Deepak has been developing pedagogy for contemporary dance since 2004. His training is informed by multiple sources of movement methodology, the core of the workshop is to find safe movement practice and to recognise the individuality of the dancer in the class.

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Overview

The class will be a combination of guided improvisation and set movement tasks, lessons will also involve some video presentation, reading and working on a presentation by the end of the semester. The course aims to give an overview of contemporary dance practices and an introduction to movement composition. Practical sessions encourage the students to reflect and explore the possibilities of movement. Emphasis is placed on breath, alignment, joint articulation, and the use of gravity and momentum to facilitate movement. Creative sessions allow students to explore creating short movement sketches which will demand them to think, question and investigate the body and its politics. Theory sessions will give students a brief about the history and development of modern and contemporary dance.

     

Physical elements:

Every class will start with a task which is to get the body prepared to dance. The task encourages the students to find the right body alignment, connect the breath to the movement, and also find best practices to work in the given space with other bodies moving at the same time. (The task is informed by somatic movement practices like yoga, taichi, and kalari)

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Movement sequences:

This part of the classes is accumulated every class. With short sequence has been added to every class. The aim is to give an experience of elements of contemporary dance. Like breaking the frontality, changing levels from standing to jumping to rolling on the floor working with weight sharing. The same sequence will be done at different speeds. Set to different music every class which will change the dynamic of the given movement. This will encourage the students to experience what happens when we play with the time (speed and tempo). Below is the breakdown of the elements we will be addressing.

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Standing:

Teaching a set movement sequence which has simple and complicated coordination, leave, direction and dynamic. Working with making shapes in the space and finding different focus with our gaze.

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Floor:

A movement sequence is choreographed on the floor with movement elements like rolling, crawling, sliding and moving on the floor using the whole body.

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Travelling:

A short set of movements is done in a loop. Using movement elements like Hopping, jumping running across the floor.

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Partner work:

A movement task which has to be done with a partner or partners. It will start with simple as walking together in unison to complex Contact work touch, shearing weight, to Lifting each other

Composition and choreography:

This part of the class is designed to lead the student through a creative process. The aim is to encourage the students to create short solos and work with groups of 4 or 5 to come up with small movement sketches. As part of the process, we would be talking and exploring on

subjects like narration or lack of narration in dance, the imagination, aesthetics, and use of space and time in creating a performing art. Below are the concepts we explore.

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Body Space Time:

These sessions investigate the process of image-making with the body as a dynamic material within a spatial construction. In what way is the body organized by tempo, duration, repetition, or stillness? How are landscapes of time negotiated through relationships, geometries, emptiness and topographies? How do gesture, action, mobility and motility interact with temporal and spatial considerations to shape an image?

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SOLO Body and its stories:

The core of the sessions looks at human conditions through our assumptions, preconceived notions and judgements. From this perspective, how do we create solo work? It is through the process of perceiving and being perceived that a self-reflective solo emerges.

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Site-specific work:

The sessions look at placing the body in place outside of the proscenium, we will talk about stage audience perspective, the relationship to the architecture the safety issues in a public space and the act of getting art onto a public space. We will investigate the concepts like movement rituals in public spaces, Protests and flash mobs.

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Theory:

The course is practice and the aim is to learn through experience. I would like to find days to show the set of dance videos of 2 to 3 minutes each from different periods and styles (folk, classical, modern, to dancing for screen) to map out the evolution of dance. I would like the students to read extracts from dance books.

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Performativity:

Sharing is an integral part of all the sessions. Every task will be divided into practice time and observing time. The class will be divided into groups to watch each other. The work we are developing in the class can also be composed to be a presentation for an audience.