Interior Techniques

With CI there is no set choreography and no specific instruction, “Improvisers in the space continuously choose their own movement, when, how long, and with whom they will dance.”(Paxton, 2010, 124). From this I feel that CI is free to a degree as the dancer chooses what they want to do in the space.

Steve Paxton wanted to get rid of all external constants and to do this he set up movement experiments and by doing this he returned the decision making to the dancer.

Paxton started developing awareness of reflexes and trying no longer to control what was happening but instead by just dancing this created “flowing streams of movement” (Paxton, 2010, 127). I think Paxton tried to make dancing not as strict and not so much about technique, he wanted the dance and dancer to flow. With doing this CI had the ability to affect the audience. “It is through the eyes that the audience begins a kinetic response or a physical empathy with the dancer” (Paxton, 2010, 128). I think that this means that the audience start to feel what the dancer feels while dancing the piece, if the audience do this, this means that get a different experience.

“Equally significant was the dissociation of relaxation from tension since tension was cultural, it was to be avoided. Moments of tension could be resolved (instead of observed or investigated) by going back to one’s bodily sensations and relaxing” (Paxton, 2010, 131/132). I think that this means that relaxation and tension are different things and tension needs to be avoided and if tension does occur it can be resolved and by looking at what is going on in the body and relaxing them to get rid of the tension.

From this reading I this explained to me how Paxton went about finding more out about CI and I found this interesting.

Bibliography

Turner, R. (2010) Interior Techniques in the Drama Review.