Contact Point
The contact point refers to wherever direct linkage with the energy of a given source exists -- not to be imagined or visualized but detected as an existing condition. This can be detected within the physical body itself and/or the energetic body and its emanating field or aura. Detection depends on the depth of the personal No-Form experience preceeding the discovery of the contact point.
Personal No-Form
essential starting and ending point for each ritual; the deeper the No-Form experience, the deeper the impressions that follow; personal approach to and comfort with being nothing; internal receptivity necessary for effective work in this medium. Click this for more on No-Form.
Impersonal No-Form
after reaching your personal No-Form, you step forward into the impersonal essence of No-Form and let it act on you; the No-Form beyond your personal efforts to reach No-Form.
Foundation Source
Preceding the physical warm-up cycle , we stand in No-Form at the periphery of the ritual space and designate the entire ritual space to a source -- such as Earth, or Verticality, or one of the Four Elements -- for the two-fold purpose of: 1) warming up the energetic body to sourcing and 2) setting a climate and tone for the following Physical Warm-up and an underlying support for the entire session.
Body as Unit
Moment to moment awareness of the entire body engaged in moving as a whole unit, as in one piece; body as unity. Much like the way a cat walks across the floor, no part of its body is disengaged or "left behind". Though the technique of Body as Unit incorporates the whole body in motion -- and also like the cat -- the overall movements do not need to be large or dramatic to serve a kinetic unity.
Sustaining Care
From the stream of impulses emerging from any authentic immersion with a given source, we feel for the direction we care most for and follow its lead to its natural conclusion. This choice is not dictated by the mind but by the heart for what direction we care enough about to emotionally invest ourselves in.
Somatic Questions
The following three questions are asked of oneself, one at a time, outloud or in silence: 1) Why am I here ? 2) Where am I going ? 3) Who am I now? These questions are asked to elicit somatic response and kinetic answers. Each question is asked for 3-5 minutes at a time. A device for liberating the body's stream of impulses at the start of a lab session, these questions are not meant to be answered by the intellect but via the innate somatic reflexes and impulses of our bodies.
Service
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. When he technique of service is applied, we serve the source rather than merge with it. This action sets into motion a higher level of circulation of force and play that can lead to purer quality and tone in movement and sound.
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.
Movement Cliches
Time set apart (5-10 minutes) for allowing the expression of redundant movement habits and predictable kinetic patterns towards their full exposure and acceptance. The purpose is to identify one's movement cliches as a kind of 'default setting' that we 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, "aura or field", of presence. A device for generating personal presence at the start of a lab session.
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, cont.
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.
Idiosyncratic Motion: Movement Vocabulary Work, cont.
allowing whatever state you're in to dictate the expression of movements innate to that state; moving in ways innate to your own energy that cannot be duplicated or copied
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 effort, tension and resistance. The point is to become aware of any tendency to force or push a movement. Rises can encourage more intuition for following shifts of gravity as a propellent for achieving physical verticality from a horizontal position. After reaching a vertical stance, we fall back to the floor to repeat the process. Rises should be performed at least five times from a different horizontal floor position each time we fall to discover new pathways to the vertical stance.
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".
Follow-through
the result of allowing any movement, sound, solo or group ritual process to fulfill its natural ending (without controlling or predetermining that outcome); to fully extend any direction
ADDITIONAL PARATHEATRE TECHNIQUES
USING SOUND AND SONG (from the Spring 2004 'Song As Vehicle' lab)
-- compiled by ANTERO ALLI
PREVIOUS LAB REPORTS
(1999-present)