Big If Dance Experiments meets again

This post has taken me so long to organize!  Finally notes from the last January gathering of "Big If Dance Experiments"  Thank you to Chip, Patty, Sarah, Chelsea, Alice, Lynn, Taylor and Alexandra for being there.
Inspiring day!  Big If Dance Experiments gathered again and rocked La Casa Bizzoso.  Hopefully I will be able to post some of the contributions soon, meanwhile I will post the process.

Beginnings:
Gaga-esque warmup to a limited 17 minute playlist.  Our sequence:
Float bones
Feel skin wrapping around bones and press flesh into space
Sequential unfoldings
"Make ends meet"
Time to get the groove on (to "Balkan Beat Box" of course)

We layered to the warm-up that the playlist included songs with lyrics about wolves at the door.  I was interested how we might find ourselves layering text into the movement exploration.  For instance: How could we float bones while the lyrics call for howling?

After warming up: Checked in about what Big If dance experiments is:
A place for me to not teach.  A space for experiments
Charles Darwin "And oh, what a big if"

Chip showed up after our warm-up which was perfect!  He played for the rest of the session.  So fantastic.

Brainstorm: What are the stories we know where wolves play a part in the story?
We shared and I made a list of the stories.

Then we did a brainstorm of titles for wolf stories.  Stories in our imagination, that do or do not exist.
We made a list of these titles.

Improv:  I read from the titles (they formed a sort of 'found poem')  and we improvised to the images as they proposed themselves. The task in the improv was to translate the titles into movement ideas, and play with them until I said a new title.

Improv: We did the solo/ensemble improv from Nina Weiner to warm up to working off of each other.
Then, using the idea of "Solo/ensemble", we added extemporaneous talking.  Someone started a wolf story, and purposely stopped at an unfinished stopping point.  The story was then picked up and continued in both/either movement and continued speaking. Originally I suggested we really keep to the solo/ensemble structure - but some people held onto it and others continually moved.  On reflection, I think that I could have dropped the solo/ensemble structure and we could have just gone to the storytelling/storydancing.

Partnered up:  Each person had three minutes to dance their "wolf" dance (improvising) while their partner asked questions.  "What is your hand doing?"  "Where are you going?" etc.  You try to answer from the movement, not from your head.  For instance if asked, "What is your hand doing?" And it is clenched you really explore that clench and let whatever comes to mind, come from your mouth, "It is opening and closing on the possibilities that are a door knob." Then you let that movement take you new places, until the next question prompts something new.  After the 3 minutes, you and your partner write down/remember in movement things that were particularly resonant.  Reverse roles.

Then:
Create something.
With all you have.
Create something.

Alexandra and Taylor added to their new duet with the material they each generated.  It became the prologue for their piece.  Here, from their tech rehearsal for the MITS Alumnae show.

Each piece was so stunning.  I wish I had video-ed them all.  They were a great combination, too, of dance, dance & text, and writings.  I love the group that participated.  They each were so capable of responding to the directive to just "create something" out of all the material.