from her 20 years of dancing experience many). One day she asked him how he comes up with so many movements below and manages to perform them so quickly. His answer stunned her, and for me it opened up new dimensions. It turned out that he spends a lot of his free time at the zoo, watching monkeys!!! And it’s true, they are very mobile, they look like us and they seem to be dancing. And add technique, speed, manner, rhythm, you get excellent movements.

Think about it, dance is all around us. It's easy to come up with new moves by looking at the world. This is what the heroine of the film Sweetie did when she looked at basketball players or girls with jump ropes. And what a great combination it turned out to be, using feints from streetball and the girls’ jumps. But there are other sports that can be transferred to dance, there are workers repairing the road, children who funny somersaults or play something, traffic controllers, insects, various mechanisms. Every day something new is born, you just need to learn to see it and not let it pass you by. It’s easy to come up with new movements and combinations, but showing the style and presenting the dance is another matter. You have to work hard at it, you have to dance and train a lot. For some it will be easy, but for others it will be a struggle every day. BUT the result will still come. After all, whoever gets sick from dancing is sick for life. And for many, dance becomes air and food. There are many such people, and when we dance, we live.

Improvisation as one of the forms of development of choreographic art

Bibliographic description:

Darenskaya, N.V. Improvisation as one of the forms of development of choreographic art / N.V. Darenskaya. — Text: immediate // Culturology and art history: materials of the II International. scientific conf. (Kazan, May 2020). - Kazan: Buk, 2016. - pp. 42-43. — URL: https://moluch.ru/conf/artcult/archive/195/10435/ (date of access: 10.10.2020).


This article examines the nature of improvisation in the context of choreographic art. The author comes to the conclusion that improvisation and choreography are equal partners in dance, playing different but equally important roles. The process of formation and direct improvement of the system of plastic dance language was carried out through improvisation.

Key words : choreographic art, plastic language, improvisation, dance.

Dance, like any art, has gone through a huge development path before taking the form that we encounter today, and in order to understand and experience it, undoubtedly, it is necessary to study the process of the origin of dance from ancient times, its role and significance in the history of peoples. One of the oldest types of choreographic art is ecstatic mass dance. The word “dance” meant improvisational choreography with its sensual and emotional character. The dance was based on improvisational movements, using musical material or certain exclamations. Each new era left its mark on dance: new types of folk dance were born, its vocabulary was enriched and modified. The formation and direct improvement of the system of plastic dance language was carried out through improvisation. Russian dance researcher A. Klimov emphasizes: “The dance was born in a round dance and came out of it, breaking the round dance chain and providing great scope for imagination and individual skill of the performers, complicating the technical basis, creating their own forms and designs. One of the distinctive features of the dance is even greater individual improvisation than in a round dance. Improvisation is the basis of Russian folk dance, opening up for the performer a broad perspective of amateur creativity - the free combination of various movements, their complication, the composition of new and development of old versions” [1, p.48].

Nowadays, we can say with confidence, the development of art is also unthinkable without improvisation. Many researchers of artistic creativity pay attention to this: the importance of improvisation in oratory and in the creative writing process is emphasized, and issues of improvisation in theater and musical art are explored. Unfortunately, the problem of improvisation today has not received sufficient scientific development, especially specific aspects associated with various types of art, in particular choreography. Undoubtedly, teachers and choreographers of modern directions of choreographic art in their work use the basics of improvisation, contact improvisation, but folk choreography does not always remember its nature of the development of plastic language, maybe this is the reason for the rare performance of solo dances and not always re-dancing causes a storm of emotions because it has lost its improvisational nature.

Improvisation is a kind of unplanned action, a fantasy on a given topic, a direct creative process without any preparation. Translated from Latin, improvisation means unexpected, sudden. In modern culture, there are two contradictory trends in the definition of dance: on the one hand, dance is associated with the correct execution of movements and memorized choreographic text, on the other, an association with emancipation and “flight.” This contradiction is related to the still existing opposition between two different trends within dance: improvisation and choreography.

There is a fairly common misconception: unlike choreography, improvisation is a lack of school and technique. In fact, there is a school, but it is different: a technique of relaxation and body awareness, feeling internal signals, movement impulses, feeling a partner, space, time as elements that give birth to the composition of a choreographic work. It is rather a technique for revealing the potential capabilities of dancers, which is necessary for a modern choreographer in creating a new dance “vocabulary” and in working on an image.

I will give an example of 3 directions of improvisation from various stimuli:

1. From audible stimuli:

The dancer's sound should cause an involuntary reaction to the execution of the movement. At the first stage, these are specific recognizable sounds (the rustling of paper, the sound of an airplane, the creaking of a door, etc.), then the rhythm is turned on (tambourine, clapping), the pitch of the sound, and only at the final stage can the music be used in its entirety sound.

1. From visual stimuli:

Everything the dancer sees may or may not cause movement. At the beginning of training, the stimulus may be color. Colors are selected according to contrast: light and dark, warm and cold. Geometric shapes contribute to the spatial solution of the choreographic composition. Goal: through sensations, the dancer must understand the difference between straight and curved, large and small, etc.

1. From tangential stimuli:

This improvisation is based on everything that the dancer touches. We start from the sensations of objects of different textures, elastic and viscous, and end with the perception, for example, of cotton, a wet palm and the transfer of sensations from a partner’s touch.

The use of incentives is based on the dancer's personality and professional training. All these areas of improvisation can be used not only in modern dance techniques, but also in folk, classical dance, and free movement.

Improvisation is at the core of the nature of the art of dance. It acts as a principle for creating a choreographic work (the sphere of the art of dance production) or as a principle for creating a choreographic image (the sphere of performing arts). Improvisation is the most important direction of choreographic thinking, organization of the dance form, and the specifics of dance performance. Improvisation is based on the memory and level of preparation of the improviser, who can compose a composition from ready-made combinations, and sometimes is based on a specific form or type of dance. The richer the choice of expressive means, the more unexpected and original his improvisation will be. It is also important to take into account the factor of information accumulation. The system of accumulation of dance material is associated with the worldview of the dancer or choreographer. The ability to draw from memory the necessary information in the required quantity and with a certain speed is what is often required of a dancer or choreographer when creating a choreographic image or work. Improvisation requires high skill, constant improvement, universality of knowledge, ability for constructive thinking, mastery of a system of techniques and a choreographic school. The conclusion suggests itself that improvisation and choreography are equal partners in dance, playing different but equally important roles. Improvisation may not yet have fully established its rights in dance, but its use is becoming a necessary part of the development of modern choreographic art.

Literature:

1. Klimov A. Fundamentals of Russian dance. M., 1994
2. Nikitin V. Modern jazz dance. M. "GITIS", 2000

Basic terms
(automatically generated)
: improvisation, dance, choreographic art, plastic language, plastic language of dance, principle of creation, stimulus, dancer, choreographic image, choreographic work.

The word "improvisation" comes from the Latin "unforeseen", "unexpected". Improvisational methods in modern dance began to be used at the beginning of the 20th century by followers of modern dance to search for new forms of movements, discover the potential capabilities of performers, and create individual, free expression. The origins of the improvisational approach emerged almost simultaneously in different countries. The teaching principle of American dancer Isadora Duncan is based on looking inward and searching for movement that lies deep within the body. Rudolf von Laban, an Austrian dancer and teacher, developed improvisation as a teaching method that he called expressive dance. Thanks to the system of forms of effort he created, dance began to be seen as a form of non-verbal communication and self-expression. The founders of American modern dance, such as Doris Humphrey and Martha Graham, used new dance languages ​​that expressed expressiveness, communication, and the characteristics of people and landscapes.

At the same time, psychosomatic medicine is actively developing in these countries, representatives of which are Wilhelm Reich and his students. They consider the personality in relation to its bodily organization, on the basis of which conclusions are drawn that:

1) Bodily movements reflect internal emotional states, personal characteristics and the history of human development; 2) Changes in motor behavior can lead to changes in the psyche, promoting health and personal growth.

All this led to the emergence in the USA in the late 1940s of a new psychotherapeutic direction - dance psychotherapy, where dance was used as a method of treating psychiatric patients, and a little later this method of non-verbal psychotherapy began to be used in working with healthy people and neurotic clients. Using dance improvisation and structured choreography and emphasizing mindful movement, dance movement therapy releases muscle blocks, promotes full expression and discovery of our inner selves, and opens up limitless opportunities for self-discovery and the acquisition of a holistic and harmonious personality.

The founders of dance movement therapy used the method of dance improvisation in their work, which is still actively used today. Unlike classical dance styles, free dance improvisations help a person to turn to his long-forgotten movements, which have been preserved by muscle memory. And even go back to his own childhood to remember the basic movements: how he used to have to crawl, turn, walk; how he felt when he took his first steps, who stood next to him then. Movement awakens memory, which can help build new movements.

For improvisation, the psychomotor component is important: muscle freedom, reaction speed, harmony of movement (plasticity, coordination of various parts of the body, control of the center of gravity), self-control. Improvisation requires a change in thinking, following internal impulses, and displaying creativity (activity, emotional excitability, impulsiveness, dynamism). The material for improvisation is the interaction of sensations, imagination and memory.

As a result of dance improvisation, the following positive effects may appear: relief from tension; accepting yourself, discovering your desires and feelings; experiencing new states.

In a study conducted in August 2020, the influence of the psychological state of the subjects and the characteristics of their individual movements on dance improvisation was studied. The purpose of the work is to identify the features of motor representations in dance improvisation.

Two test groups were selected for the study: Group 1: students and teachers of the dance movement therapy course; Group 2: patients diagnosed with “sch” who are in the rehabilitation department at the State Hospital of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker of St. Petersburg and receiving dance movement therapy from a professional dance therapist.

The following techniques were used: 1. Method of dance improvisation. Dance improvisation can be individual, pair and group. This study uses individual improvisation, which is a solo dance in a free style of performance. 2. Methodology “Body analysis” N.Yu. Oganesyan. Body movement analysis was developed by N.Yu. Oganesyan for the diagnosis and analysis of a person’s psychomotor state in the process of dance and movement therapy. Bodily movement analysis aims to study individual characteristics and group components.

The bodily analysis of movements is graded from 0 to 5, which allows mathematical processing of the research results.

Below are data from a bodily analysis of the individual characteristics of the movements of the two tested groups in the process of improvisational dance according to two comparative parameters: body parts and attitude to space.

Table 1. Quantitative analysis. Group 1

Table 2. Quantitative analysis. Group 2

2. Qualitative analysis of movements

Qualitative movement analysis is used in dance movement therapy to summarize data obtained from improvisation. Various qualities of movements in dance, the ability to open up motorly, the correspondence of the dance to the stylistic direction of the music, the use of space are indicators for the qualitative analysis of movements and criteria for assessing a person’s mental state.

The most illustrative example of qualitative analysis: 1. Subject No. 1 of the first group: Woman, 34 years old, unmarried, one child. Higher education in philology, profession – editor. Short jerky movements suggest a person's uncertainty in the direction to follow in life, grasping movements with the hands are associated with the search for solutions and energy. Coordination is good, but stereotypical mechanical movements are present. Covers the entire space, which characterizes her as a sociable person. Movements in different planes (bottom, floor, top). 2. Subject No. 9 of the second group. Male, 29 years old, unmarried, lives with parents, 2 higher education degrees, profession – programmer. The body is flexible and fits well into the rhythm. There is a high level of involvement and active expression of the tempo and mood of the music through hand movements in the “conducting” style. This may characterize a person as prone to dominance and suppression. The dance takes place at an average level, movements in general are very limited, the arms emphasize downwards. One feels anxiety and pent-up aggression. The legs practically do not move, the head is lowered, which may indicate a loss of contact with the world and lack of self-confidence.

In this study, it was possible to combine data from quantitative and qualitative analysis of movements and display the results obtained graphically.

Below are graphs of general trends in the motor sphere and occupied space in the improvisation of subjects of the first and second groups. The vertical scale indicates the scores for quantitative bodily analysis, and the horizontal scale indicates the test subject’s serial number. The color lines reflect the comparison parameters.

The body parts involved during the dance and the relationship to the space of the subject were selected as parameters; the numerical data for the graphs were taken from Tables 1 and 2 of the quantitative analysis of movements.

Graph 1. General trends in the motor sphere. Groups 1.

Graph 2. General trends in occupied space. Group 1

General tendencies of self-expression in Group 1: based on the results of bodily analysis of motor functions and attitude to space, we can conclude that the subjects of the first group expressed themselves well in improvisation, using all parts of their body and widely mastering the space of the hall.

For the same parameters, graphs of general trends in the motor sphere and occupied space of the second group are presented.

Graph 3. General trends in the motor sphere. Group 2

Graph 4. General trends in occupied space. Group 2

General tendencies of self-expression in Group 2: subjects are restrained in their movements, there is a greater self-absorption and fear of self-expression.

Analysis and interpretation of the results of the study of bodily manifestations in dance improvisation allows us to draw the following conclusions: the dance improvisations of the two test groups are significantly different.

• Representatives of the first group - healthy people with motor and dance training, actively showed their mood in dance, using various and multi-level movements.
• Representatives of the second group - people with mental illnesses, poorly expressed themselves in dance, movements were restrained, with little exploration of space. It should be added that all representatives of the second group were under the influence of pharmacotherapy.

Thus, the hypothesis of this study was confirmed - dance improvisation is influenced by the psychological state of the subjects and the characteristics of individual movements.

Further research in this area will continue with different categories of subjects.

Publication based on materials from the diploma of a graduate of the additional professional education program “Dance Therapy: Theory and Practice” Svetlana Oblova. The head of the program is Natalya Yuryevna Oganesyan. Thesis defense took place in September 2020. Start of training for the next cohort of additional education programs: November 14, 2020.

EDUCATION IN MOSCOW

Contact dance is a dance in which improvisation is built around the point of contact with a partner. Dancing bodies move, roll, collide and bounce, balance and fly over each other. In CI we see the sensuality of the waltz and tango combined with naturalness, simplicity of play and selfless flight.

Contact improvisation is a form of free dance that teaches the body to make decisions in the moment. To be “here-and-now”.

Teaches you to trust space and your partner, feel and listen, interact on a purely physical level.

This is, first of all, communication between partners with each other in body language, leading to joint experiences and discoveries.

Two people move together, in contact, maintaining a spontaneous dialogue, concentrating on the subtle changes and transfers of weight and inertia - their own and their partner's - on the search for mutual support and balance.

They improvise, communicating in the language of touch, spinning, taking off and jumping on each other, maintaining softness and caring attitude towards each other, sensitively listening to the mood of their partner..

They do not know in advance where their movement will lead.. It is important not to think about your dance, but to explore with your partner the possibilities of joint creativity, and enjoying it.

Contact improvisation will help you see everything that you could not notice before - your spiritual, emotional and physical capabilities.

Story

Contact improvisation was developed by Steve Paxton as a result of his research into dance improvisation. In 1972, the first performance of contact improvisation, Magnesium , took place, conducted by students at Oberlin College. Soon after, Paxton held a performance in New York.

Nancy Stark Smith , a dancer and gymnast, also had a major influence on the development of contact improvisation

Contact improvisation is danced as a separate dance form, distinct from Paxton's early experiments.

Contact improvisation dance continues to evolve thanks to contact improvisation practitioners around the world.

Theory and practice

Contact improvisation is danced in the form of performance or in the form of social dance. Often the latter occurs in the form of “jams,” where people can both take part in the dance and act as spectators, and change roles at any time.

The oldest weekly jam takes place in Toronto; as of 2009, it has been going on for 33 years.

Contact improvisation is most often practiced in the form of a duet, although it can also occur with simultaneous contact of several people, or in the form of a solo (using the floor, walls, chairs).

In teaching contact improvisation, related techniques are also used, such as the Feldenkrais method, body-mindcentering, yoga.

Four “International Festivals of Contact Improvisation and Performance” took place in Russia.

Awakening sensuality: how to improvise in dance?

Home » Articles » Awakening sensuality: how to improvise in dance?

Both beginners and experienced strip, exotic and private dancers at some point think about the skill of improvisation. After all, you really want to be able to captivate a man at any moment with a beautiful dance “from the heart,” but just knowing many elements is not enough for this! Therefore, we have put together a set of exercises and tips for you that will help develop dance improvisation and make it more sensual.

First time mistake

A common misconception about improvisation is that only a well-trained, experienced dancer can do it. Therefore, after the first attempt at improvisation, beginners are upset by the result obtained and say, “it’s too early.”

You need to understand: a large set of elements and connections is an important plus if a person regularly practices improvising with them. Otherwise, many movement patterns, on the contrary, constrain the dancer, preventing her from liberating herself and switching from reproducing memorized numbers to “free flight” mode. Therefore, do not be afraid to start - improvisation is available to everyone, the only question is the frequency of training.

Slowdown

Improvisation is the art of feeling and controlling your body through self-study. And a slow movement exercise helps to spur the process of exploring your capabilities.

Turn on some leisurely music. Start moving more fluidly, with a small amplitude: shift your balance from one leg to the other, smoothly move your arms, legs or body. Try to feel how the movement is born deep inside the body and consciousness. After a couple of lessons, begin to gently combine different elements, “flow” from one state to another.

Exercise regularly, at least 10-30 minutes a day. You can do the exercise before the main dance class.

Zoning

Improvising with your whole body is not easy, especially for beginners. Therefore, a good option for training is to work only with certain zones or types of movements.

For example, for 10-15 minutes, selectively move only:

• Head.
• With your hands.
• With your feet.
• Hands.
• Shoulders.
• Chest.
• Full body.
• Steps with turns.
• Wave-like movements.
• Clear geometric lines.

In the future, you can complicate the “game” by specifying certain connections, for example, “only hands and turns”, “only steps following head movements”.

Balance and postures

A posing exercise will help you improve your level of control over your body. On a certain count - 1-2, 1-2-3-4 - make various movements, and on the last count, freeze in some position for a few seconds.

Exercises for balance and coordination of movements are effective:

Alternately stand on one leg. Complications: close your eyes, change the position of the body, add movements with your arms, head, and second leg.

Roll on one foot. Make smooth rolls from toes to heels.

Make U-turns. Rotate on one leg in different directions, from a standstill or from a step. Complications: double and triple turns, with lifting the second leg, several turns with steps along the same line.

Changing rhythm and level

Good improvisation is characterized by the dynamics of the dance. Learn to change:

1. React sensitively to changes in rhythm in the music and change the tempo of movements.
2. Alternate smooth and sharp elements.
3. Do intriguing delays followed by spectacular “steps.”
4. Change the level of dance: on straight legs, in plie, squatting, on the ground.

And an exercise on antonyms will help make such a workout more exciting. Create and dance couples in the spirit of “up-down”, “smooth-sharp”, “pull-throw”, “gentle-furious”, “run away-come back”.

Atypical conditions

Exercises in unusual conditions will help develop sensuality and body control, “ignite” imagination and gain new valuable experience: in silence, in the dark, in the sea or lake, on the sand, lying on your back, lying on your stomach, with objects in your hands (fan, flower, cane, ribbon).

Contents of the dance

The exercise can be tried by both beginners and experienced dancers. The point is to think through the character or plot of the improvisation in advance - for example, happiness or grief, falling in love, waiting for a meeting, boredom or fatigue. You can play a specific character: a person, an animal, a hero from a movie or book. For the brave ones: dance a certain color, object or your name!

Overcoming shyness

The difficulty of improvisation is also the fear of opening up to others - strangers, girlfriends or men. The only cure is to dance in front of people more often to gain self-confidence. Go out with your girlfriends to rock out to your favorite tracks, dance while cooking dinner or with a vacuum cleaner in your hands, don’t be shy to show off your recently learned move. You won’t do everything smoothly and beautifully right away, you will be tense and timid - but each such case will give you invaluable experience and bring you closer to effective improvisation.

“Pumping up” the body

The main instrument of improvisation is the body, and your success depends on its preparedness. So don't forget:

Swing . Regularly do a set of exercises for muscle strength and endurance.

Reach. Dance capabilities and aesthetics of movements depend on the plasticity of the body, so stretching classes should become an integral part of your life.

Monitor the health. Do not cause training injuries - consult a doctor for bruises and sprains, use anti-inflammatory and strengthening ointments, drink more clean water and eat foods rich in fatty acids: vegetable oils, nuts, fish and cheeses.

Baggage of knowledge

At the beginning of the article, we said that knowing many elements is not a panacea for good improvisation. But, nevertheless, a liberated dancer with impressive experience has much more opportunities than a beginner. Therefore, our studio 1366 invites you to effective individual lessons in pole dance, strip dance, private dance and exotic! During personal training with an experienced trainer, you will be able to quickly and deeply study the style of dance you are interested in in a comfortable and cozy environment and learn the art of improvisation in practice.

We regularly hold private parties for our students, where you can perform your own choreography or improvisation, gaining invaluable experience and a powerful charge of inspiration.

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How to get rid of shyness in dancing?

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By chance: how improvisation influences modern choreography

Together with the production agency A-Cube, we continue to talk about modern dance and the working methods of choreographers. Today, almost each of them has their own approach to staging and training dancers, but they all strive for research, which is impossible without experimentation. Improvisation helps solve completely different problems in choreography, and below we will look at the key ones.

Isadora Duncan in drawings by Jules Grandjuan

Improvisation as a form of expression has existed since the dawn of culture. Ritual, folk and social dances emerged from improvisation and were a way of spending leisure time, entertainment and communication. But as the cultural significance of dance evolved, so did the role assigned to improvisation.

From the history of ballet we know that it took centuries for dance to establish itself as a full-fledged art form. In this endeavor, dance was forced to conform to the values ​​and aspirations of the dominant forms: theatre, music, painting and architecture. The Renaissance brought to dance the academy—the education system—and the concept of the genius—the choreographer. Both structures take their roots in the ancient Greek theater, where the artist was a conductor of higher powers, and the theater was a form of education for society.

The real revolution occurred in the early 20th century when art abandoned the concept of genius, questioned the need for art education, and shifted focus from the final product to the method of creating it. The most striking example of this transition is painting: photography deprived it of its function of illustrating reality, and it had to look for new tasks through cubism, expressionism, impressionism, surrealism, dada, etc. In the theater, the ultimate rejection of artistic choice was the performances of the Dadaists, where chance determined everything. This was expressed in dance by the pioneers of modernism - Fuller, Duncan, Saint-Denis and Allan, who had no professional education and based their choreography on structured improvisation (for example, Duncan's dances were subordinated to music and theme, rather than choreography). Their students began to really think about the technique of the new dance, as well as improvisation as a form of artistic and physical practice, analyzing the findings of their mentors.

Isadora Duncan in drawings by Jules Grandjuan

American choreographer Merce Cunningham, a student of Martha Graham, a partner of John Cage and a third-generation adherent of the ideas of Saint Denis, became a legend of dance determined by chance. He changed his ideas about the role of the choreographer in the production, completely entrusting the composition to chance.

In the production of In Field Dances, he gave complete freedom to the dancers: the troupe had a fixed choreographic material that the dancers could perform at any time and in any part of the stage at their discretion. The equally famous production of “Canfield” was created using a card game, where each card is a coded movement, and the course of the game determines their sequence. Cunningham was also one of the first to use modern technology in choreography: the Dance Forms computer program generated movements that were then adapted by the dancers.

For Cunningham, accidents became an artistic idea that showed the dance world that the choreographer does not necessarily determine the movements and their order, but determines the concept of the production.

William Forsythe's troupe uses improvisation as a method of training and choreography. Unlike Cunningham, Forsythe inherits the ballet tradition. He views ballet as a geometric structure that can be broken down into components: a point, a line, a circle, etc. Following his theory, Forsythe developed Forsythe Improvisation Technologies, a system for creating and analyzing dance. It is based on the interaction of the dancer's body and space. For example, a dancer is asked to draw an imaginary line in the air with their foot, and then become part of that line. In ballet, dancers also work with lines, such as the arabesque. But improvisation according to Forsythe is an additional challenge to the imagination and physical capabilities. As well as a number of tools that help analyze an existing dance.

Improvisation has also found its place in the practice of dancers. One of the most famous movements is contact improvisation, a form of free dance with a partner. Contact improvisation was invented by American dancer and choreographer Steve Paxton , combining the principles of aikido, somatics and modern dance while working with a partner. Contact improvisation is based on working with the dancers' center of gravity. If a classical duet is based on supporting the weak by the strong, then in contact improvisation everyone is equal - contact and support are subject to the physical principles of distribution and weight loss.

Today, contact improvisation is practiced throughout the world as a form of experimental, social and performative dance. In the first case, it helps a person to study his instincts and habits, in the second - to communicate while dancing together, in the third - to create a work in front of the public.

Another practice based on improvisation is gaga, which was invented by choreographer Ohad Naharin . Gaga is not a technique, but a method of working with the body in the classroom. The teacher does not set exercises, but guides the dancers, appealing to their imagination. Gaga is able to fully replace traditional ballet and modern technique classes, and every year it becomes more and more popular among professionals and amateurs.

Improvisation has become a necessary skill for working in a professional contemporary dance company. One example is Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT) , whose repertoire includes both fixed choreography by Hans van Manen and works by Sharon Eyal whose central method is improvisation. The company's dancers must be equally prepared to work on pointe shoes and to seek their own language of expression through movement. The training is selected depending on the nearest production. For example, dancers prepare their bodies for Jiri Kylian’s choreography using a ballet class, and for Hofesh Shechter’s choreography, they prepare their bodies using a gaga class. Choreographer Marina Mascarell, preparing the premiere with the young division of the Nederlands Dans Theater - NDT II, ​​began with an improvisation workshop to learn and reveal the creative potential of the dancers. Mascarell says research is an integral part of the workflow. It prepares all participants to work together and introduces the dancers to the style and ideological world of the choreographer.

Just as different athletes train different muscle groups, different dancers use improvisation for different tasks. Some for training, some for liberation, some for contact with others and themselves. For many, improvisation is associated with freedom of movement and the expression of individuality in dance. But most of all, improvisation influenced freedom of thought. Over the past 100 years, it has regained an important position in dance, proving that fixed movements are not the only way to train and perform professionally. By definition, improvisation is a way of creating a work of art while performing it. Is it worth recording and reproducing? The question concerns the ephemerality of the art of dance as such. On the one hand, the state, movement and tasks of improvisation can be captured in writing and on video. On the other hand, the dance cannot be recorded in time, because it is difficult for a person to repeat the movement and emotional state with absolute accuracy.

Improvisation class in a dance studio (video)

A dance teacher is always looking for ways to liberate children, develop dance skills, and build a friendly, cohesive team. The improvisation activity is designed to solve these problems.

Improvisation (from the Latin improvisus - unexpected, sudden) is a special type of artistic creativity found in a number of arts (poetry, drama, music, choreography), in which a work is created directly in the process of its performance (Musical Encyclopedia). For improvisation, it is necessary that the topic be asked from the outside or that it arise suddenly, so to speak, on the scene, and immediately be put into form (Literary Encyclopedia).

An improvisation lesson in choreography is a lesson prepared and thought out by the teacher, in which children learn to move spontaneously, creating movements at the moment of their execution and according to the task proposed by the teacher.

The class is intended for children in their second or more years of schooling, when children already have basic dance skills and have a trusting relationship with the teacher.

However, individual exercises can be used earlier. The optimal number of students in a lesson is from 4 to 12, in this case children will be able to improvise in pairs and in groups, at the same time the teacher will be able to pay attention to everyone. Age from 6 to 18 years. Lesson duration is 30-45 minutes (depending on the age of the students).

Lesson plan

1. Warm up . Duration – 3-5 minutes. The purpose of this part of the lesson is to prepare the body for further stress, to warm up the muscles and ligaments. Warm-ups include walking variations, light running, shoulder and arm movements, bending, and light jumping. First, all movements are performed from the front. In order to give this section of the lesson an improvisational character, the teacher gives the children certain tasks.

1) “We begin to walk (run) around the entire hall, trying to take the most empty seat.” Children begin to move chaotically, stopping at different points in the hall and performing familiar exercises from different angles.

2) “I will clap my hands, and when I clap you should freeze and take some pose.” The children continue to move in space, the teacher claps his hands, the children freeze in different poses, using different levels and angles, then begin to move again until the next clap. The teacher can play with the rhythm, for example, clapping every eighth or quarter or whole, etc.

In the process of improvisation, children learn to navigate space, quickly respond to changing task conditions, and make appropriate decisions. They learn to be attentive to each other, avoiding collisions, without violating the personal space of other children.

2. Warm up. Duration – 5-7 minutes. The purpose of the warm-up is to work more thoroughly with muscles and ligaments, to improve the technique of performing dance elements and movements. This part of the lesson consists of bending, twisting and spiraling the torso, light isolated movements, plies in different positions, exercises for strength, coordination, combinations of steps and jumps, batmans, passés, rotations, etc.

To diversify this part of the lesson and introduce an element of improvisation into it, you can assign a task to change camera angles. “We continue to do the exercise, but turn in any other direction.” Or: “According to my clap, we quickly change places and continue to perform the movements.”

3. Isolation. Duration – 5-7 minutes. Isolation is the separate movement of different centers of the body: head, shoulders, chest, pelvis, arms and legs. The lesson is used to develop mobility, freedom of movement of different parts of the spine, as well as to develop coordination and dance ability. Usually the teacher offers a ready-made movement pattern, for example, cross movements or circular movements with a certain center.

In an improvisation lesson, the teacher gives students the opportunity to choose how a certain center will move. The teacher says: “We start moving our heads.” Children begin isolated head movements in any pattern they wish, to the beat of the music. They work similarly with other centers.

Then the teacher complicates the task by naming two centers: head and pelvis, chest and shoulders, legs and head, etc. Then you can indicate three centers, and at the end the teacher says: “All centers move at the same time.” The children begin to dance unnoticed. And even if they were constrained and shy, this exercise liberates, increases self-confidence and prepares them for more complex improvisation tasks.

4. Dance-image. Duration – 5-7 minutes. In this section of the lesson, the teacher selects several musical compositions of different nature and selects appropriate images. Children dance, improvising according to a given image. The teacher can tell you more about this image. For example, say that a cactus is very prickly and poisonous; the wind is at first gentle and gentle, and then cold and gusty, etc. Ask children to move with their eyes closed.

For example, children dance to a slow lyrical melody, depicting a flower, a breeze, love, a dream, a snake, a snail, etc. To fast rhythmic music - cactus, scissors, drum, kangaroo, etc. The teacher’s task is not to put pressure on the child if he is shy, tense, or unsure of himself. As a rule, by the third lesson children loosen up. The personal example of the teacher and the friendly atmosphere always help. Such exercises develop the child’s fantasy and imagination, improve his mood, make him feel the joy of creativity, and also liberate him and help him overcome inhibitions.

"Mirror"

5. Mirror. Duration – 5-10 minutes. This is an exercise-game in which children learn to improvise in pairs and in groups according to the instructions of the teacher. First, the children stand in pairs facing each other at a short distance. A calm slow composition is turned on. One in a pair is the leader, the other is the follower. The leader moves slowly, the follower must mirror the movements of the partner. The leader’s movements should not be sharp and complex so that the partner can exactly “mirror” them.

The teacher can change the conditions of the task. For example, “swap partners”, “we begin to move, changing levels” (the leader should perform movements either below, sitting or lying down, or above). “We all turn to face the right (left, towards the wall, towards the door)” - the children turn, and the one who stands in front of everyone turns out to be the leader, the rest are the followers. When children are just beginning to master this exercise, they change roles when the teacher claps or when they call “swap.”

Then they learn to understand the partner without words, change roles, following the partner’s non-verbal signs (expression of the eyes, face, smile), or convey the initiative with a gesture (for example, moving the hand or head towards the partner).

This exercise brings children together, helps them feel their partner without words, and teaches them to be attentive and kind to each other. In the process of performing it, a whole dance improvisation is born.

6. Impulses. Duration – 5-7 minutes. The purpose of the exercise is to better feel and study your body, its individual parts, what makes them move, the strength and volume of movement. Such exercises have a psychotherapeutic effect; they help get rid of habitual tension, improve sensations in the body, and develop a new and easier way of movement. Children also learn to be attentive to their partner, to touch, and to trust each other.

Children are divided into pairs and assigned roles - follower and leader. The follower closes his eyes, the leader carefully touches a certain part of his body, giving the touch direction and impulse. The follower follows this impulse and continues moving in a given direction until it receives another impulse. The movement should not be too relaxed.

7. Game. Duration – 5-7 minutes. Games can be present in a lesson with children of any age, the main thing is to choose the right theme and images. For example, the well-known game “The sea is agitated...” can be played by changing the conditions. The presenter says: “The sea worries once, the sea worries twice, the sea worries three..., (insert any epithet - fairy-tale, flower, dance, sad, smart, scary, etc.) figure, freeze in place.” Children must take on the appropriate image and freeze. The presenter chooses the figure he likes most and thereby the new leader. The presenter can also come up and “press the button,” and then the figure begins to move according to its image. Thus, the game becomes more varied and interesting. Children develop imaginative, abstract thinking, imagination, and reaction speed.

“It’s better to see once...” - this statement certainly applies to the methodology of teaching dance. If you are interested in the form of classes described in this article, watch videos with fragments of improvisations.

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Creative dance and improvisation for young children; methodological development on the topic

Toolkit.

Creative dance.

Teaching dance improvisation to children.

I. Introduction.

The concept of dance improvisation.

Improvisation (Italian improvisazione, from Latin improvisus - unexpected, sudden) is historically the most ancient type of music-making, in which the process of composing music occurs directly during its performance. en.wikipedia

Being a relatively young phenomenon on Russian soil, dance improvisation has not yet received an exhaustive and unambiguous definition in the literature, including online sources. A well-known specialist in the field of dance movement therapy and improvisation, Alexander Girshon, gives on his website (https://girshon.ru) 5 definitions of dance improvisation:

1. Dictionary Improvisation/Improvisation (from Latin improvisus unforeseen, unexpected, sudden) - a method of creativity (in some types of art), involving the creation of a work in the process of free imagination, impromptu 2. American improvisation means a choice among the possibilities present at the moment, as opposed to performing specific material chosen in advance (Cynthia Novak).3. Russian-procedural Improvisation is the ability to hear your body, space and partners and respond to it. What is important is the activity of attention, the responsiveness of the body to signals, external and internal.4. European-Intellectual · Dance improvisation is a form of thinking · Thinking is what you do when you don't know what to do. (paraphrase of Jean Piaget) · So, improvisation is what you do when you don't know what to do5. A. Girshon’s own definition Improvisation is the ability to be anything.

It is obvious, however, that several basic approaches to improvisation in dance can be distinguished, differing in their basic, methodological principles.

1. Improvisation within a specific dance style. This approach to improvisation implies fluency in the technique and, preferably, the ideology of a certain dance style, and the ability to vary the mastered elements of dance in a free manner, and not in accordance with a rigid choreographic scheme (for example, improvisation based on flamenco or Indian dance techniques).

2. The Duncanist tradition, most fully embodied at present by such a direction as the musical movement, considers improvisation as “the ability “here and now” to respond, to respond in movement to music and implies contact with oneself and with the content of the music” (https:/ /www.heptachor.ru).

In this tradition, dance, and improvisation as well, is a way of interpreting music, living the music emotionally accurately.

3. A modern approach to improvisation as the art of fluent body language. A similar understanding of improvisation is characteristic of the newest trends, or dance techniques - new dance and release based technique. The release technique is based on releasing (releasing) certain muscle groups in order to gain the skills to use only those muscle groups that are necessary in the dance process. With the help of the release technique, an understanding of one's own body is developed, which provides great variety for the development of the dancer's movement vocabulary. This approach to improvisation can be called “improvisation as such,” or improvisation itself, since the content of the dance in this case does not become the content of an external work (musical), and there is also no intermediary element (certainly stylistically colored movements, as in the first case) . An improvising person manifests in his dance his own, personal content, which he puts into his movement. It can be argued that with the variety of nuances of modern improvisation techniques, they are based on an understanding of man as a psychophysical integrity and the desire for mastery and understanding by the dancer of the psychophysical mechanisms of movement. The task of training in this case becomes the study of one’s own body as a motor mechanism, or mechanics of the body, as well as the development of the ability to couple the mental layer of the personality with the physical in movement, or the ability to convey certain mental content in movement.

The proposed methodology for teaching dance improvisation to children (Creative Dance) is based precisely on the latter approach to improvisation as such, or improvisation itself, and aims to teach children to master the mechanism of their body movements and the transmission of their feelings and thoughts directly through movement.

The importance of dance improvisation for the development of a child’s creative potential cannot be overestimated. Movement generally brings joy to a person. And when in movement a person, including and especially a child, can express himself, his unique and wonderful personality, then this brings joy that cannot be compared with anything. And if you can make your dance beautiful - and not through external decoration, but by revealing your inner virtues, which every person has - then that’s just great! And when this dance is presented to the audience - and these are friends, teachers, and relatives - it is very important that the child shows not the fruit of someone else’s creativity, although mastered by his own labor, but his own personal product, he presents himself to the outside world, realizing (or, at least, approaching this realization) the value of one’s own personality. The child gains a positive experience of expressing himself to the world, moreover, through his own bodily language.

The specifics of teaching improvisation to children are associated with the need to find an accessible form for conveying rather complex ideas discussed in adult improvisation classes. Naturally, this can be done by resorting to game forms. This explains the widespread use of all kinds of dance games in classes. Using simple but beautiful objects is also attractive to children. These can be beautiful colored scarves, with which it is so exciting and joyful to dance to beautiful music, and balls, improvisation with which develops dexterity and coordination of movement, and favorite toys, by dancing with which you can show your attitude towards your favorite creature.

Sometimes in our classes we draw. The themes for drawing are images of movement, which are used in exercises and games. Thus, the dance-game “Stars” is preceded by a drawing: where the magic star falls, a miracle happens. What miracle will happen from your stars? Draw it! In the game “The Magic Gardener” we draw flowers that grew in the gardener’s clearing - each has its own flower, unlike anyone else!

A very important point when practicing improvisation with children is maintaining a balance between freedom and discipline. On the one hand, improvisation involves a very large degree of freedom. But without observing the necessary discipline in class, it is impossible to master a set of exercises, or even perform improvisation itself. Our classes are structured in such a way that the first part of the lesson is devoted to compulsory exercises, and here we agree with the children that the teacher’s strict rules apply, the exercises must be done correctly and accurately. But in their improvisations, children can be the “masters” of their dance, making the movements that they consider necessary. The teacher can only advise something, suggest something, and share his impressions of the dance. Children, in turn, often eagerly explain that they are dancing. In such mutual discussions, the idea of ​​dance gradually crystallizes. Thus, at a performance, the child shows improvisation - but prepared. And somehow meaningful to them.

II. A set of exercises and games used in teaching dance improvisation.

1. Parterre

1. Grain. Our first exercise - the exercise with which we begin each of our lessons, is called a grain: we sit down “Turkish style”, take in our hand an imaginary magic grain, from which everyone should grow their own magic flower - the flower of their life - and plant it behind to the place where our spine begins. The grain sprouts - a sprout appears, a stem stretches out of it and reaches for the sun, like any plant that seems to strive to grow to the sun. When the stem stretches, our stem-spine gradually stretches along with it, and at the tip of this stem a beautiful, beautiful flower opens, each with its own, its own flower of life. This is our head. The flower turns and looks in one direction, then in the other, and again its head (our head) looks straight. And he wants to reach the sun so much that a golden ray stretches out from the top of his head and stretches upward - reaching for the sun itself. The stalk is stretched - our spine is stretched. And as soon as this ray touches the sun, the flower relaxes and turns into a beautiful underwater flower with a very flexible stem that sways and dances its dance underwater - the dance of an underwater flower.

2. Rocking chair. And now we can play with ourselves, with our own body. Let's imagine that we want to swing on a swing, but as luck would have it, there is no swing - then we can make this swing out of ourselves.

To do this, we will sit on the floor, pull our knees towards us and clasp them with our hands, make our back round and round and swing: first back - then forward, and so you can swing as much as you like.

3. Rockets. We lie down on the floor and stretch our arms and legs up, straight and even – vertically upward – they are directed into the sky, like rockets prepared for a vertical take-off. Our body is the earth, it should lie completely on the ground, and our arms and legs rush upward, they want to fly into the sky so much that it seems as if we are already reaching the sky with our fingertips, our arms and legs seem to be reaching for the sky (but the whole body continues to lie on the floor).

Rest. We relax our arms and legs, bend our knees, place our hands on our knees and freely rotate our legs at the knees in different directions. After this, you can repeat the “Rockets” exercise.

4. Monkey. Today we will do the “rocking chair” exercise again, but a little more interesting.

So, first we will swing well, with pleasure, then we will swing back a little harder, and try to touch the floor with one foot. Let's imagine that we are doing this in a clearing in some extraordinary forest, around us various wonderful bushes and trees grow, on the branches of which hang bananas, coconuts, oranges, strawberries - whoever likes what. And so we rest one foot behind us on the floor, and with the other we try to reach out and pick as many goodies as possible from the branches. And then we change legs.

5. Stretch in length. Having collected as many coconuts and pineapples as possible, we lie down on our backs to rest.

We stretch out in length, and imagine that we have strong ropes tied to our arms and legs, by which we are simultaneously being pulled in length - a little more, and we will break, but then the ropes are released, and we relax (exhale).

6. Four eyes. It also doesn’t bother us to develop the muscles that are in the abdomen. The “Four Eyes” exercise will help us with this.

We lie on our backs, put our arms along our bodies, open our palms, and imagine such an unusual thing: as if we had one eye on each palm. And it turns out that we don’t have 2 eyes, like all normal people, but as many as 4. And with all these eyes we look straight up, into the sky. We look and lift ourselves off the floor: we raise our head, arms, legs, shoulders, but at the same time we look – with all 4 eyes – up into the sky.

Then we turn our whole body onto the right side and look with all 4 eyes in front of us, then do the same in the other direction.

7. Rockets – feet. Now we will recall the “Rockets” exercise, but we will just make it a little more difficult. So, we lie down, stretch our legs and arms up. Now, let one leg reach towards the sky with its toe, and the other with its heel. And then - vice versa.

This is a rather difficult exercise, but we need it so that our legs become strong and agile and can dance the way we want.

8. Rocking chair-3. And now we will again remember our “rocking chair” exercise: we will swing for fun, touch the floor behind us, stretch behind ourselves with our legs, and now we will try to make a little more effort, stretch back with our legs a little stronger and pull our whole body behind our legs. Let's bend our knees and roll over. Let's do it gently, don't rush.

9. Legs-palms (on the ground). We all know how to clap our hands. What if you clap your hands with your feet? Well, how did it work out?

10. Tilt towards the feet - towards the knees. And now we connect our legs (feet) one to the other, bend towards our feet, hang our heads freely down, and place our palms next to our feet on the floor. We just sit, relax and listen to music. Now, softly, like a pussy with paws, we step with our palms to the left and touch our forehead to our knee - we sit - we step back to the middle - we step back to the right knee - we sit - we “go” with our palms again to the center - we put our hands inside between our legs, we bend lower - we relax - we sit – push off the floor with your hands (inhale) – stretch up (inhale) – fold in half.

11. Toy store. We sit doubled over, like soft rag dolls that lie on a shelf in a toy store, waiting for someone to buy them.

And now they come to life. We take ourselves by the right leg with our right hand and lie down on the floor. Let's look up. We do not let go of our foot. We sit down - fold up - change legs and arms.

12.Swimming in the sky. I think that dancing means feeling as free in space as a bird feels in the sky or a fish in the water. And today we will imagine that we are floating in the sky.

To do this, you and I will lie on the floor, on our backs, look up above us and imagine that above us is not a ceiling, but a very blue, high sky, which is so beautiful that we want to fly into it. We look into this beautiful sky, reach out to it with our arms and legs and gradually lift ourselves off the floor: we lift our head, legs, and shoulders off the floor, and our arms and legs seem to be floating freely in the sky. We look up all the time. When we are very tired, we lie down to rest on a passing cloud. Let's relax, lie down for a while, and then take off again and float.

13. Toy store-2. Now that we've sailed through the sky, we're off to the toy store again. Today our doll will make a slightly more complex movement.

After we lie on our back, holding our leg in our hand, we carefully place it to the side, without letting go of our hand. We stretch our free hand to the side and turn our head in the same direction. Raise your leg up. Let's sit down. Fold in half. We repeat the same with the other leg.

14. Droplet. We sit on our knees and very gently flow, first in one direction, then in the other, gently, as if we were droplets of water.

Those who are good at this movement can do it a little more difficult: we extend our leg forward and roll onto it, then onto the other leg.

15. Swimming in the sky - with turns. Let's remember how you and I swam in the sky last time, but now let's try to change the direction of our gaze: if last time we looked up straight above us, now we'll try to slowly, smoothly look in one direction, the other, turn back a little, look for yourself. At the same time, we will try to make freer movements in space with our hands.

16. We stretch ourselves in different directions with our hands. Lying on the floor, we grab our toes firmly with our hands and stretch our legs straight up, trying to stretch our knees.

We bring our heels together, spread our toes and knees to the sides - as if we were sitting upside down - we spread our arms and legs together to the sides. We pull ourselves by the toes, try to stretch our knees, sway a little from side to side. Without letting go of your legs, we lie down on one side, then slowly roll over to the other. Throughout the entire exercise, we do not let go of our legs.

17. Stretch ourselves by the legs to the side-2. Let's remember our exercise from the previous lesson, when we stretched ourselves by grabbing the toes of our feet with our hands. Let’s make this exercise a little more complicated: Without letting go of our toes, we pull ourselves in different directions, then carefully turn one leg inward and “hang” it in such an extended position in space.

18. Three points of support. Let's kneel down, resting our hands on the floor, try to make our back parallel to the floor, distribute the body weight evenly on our 4 points of support - that's two legs and two arms - four in total. And now, lifting first one or the other arm or leg from the floor, we move in such a way that we always have only three points of support. We come up with a variety of movements and poses, the main goal is to keep your body on three points of support all the time. Find body positions that are especially pleasant and comfortable for you, as well as the most unusual and strange ones. If we do this to the music, we will get a rather unusual dance.

19. Rising from the knees. We will stand on our feet in the following way: sitting on our knees, place our hands firmly on the floor in front of us, place our toes behind us, slightly push off the floor with our hands and stretch our knees. The head, arms, and whole body remain dangling below. Let's shake it a little, shake our head, arms, and lower body - they should be completely free, light and relaxed. Now we slightly bend our knees and straighten up - we grow up into the sky (inhale as we move up). We direct all upward movements towards the sky, imagining above us not some ordinary ceiling, but a beautiful, high blue sky.

Exercises while standing

1. Alignment. Now that we have stood up, we need to level up a little, mentally, as it were, to build our body.

We place our legs (feet) parallel; starting from the feet, we stretch upward and imagine that we have a small loop attached to the top of our head, by which we are suspended, like a Christmas tree decoration on a Christmas tree. The top of the head stretches up, and everything else hangs down freely (skeleton).

Our body is a construction. The arms, as if attached to the body with cogs, rotate freely and easily in this direction (back and forth). And the top of the head continues to stretch upward.

2. Movement behind the hand with a turn. Our arms are attached to the body as if by screws; we can easily and freely move them in this direction. And now we will stretch our hand forward very strongly, as if we want to reach something - and lower our hand, throw it.

Now let’s stretch our right hand forward, so much that a little more and we’ll fall, and at the last moment we’ll turn 180*. While turning, look up. The same thing - in the other direction.

3. Libra. We stand straight and very carefully “hang” to the right and then to the left. Our task is to do this easily, but evenly, in one plane.

4. Standing long stretch. We do the same exercise while standing: stretch our arms up (inhale), stretch with all our might - relax (exhale).

5. Standing side stretch. We stand very straight. Raise your right hand up. Stretch to the right until you lose balance. As you exhale, freely throw your hand down. The same thing - with the other hand.

6. Sunny bunny. We extend our right hand to the side, palm up, and imagine that a gentle, gentle sunbeam has landed on our palm. We play with it by rolling it all over our hand. The same thing happens on the left hand.

A sunny bunny rolls over two hands - from one to the other. Gradually he flies higher and higher, and we wave our arms and our whole body to him so that he does not melt or freeze alone: ​​we send him our warmth and love.

7. Standing rocking chair. You and I can swing without a swing and standing too, not just lying down.

To do this, we put our right foot forward, place it on the heel, lean back a little and sway from foot to foot, transferring our body weight from one foot to the other. The same with the other leg.

8. School of spies. The previous exercise is complicated by a series of steps. A technique for gently transferring body weight from the heel to the entire foot.

9. Brother fingers. To dance our magic dance today, we need to make our fingers magic. To do this, we will do the following exercise.

Let's stretch our hands forward, look at our fingers and see that among them there is a thumb (on each hand) - an older brother, and little brother fingers. And so, the older brother gets up in the morning, and he needs to wake up his younger brothers - for this he greets them - touches each of them in turn.

Now all the fingers are awake, each of them can move freely, as if dancing, and at the tip of each of them it is as if a small star is lighting up.

1. Dance-game "Stars". These are not ordinary stars - magical ones. Where such an asterisk falls, some miracle or magic happens. We need to come up with some of our own miracles, magic that we can produce with our dance, and try to send these stars - our miracles - in different - different directions: far and close, and up - everywhere. Just be sure to try to feel how the stars fly off your fingers, watch where they fall, and imagine what appears in this place, what a miracle.

10. Step - sit on the floor. We take a step with our left foot, pull our right leg under us, and sit on the floor, helping ourselves a little with our hands. The same with the right leg.

Now we can safely move on to the next exercise in which we will have to fall.

11. Flower on a rock. Let's imagine that a flower of extraordinary beauty grows on the top of a high rock. We want to reach out to him so much that we reach for him - forward and upward - to the very last impossibility. And, when we reach the very limit of our ability to stretch, we relax and fall down (while exhaling).

Dance-game “Balloons”. Now you and I have done everything so that we can play with balloons. The rules are like this. We imagine that we are inflated with air, like balloons, and fly up: as we inhale, we fill ourselves with air and fly up into the sky, like balloons. As we inhale, we direct all movements upward.

When we exhale, we deflate, like a balloon that has been punctured, and we can either completely fall to the floor, or just touch the floor, or simply “direct” our movement downward.

Then we take in the air again and fly up.

And so we fly like balloons: inhale into the sky, exhale towards the ground. Very easy and free. To the music.

12. Balls. We jump up and down very easily. The top of the head stretches upward, the arms are light and free. We imagine that we are balls that someone is playing with: we hit the ground, and they jump up and down, very easily and rhythmically.

13. Drawing: a circle above your head. Our hands are long tassels, which we stretch up and reach to the sky. We draw a circle in the sky above our heads and involve our whole body in movement.

14. Drawing: figure eight. Our hands are long brushes. We mentally scoop up paints with them (everyone chooses their favorite color) and draw the number “8” in the vertical plane that is in front of us: with the right hand... with the left... with both hands at the same time.

15. Dance-game: drawing in space. We scoop up beautiful, beautiful paint with brushes and in the space of our hall, as if on a white sheet of paper, we try to draw a beautiful pattern with a smooth, continuous line. We strive for the line of our movement to be smooth, continuous, endless.

16. Exercise for 8 counts 1. Gradual relaxation of the spine and lowering the body down.

17. Exercise for 8 counts 2. The previous exercise is supplemented by transferring the body weight to the hands and doing push-ups.

18. Magic threads. Let's imagine that magical long threads are tied to the tips of our fingers, stretching into infinity. At the end of each thread there is something extraordinary - a star, a magical flower, a Miracle. With the movements of our hands we can pull this Miracle towards us, or, conversely, push it away. Movement first in one place, then free movement in space.

Dance games

In addition to the games already given above, which directly follow from the logic of the previous movements-exercises, and therefore described in the standing exercises section, during classes we also play other dance-games.

Game of "Palms". We play this game especially often in our first classes, and also when a new person appears in the group, because this game allows you to get to know each other better - remember names, but also feel each other through tactile contact.

Everyone stands in a common circle. In a circle, one by one, everyone says their name. Then one participant calls the name of anyone else standing in the circle, they change places, meeting each other's palms as they pass each other. So - until everyone meets each other. Then we scatter around the hall like fluff from a dandelion; flying past each other, we touch each other and freeze for three counts.

Dance with scarves. Ask your mother for a beautiful light scarf, turn on beautiful melodic music and try to play a little with the scarf while listening to the music. Think not about your movements, but about the movements of the scarf. Find movements so that it flies beautifully in space, create a dance of the scarf. Your movements should obey the dance of the scarf, its light weightless fabric. Try it and you will definitely succeed!

Dance of fire. To dance this dance, it would be good to find very temperamental, “fiery” music. Let's take a bright red or orange shirt. And let's play with her. This is our fire. We either run away from it or strive towards it. We try to catch him, but he breaks away from us again. This fight with fire can last forever - as long as we have enough strength for it.

Dance – game: “Figurines”. This game is more interesting to play when several people participate.

One of you stands in some fairly simple pose. The second one must touch the first one - with any part of the body and in any place - and also freeze, the third one “sticks” to it - and so on. You get a small sculptural group. As soon as it is built, the first person disconnects from it, moves freely, dances in space until he finds a new place for himself, where he freezes. Gradually the entire sculpture is being built in a new place. The poses are already different. Some may freeze while standing, some while lying down, some while sitting. The more varied your poses are, the more interesting it will be. So a group of figurines will constantly flow from one point in space to another.

"Separate Dance" Before moving on to our dance game today, let's see what movements we can perform in different parts of our body - our constructor.

How our head... arms... legs can move.

Now we turn on the music, and at my command: only the right hand dances!.. the head!.. the left leg!.. the left hand!.. the head! right leg!

The movements can be any, but try to do them separately from each other.

If there are several of you, then let one person play the game first, and then someone else.

"Magic Garden". The game involves two groups: living children and sculptures. The children came for a walk in the enchanted garden. All the statues there are magical. Having accidentally touched such a statue, a person freezes and turns into a sculpture, and the statue comes to life and begins to dance. Roles change randomly during the game. Dancing to “magical” music.

"Sculptors and Sculptures". A group of sculptors and a group of sculptures. Sculptors “sculpt” sculptures: they change their poses and gestures. At the same time, they must take care that the “sculpture” does not break. This game, on the one hand, fosters a sense of responsibility for the play partner and care for him, on the other hand, it forces the child to pay attention to the design features of our body.

"Gardener". Let's imagine a flowerbed in a garden. In early spring, grains are sown on it, from which, over time, first tender sprouts will appear, and then beautiful flowers will bloom. Each of you is a small, imperceptible grain, but the future amazing and beautiful flower is already hidden in it - each has its own, special one. Imagine this future flower. But now the sun is warming up more and more, the gardener waters the flowerbed and gradually sprouts appear on it - first, sprouts, and then the flowers themselves bloom. Each flower dances its own dance - one and only.

"Dandelion". All children stand in a circle. This is a big fluffy dandelion. Each of you is the fluff of this big dandelion. I go up to the dandelion and blow on it - the fluffs fly in different directions. Each fluff dances its own gentle dance. Sometimes the fluffs meet each other, touch each other and freeze for three seconds (we count to ourselves to three), then fly away again. Suddenly a cold wind blew, and the fluff fell to the ground and rolled across the floor. A warm wind blows and they fly up again. I count to three, and the fluffs again gather into one big dandelion.

"Dandelion-2". We are standing in a big circle. One fluff flies into the center and dances its magical dance. Then she touches another fluff, choosing it to dance, the second fluff flies into the center and dances, the first takes its place. So they continue further, passing on their dance to each other.

"Raft". Let's imagine that the floor of our hall is a raft floating in a rough sea. If most people crowd on one side of the raft, the raft will lose its balance and capsize. We must be distributed evenly in the space of the hall. Now we will move around the hall, quickly or slowly, but so that our raft does not capsize and we do not drown in the sea!

Eyes on the shoulder blades. Let's reach out with our hands to our shoulder blades and touch them. Let's imagine that we have eyes there! Now we can walk backwards without looking back, looking in front of us with the eyes that are located on our shoulder blades! The presenter gives signals: one clap of your hands - we move forward, looking with our normal eyes; two claps - backwards, looking with your eyes on your shoulder blades. Condition: you can't look back.

Earth - Air. Let's take a deep breath, imagine that we, like balloons, are filled with air and fly up. We imagine that we are flying high in the sky, swimming in the air. As we exhale, we become heavy, relax, fall down to the ground, feel our weight on the ground, roll over it.

Arms-Legs-Head-Tail. The presenter takes turns calling the part of the body that should be moving at the moment. We explore all the possibilities of movement of this part of the body.

We play such dances in our classes. But you can also come up with your own dances. Play the music you like and invent, dance, improvise!

III. Handouts used in classes.

• Multi-colored chiffon scarves, balloons, hoops, balls
• Felt pens and colored pencils, paper, toys