becoming dance

.

‘if you are aware of the feelings and sensations and images in that movement it will become dance’

(Halprin 2001b)

"Physical training alone is insufficient. Even if the starting point was an arbitrarily chosen movement, integration not separation is key. For teaching purposes Halprin isolates the physical elements for detailed exploration, to prevent overwhelming input that becomes hard to process. The focus on the kinaesthetic sense is not indicative of a conventional dance training that includes pressure to leave personal life at the door of the studio, nor a theatre instruction to work with an ‘empty’ or ‘neutral’ body. Instead, by drawing attention to this frequently ignored sense, she encourages both greater sensitivity to movement and a clearer idea of how this sense links to others.

Movement is perceived ‘not only through the vestibular nerves of the inner ear, but also through proprioceptive and kinaesthetic nerves located in bones, joints, muscles, fascia and ligaments throughout the body, and through interoceptive nerves in organs, glands, vessels, and nerves’ (Hartley 1989:28). The resultant flow of information allows the body to respond to external elements, to prepare for movement and to maintain a sense of positioning in space. An increased awareness of the kinaesthetic sense give sthe dancer a greater sense of autonomy.

In both her writing and teaching Halprin repeatedly stresses the aim of her work as enabling each individual to develop their own movement:

“ Dance can be approached as a direct and natural way to move without any personalized aesthetics imposed from an outside authority. Dance is not necessarily graceful, pretty or spectacular. Dance can be grotesque, ugly, clumsy, funny, frightening, and conflicted.”

(Halprin, 2000:23)

By advocating this broadened perspective on the nature of dance Halprin encourages freedom of exploration but not at expense of discipline. She supports students to gain a sound knowledge of anatomy and the basic principles of movement in relation to space, time and force. Such an informed approach enables participants to gain confidence in assessing their physical ability and to take responsibility for growth.

(…) it is possible to teach improvisation through creating a stimulating environment within which to research, explore and practice

'how to pay attention, how to listen to their body, to what’s going on in and out’

(Halprin 1995:95).

‘Direct movement’ refers to her belief that

‘each person really has their own style which is the result of combining using three levels of awareness [physical, mental and emotional] in relationship to intention’

(Halprin 2001b).

This can be nurtured and celebrated as expression of human diversity rather than mediated through the imposition of a set style. However this does not imply absence of technique only that the technical aspects of her teaching are based on structures and principles that respect the autonomy of the individual. Halprin favours the use of the term ‘craft' that encompasses a sense of acquiring skills, knowledge and experience in relation to the basic components of dance such as space, time, force, and gravity, inertia, momentum and rhythm. The technique lies in developing competence to isolate and move with each of these elements to determine movement quality. Awareness of this quality generates feeling states that contribute to the overall ‘ability to experience yourself in movement’ (Halprin 1995:33).

(…)

In Dance as a Healing Art, Halprin states that: ‘It is the purpose of this work to integrate physical movement with feelings, emotions, personal images and spirit’ (Halprin 2000:20). In recent works Halprin tends not to separate out the ‘spiritual’ aspect of her work and resists attempts to define it – an innate spirituality underlies most of her work although it is not allied to any formal belief system She does relate spirituality to an experience of meaning which she sees as inherently human, referring to it as ‘a sense of wholeness’ (Halprin 2001b). "

in Anna Halprin, by Libby Worth and Helen Poynor, ed. Routledge Performance Practitioners, NY 2004

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