Moving Toward Life. Anna Halprin

the child’s growth will bring forth a child who dances with spontaneity, the freshness and vitality of the expressive mind flowing through the muscles and nerves. When children are trained in the disciplines of intrinsic art principles, they dance with great grace and freedom.

       NOTE

      1. Classes cost fifty cents apiece. Teachers for the co-ops were trained at Dancers’ Workshop and included A. A. Leath, Norma Leistiko, John Graham, and many others.

      MOVEMENT RITUAL I

      Try this experiment: Make a list of your senses, and put them in the order that you first think of them. Avoid looking at my list until you have made your own. Did your list go something like this:

      1st Sight

      2nd Sound

      3rd Smell

      4th Touch

      5th Taste

      THE KINESTHETIC SENSE

      There is a good chance that you did not mention the kinesthetic sense at all. Most people do not. What is the kinesthetic sense? The kinesthetic sense has end-organs and nerve endings in our muscles, tendons, ligaments, bones and joints that make it possible for us to have any awareness of our movements. Nerve endings in the inner ear allow us to know our body placement in space and our body directions. All of these are part of the proprioceptive nervous system. I can conceivably imagine living without any one of the senses listed above, but can you imagine living without any awareness of your movement? You’d bump into everything, stumble and fall down all the time. You wouldn’t even be able to eat because you couldn’t get food into your mouth. If you can imagine what it would be like to live without a kinesthetic sense, imagine how exciting and ALIVE you would be if your kinesthetic sense were to be heightened and cultivated way beyond its present consciousness. Just as a painter cultivates a keen sense of vision, a musician a keen sense of sound, a cook a fine sense of smell and taste, so the dancer, the athlete, the acrobat, and the actor need to develop a sharp kinesthetic sense. Since movement is the basis of life itself, and since we move all the time, then why shouldn’t all of us develop this heightened awareness so that all of us may live a more ALIVE life and become dancers.

      Let’s do another experiment to give you a chance to experience what is meant by the kinesthetic sense.

      . Blindfold (or close) your eyes so that you may rely on your movement sense, then …

      . Move around the room for 5 or 10 minutes.

      . Afterwards, write down quickly your sensations and feelings.

      . Read aloud what you wrote.

      . Share what you discovered with someone else.

      . With your eyes blind-folded or closed, try another set of movements like pushing, pulling, crawling, walking backwards, etc.

      When you begin to isolate and pay attention to yourself moving you have begun the process of developing your kinesthetic or movement awareness sensibilities. You can do this as you walk down a street, carry a load, or shake hands. Your daily pedestrian life is a potential dance.

      SPACE, TIME AND FORCE

      However, there is a way to make the process of awareness more complete and thorough and that is through understanding and paying attention to elements and ideas of movement. For example, all movement exists through or in SPACE, takes TIME, and is performed with a degree of FORCE.

      Let’s take a gesture with a different awareness each time. First move your arm forward in SPACE and focus your awareness on the spatial aspects of the movement. Do the same as you go back with your arm. Imagine you had lights attached to your shoulder, elbow and hand and you could see the visual pattern of the movement in space. Do it again and change TIMING … perhaps you could move your arm forward very slowly and fast coming back. Do this several times until you notice how the movement begins to take on a rhythmic pattern. Do you “feel” how the movement is changing? Now again, and this time try moving your arm forward making a fist and using intense resistance, and come back slowly letting the resistance go and your arms drop. Do you see how the dynamics have changed? You could continue to explore changing the ways that you use SPACE, TIME and FORCE in this movement and come up with a variety of qualities. As you learn to focus more keenly on the “feeling” of these qualities another set of responses will be generated. These responses of feeling plug into very personal feeling states that are directly associated with your life experiences. For example, reaching forward and drawing back fast with your arms may have all kinds of associations and feelings attached to the movement. Try it again and pay attention to those associations and feelings. When I do it, I imagine I’m reaching to give and suddenly pull back in fear. When you do the same movement you may feel something quite personal and different. Although the movement is OBJECTIVE we each have a SUBJECTIVE response. We can explore any movement and this same process, inherent in all movement, will occur. It is a NATURAL process and is the basis through which we can communicate and create with movement. This process is the basis through which we can empathize, communicate and share feelings with others.

       To summarize this process:

      1. The kinesthetic sense is your special sense for being aware of your movements and empathizing with others.

      2. Your movements take place in SPACE, are measured by TIME and performed with a degree of FORCE. These elements determine the QUALITY of your movement.

      3. When you pay attention to the QUALITY of your movements, FEELING STATES are aroused.

      4. These FEELING STATES are what constitute your ability to experience yourself in movement.

      The movement may be OBJECTIVE in that many people can do the same movement and SUBJECTIVE in that each person will respond according to personal associations and feelings.

      I consider this a NATURAL process, having a biological base and being inherent in all human beings.

      GRAVITY. INERTIA AND MOMENTUM

      Another important source for developing a keener use of the kinesthetic sense is the consciousness of movement in relation to GRAVITY, INERTIA and MOMENTUM. These three elements operate on our bodies from the outside, whether we are in rest or motion. The human body is subject to the pull of gravity as is any other object on earth. When you move you are moving in two polarities—one is going with gravity, the other is going against gravity; there are all shades of yielding or resisting that lie in between. For example, let’s go back to your arm. Lift your arms shoulder height and hold them there until they get tired. Then let go and gravity will cause them to drop.

      INERTIA is the desire to continue moving in the same direction. Try running full speed ahead and then suddenly turning to go the other way. This is difficult but also very exciting. Changing direction in movement is overcoming inertia. Have you noticed that when you are lying down at rest, it is often difficult to get up? You need to apply a great deal of will and often have to force yourself up—not just because you are tired but because you are overcoming and resisting inertia and gravity.

      MOMENTUM is also constantly operating on the body. You can experience momentum by doing a swing with your arms. The higher your arms drop from space, the more momentum you will build up; the shorter the drop the less momentum you will experience. What I have found fundamental in using gravity, inertia and momentum is a keen sense of awareness of these forces. In this way you can use the energy from an inter-dependency of these elements to give your movement ease, pleasure and excitement.

      For me, it is like giving my controlling mind over to these forces and letting the movement take on more energy. Running is much easier if you lean forward and go with gravity, inertia and momentum than if you are upright or leaning backwards and resisting. Try this out for yourself and see if it is true for you. Perhaps swinging on a swing is such a pleasant experience because of