Today Hannah shares with you her Home Practice diary and discusses a few of the key points from a selection of her favourite sessions from last year.
Before we launch our newest season of Home Practice, why don’t you check out any you’ve missed from the previous season?
Click here to find our Groundwork playlist – introductions to Home Practice and fundamentals of inclusive contemporary dance
Click here to find our Seed playlist – bite-sized dance workshops that explore a variety of key subjects in inclusive contemporary dance practice.
Click here to find our weekly Home Practice playlist – inclusive contemporary dance classes and workshops
Dancing from the centre with Lucy
This session was requested by me. I struggle with this because sometimes I find it difficult to engage my centre when I’m practicing. As this is all about core-work, this practice would help me prepare for all classes and dance pieces and help with maintaining my fitness.
Key Focus: Being aware of my centre
Inspired by images of: Cobwebs and Vitruvian Man (which is all in the torso)
Challenges: Working on Balance
What have I learnt?
I’ve learnt how my centre is connected to the rest of my body. The images Lucy used in the video helped me see a spider’s web or a Vitruvian man in the whole of my torso. When I see these two images in my mind, I start to explore what this would feel like when I include my long limbs.
Christian’s ‘Enormous Room Solo’
Inspired by The Enormous Room and his character ‘Tom’
Focuses: Spine, Breath and Punchy
The Enormous Room show is all about grieving and moving on from a loss of a loved one. There are 6 dancers in this piece, Dave Toole OBE (Dave), Amy Butler and Elia Lopez (Jackie), Nadenh Poan (Chock), Hannah Sampson (Sam) and finally Christian Brinklow (Tom). This piece has 2 sections; Part 1 is when the dancers move around and on set and Part 2 is when the dancers move in a bigger space.
As Christian mentioned, he talks about where his solo fits in the piece and that all the dancers are watching him. He also mentioned that his best friend Sam is pushing him to a corner when he explains the ending of his solo. If you have seen this piece before, there’s a real chemistry of friendship between these two characters.
What have I enjoyed?
I’ve really enjoyed this video because I get to channel Christian’s character and how his character feels at that same time.
‘Arm Candy’ with Amy
Focusses:
- Touch (light touch, pull and push)
- Energise your Arms
- Improving your Memory
- Open Language Sequence/Adding in Hooks
- Complex Arm Sequence (dynamics and textures)
Thoughts: When I’ve done this session, I knew I wanted to create my own version called Arm Candy 2. This was the original video where I’ve got my inspiration from for making my own home practice video. In this video, Amy did a different version as this is what she planned to do for hers. I found this video challenging but really enjoyed it at the same time. What I’ve enjoyed in this, is the touch behind it but also including the voice with my arms too.
I hope you enjoyed reading my blog. Please check out our YouTube channel for more videos. We’ll be launching more videos on the 11th January 2021 (be there, be square).
Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year
– Hannah