Visual mapping as a tool for learning

By eccentricdance
May 11, 2012 //
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Trisha Brown Residency at the Eugene Lang College

Winter-Spring 2012

 

“Can you make a single, uninterrupted line drawing of Trisha Brown’s Set and Reset phrase?” 

This past semester, I worked in collaboration with TBDC Choreographic Assistant and former dancer Carolyn Lucas, former TBDC dancer Laurel Tentindo, and students from the Eugene Lang College in a Trisha Brown Residency at the Eugene Lang College.

 

Our process was to conjure some of Brown’s impulses and strategies from over the years as a resource for the students to develop their own creative practices. We asked students to notate their creative process by keeping visual notebooks. In playing with multiple ways of mapping and reflecting upon the material learned in class, students were able to bridge their own understandings of some of the living ideas in Brown’s choreography.

 

Brown’s practice of drawing, notating, sketching, and writing have always been present in the development of her ideas and imagination of her mind in movement. In place of codifying a dance technique, Brown has employed drawing as a visual mapping of her own idiosyncratic sense of movement. In using a visual seeing rather than a set physical technique, Trisha creates visual scores that allow the original impulses of the movement to remain alive and dynamic.

 

Here are some of the student drawings and notations from this past semester.   

 

I will be teaching this process this July as part of the Trisha Brown Summer Intensive.  Please visit this link for further information!

 

- Cori Olinghouse 

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Hands-on Techniques for Movement Practicioners

By eccentricdance
April 28, 2012 //
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On April 22, 2012 I led an Alexander Technique workshop for Cadence Dubus, owner of Brooklyn Strength in Brooklyn Heights to work with her Pilates and Personal Training instructors.

We looked at ways of complimenting the Pilates idea of “CORE” with a directional, non-muscular approach.  Rather than engaging the muscles of the abdomen directly, we looked to find directional support through the limbs.  We experimented with moving all 6 limbs (head, tail, arms, and legs) distally away from the center to find a eco-poise and expansion throughout the body.  This support was generated from the periphery as a new way to enliven the core.

Taking this efficient and easeful approach into their teaching, we looked at ways of putting hands on clients during hamstring stretches, Pilates mat and table work.   Cadence’s movement practitioners found a new way to open their own bodies during hands-on thereby giving their partners more effective experiences. We examined how to use the feet, legs, back and head in an oppositional relationship to gravity – decreasing the tendency to compress or collapse into their clients.  This anti-gravity support gave them energy and buoyancy.

Please stay tuned with further hands-on workshops for movement practitioners.  Visit Brooklyn Strength for further information about Pilates, Thai massage, and Personal Training. – Cori Olinghouse

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Post-natal workshop beginning March 3, 2012!

By eccentricdance
February 25, 2012 //
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Alexander Technique for new Moms – Introductory post-natal workshop

The Alexander Technique can help address the many changes a mother must make during pregnancy, through childbirth and into caring for her new baby.  It is a practical method for improving ease and freedom of movement, balance, support and coordination.  Through classes you can look forward to an increase in energy, reduced pain and stress, and the overall ability to move more easily and gracefully.  You will learn to adapt to the many changes your body is adjusting to, find more physical support while carrying, lifting, and holding your baby, and create more ease and comfort while nursing.  Handling these new demands with improved ease can allow you to fully enjoy the rewards of parenting with support and relaxation.

Common discomforts

In the early postpartum periods, pregnancy hormones cause your ligaments and other connective tissues to lengthen, which decreases joint stability.  You are also managing a shift in your center of gravity, reducing neuromuscular coordination and balance, leaving you more vulnerable to injury.  As you learn to apply principles from the Alexander Technique, you can enjoy a new sense of support and balance, helping you to:

Benefits:

  • Improve posture and alignment
  • Prevent injury and relieve chronic pain
  • Manage stress more effectively
  • Reduce muscular tension
  • Increase range of motion, breathing capacity and overall energy
  • Improve balance and coordination
  • Expand self-awareness
  • Improve and sustain your health

Cori Olinghouse, AmSAT certified Alexander Technique teacher is also available for private lessons in Brooklyn and Manhattan.  Please contact Cori for further information.

To pre-register, RSVP to: 
917.208.2373
corihouse@gmail.com
Fee:  $110 for full 4 week course
Location:  Studio Maya (Prospect Heights)
603 Bergen Street (between Vanderbilt & Carlton)
Brooklyn, NY 11238
Time:  March 3, 10, 17, 24 from 3-4:30pm (Saturdays)
Class is limited to 10 people
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Creative Movement Play with Creatures and Robots

By Mr. Rhys, TMS
August 15, 2011 //
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This August, as part of the Bessie Schönberg Choreographers’ Residency 2011 at The Yard in Martha’s Vineyard, Kai Kleinbard and I have been invited to create a community project with kids and adults – leading classes that focus our research on creative practices.   We are developing an approach that uses adaptive, self-organizing methods stimulating what it means to learn.  These practices are experiential in nature, utilizing both creative and physical components to integrate self-awareness, creativity and health.

We bring influences from our work as Alexander Technique teachers, study of underground vernacular dance forms, and Emergent Improvisation (developed by Susan Sgorbati), to this creative practice method.  It is our goal to create an open-ended learning process where students learn through creating and create through learning.  This method allows for a feedback loop in which students can build bridges between ideas, implement their own strengths, and harness reflective practices that foster their own self-development.

Our creative practice is an open-ended spiral that moves through these five principles:

  • articulating interests
  • gathering information
  • recognizing patterns that emerge
  • selecting what is useful
  • re-assimilating this information back into an emergent whole
Our adult classes follow this structure: 
Alexander Technique-based warm-ups
Technique utilizing a variety of dance forms 
Improvisational structuring and emergent forms
 
And our kid’s class -
Creative Movement Play with Creatures and Robots

Students will use their imaginations to orient their bodies in time and space, develop rhythm and coordination, and transform into otherworldly creatures.  Freedom of expression and improvisation will be encouraged and further developed through art projects that build costumes, sculptures, and drawings (using recycled materials).  The workshop will culminate in an interactive lecture demonstration as the kids lead the audience through their worlds of transformation.

Stay posted for our next creative movement class – coming Spring 2012!

- Cori Olinghouse

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