SURPRISED BODY

Already the title, "A Surprised Body" defines for me, a metaphorical space - the image of a body in a constantly alerted state, able to surprise itself, escaping from a habitual daily body and from any kind of routine. A body more focused on reacting, than on acting. The reaction forces us to avoid mental approaches. 

Throughout a structured score of exercises, that combines floor work, hands-on exercises, tai chi chuan and movement sequences, the work focuses on centering and gravity; on awakening the internal and external supports, while allowing isolation in the limbs and flow in the movement. 

The physical training aims at generating awareness and at creating occasions for discoveries. The research that led to the creation of the performance Surprised Body Project will ground the workshop. The SBP is a piece that has been developing, as an ongoing creative process. Since its première in 2010, it has been successfully presented, in different versions, in 27 countries in Europe, Asia, Central and South America. https://vimeo.com/57501069 

Through exercises and games, focusing on attention and reaction, and different tasks for improvisations, we will underline the pathway to an interesting creative moment, which is rooted in mental relaxation and a physical openness: a willingness to play, being totally engaged in what we do and see. 

We will explore how dance phrases can be de-structured and transformed treating as a spoken phrase, where movements can be isolated as “words” and used to compose new phrases. The random in the phrases is created by improvisations or composition, trying to use even small parts of movements as “syllables”, to build new movements. "I believe that in dance, it’s more important to be able to forget, than to remember