DAAAAANCE

Ah…. the “body over mind” dancing exercise. I’m not sure I’m totally in the right to comment upon this exercise because I stupidly misheard the instructions and spent 20 minutes doing exactly the opposite of what was asked but…

We took part in a little workshop exploring Artaud in which we participated in a 'Body over Mind' dance. We had to find our own space in a room, listen to piece of music and literally just go with it. We were asked not to let our mind have a say in what we do and literally just feel it in our body.

Because I’m just so completely thick I thought we were asked to ignore our body and experiment with the opposite of what Artaud practiced, listen to our mind and stop ourselves from what we truly wanted to do. In my defence, I think that too would have been a beneficial exercise. Just saying.

When we discussed our experiences after, I found that people experienced some difficultly with this exercise in our group. They claimed that they couldn’t help but constantly think about what they were doing and it made them feel self-conscious. They didn’t want to let themselves go completely, which was asked of them, as their mind had too much control on what they were doing.

Some other people loved the exercise. They felt it was the most easiest thing letting themselves go and just enjoy the music and the movements their body was sending them into without even thinking about it. When watching the videos back I noticed how some people began really upright and stiff, not moving, clearly still remaining to let their mind take over their body. As time increases, they began to loosen up a little more, their body catching up with their mind. Towards the end some people are literally dancing, some are lying down on the floor ect and it was evident from an observers perspective that they finally let their body run all over their mind.

When the exercise was finished and the music stopped, all eyes open, it was interesting to hear the guesses of how long people believed we were standing there for. Because we forced into a world of our own, time wasn’t even a thought and none of us could feel how long we were made to stand there for. Some suggestions including 5 minutes, 15 minutes… I guessed at 10 minutes and when I found out we were doing it for 25 I was amazed!

I thought that it would be a brilliant idea to incorporate some of this exercise (if it’s been done properly, ahem) into our piece of drama. Playing with time would be a good idea if we could make the audience lose track of theirs during our performance. This could make it just that more unsettling for them when watching and that’s great as that is our intention this term. If we played one annoying song on repeat, that would be good too as it could really start to stress the audience out and unsettle them.

This exercise was very good and beneficial and I wish to do it properly sometimes. I’ve learnt to listen more often but also a lot about the exercise from actually listening to other people.