This week we did the class back to front and started with the material that we finished with last week. This made my body feel much warmer and helped me to get into the sequences that we started with previously. The focus of folding into the arms ensured a reach from my head to tail and also helped my body soften into the floor and pour through the ground. I found that bending the legs through the use of the upper lower bodily connections made the lower sections a lot juicier and this resulted in my movement feeling far clearer and exciting. The continuity of the given phrase was a bit stop start therefore we worked to connect the phrase and work with momentum. I found that whilst using momentum I had to feel and see the space in order to create a continuous phrase. Once the phrase was continuous I could perform it to a better ability and I felt juicy within the choreography. I could feel the change in high to low levels and the transitions between the two now felt clearer and looked more interesting.

I focused on my feet as a rule for today’s class. I did this to improve my grounding and release technique. I ensured my feet were active by pressing through the floor at all times. Through spreading all of my toes I could use the push from the floor to get deeper into the movement and this also helped me to spin faster helping the landing of my spins. With the spins I used my head to reach up and out to feel the connection within my spine. My spine was lengthening and my head and eyes were seeing where I wanted to end up in space.

The use of sound and breath in todays class showed so many improvements in mine and everyone else’s dancing. I could see people expanding in their chests which resulted in lengthening through their backspace from the use of deep breath. This showed a strong application of somatics to release dance technique. The movement that was performed without breath/sound looked and felt a lot smaller, whereas when sound and breath was used the movement eat the space and looked and felt free not stiff and placed.

Through this semesters focus on applying somatic principles to dance technique I am feeling a strong journey. I can see how I have changed as a dancer. I am now more concerned as to how a movement feels rather than what it looks like through sesnsing the connections within my body. Using the correct posture along with many other techniques has led to juicer dancing which fills the space with strong bodily connections.