Somatic Questions
The following three questions are asked of oneself, one at a time, outloud or in silence: 1) Why am I here ? 2) Who am I now ? 3) Where am I going ? These questions are asked as a stimulus for somatic response. Each question is asked for 3-5 minutes at a time, allowing for a total of 9-15 minutes of somatic responses to all three questions. A device for liberating the body's stream of impulses at the start of a lab session.
Sanctification of the Space
Moving throughout the space of the setting invested with a value, such as space "sacred" or "intelligence" or "love". Communicating one's relationship with the space itself by the moment to moment way one moves through that space. A device for increasing spatial awareness at the start of a lab session (often preceding and proceeding a prayer circle).
Movement Cliches
Time set apart (5-10 minutes) for allowing the expression of redundant movement habits and kinetic patterns towards their full exposure and acceptance. The purpose is to identify one's movement cliches as a kind of 'default setting' to fall back on whenever new movements cease to be discovered.
Presence Actions
Any action, movement, sound, song or physical adjustment that increases the felt, palpable sense of one's own energetic presence. A device for generating a self-reflexive experience of one's own energy of presence. A device for generating personal presence at the start of a lab session.
Devices
The term "device" refers to any action or adjustment, discovered or invented, that effectively achieves a desired result, i.e., find, or create, a way to raise consciousness or to wake up more. Devices can be outgrown or neutralized over time and with over-use, inciting the need to find or create new ones.
Three Levels: Movement Vocabulary Work
1) Vertical; any movement limited to up and down directions. 2) Lateral; limited to any sideways movement. 3) Frontal/dorsal; any movement limited to forward and backward motions, tied together as one movement.
Human Systems: Movement Vocabulary Work
By sourcing a series of existing biological systems -- Skeletal, Muscular, Nervous, Respitory, Circulatory, Glandular, etc. -- opportunities present themselves for expanding the movement vocabulary beyond existing cliches and redundancies.
Swarming
Group activity. After establishing the Space Forming technique, everyone seeks out the space between each person as a moment to moment process of findng pathways between others to move through, resulting in a synchronized group swarming action.
Patterns of Motion
The attention paid to distilling -- from immersion in raw source experiences -- those innate (organic to whatever source accessed) patterns of motion and sounds that, when extracted, could be consciously repeated towards increasing movement precision, purity of tone with various degrees of internal impact. Note the difference between the repetition that dulls experience and the repetition that sharpens experience.
The Movement Stretch
A device for expanding range of motion by stretching the muscles while remaining in constant movement across the floor. The point is to reach muscles often missed in a stationary stretching process. To expand range of motion, slow down and deepen moment-to-moment awareness while moving across the floor.
The Rises
Lying down on the floor and rising to a vertical stance using minimal tension and resistance. The point of this device is to become aware of the habitual tendency to force or push a movement. With continuing practice, the rises can allow an intuition for following shifts of gravity to as a propellent for achieving physical verticality from a horizontal position. After reaching a vertical stance, one falls back to the floor to repeat the process. Rises should be performed at least five times and from a different horizontal floor position each time to discover new pathways to the vertical stance.
Conversion from Identification to Service
In regards to immersion in specific energy sources, the shift from identification into service marks a significant conversion point. When immersed and encompassed in full identification with any given source, one 'becomes' the energy. When successful, this identification leads to a state of emotional surrender, a kind of rapture within that source. After this immersion phase, we have a choice to serve the source rather than be it. This action sets into motion a higher level of mobility and play and, can lead to purer quality and tone in movement and sound.
Jogging Forms
Various jogging forms are utilized as mediums through which to find or create specific devices, like a transition jog to "break trance" or a "heat jog" to raise body energy or "maintenance jog" to sustain the heat and presence previously accumulated. Some of the other jogging forms include"the No-Form jog", "the vertical jog" and "the non-directional and directional jogs".
ADDITIONAL PARATHEATRE TECHNIQUES
USING SOUND AND SONG (from the Spring 2004 'Song As Vehicle' lab)
-- ANTERO ALLI, director
PREVIOUS LAB REPORTS
(1999-present)