Galaxy at Grinnell 2

            

Galaxy’s second visit to the Grinnell College dance studio deviated from my scientific theme and had to do more with increasing the kids’ familiarity of creative dance, dance making, and dance composition. They had done a wonderful job the first time they came, but Celeste and I thought it would be a good idea to reiterate some basic structures that coincide with creative dance. In this way, the kids could not only practice this mode of thinking but also use these tools of dance when applying movement to science. 

We began as we normally do, by standing in a large circle and introducing ourselves with movement. We warmed up using the exercise in which one individual forms a shape in the middle of the circle. One by one more individuals make shapes around the first, so that by the end we have one large, multi-person sculpture. The group then has 8 counts to slowly find a way to get into a different position, thereby creating an entire new sculpture. This was a way to play with various levels as well as positive and negative space. We continued with variations of this exercise using both large and small groups of dancers before we moved on to the final portion of the workshop.

The workshop continued by viewing images that we normally think of as still, instead, as moving ones. Celeste brought in a number of items: a scarf, a magazine, and an umbrella. While these are normally static items, she manipulated them in certain ways so that we could think about and create interesting movement. The scarf was let go from a very high point, and floated to the ground. The umbrella began as closed, but after the push of a button ballooned to its opened state. The magazine’s pages were flipped at a rapid speed. We could think about this type of movement in a variety of ways while using many parts of our bodies. Some kids performed all the movement on the ground, while others traveled across the studio.

This allowed the students to think about movement and movement inspiration differently, which I think was just as valuable for the dancers of the Dance Ensemble to think about as well. This visit from Galaxy was also a valuable one to us dancers because of the flexibility and patience we needed to maintain throughout. After a long day at school, the kids were hyper (to say the least) and brought in enough energy to have me exhausted for the rest of the week. However, this proved to be a great exercise in patience and adaptability – no doubt, some valuable lessons.