ISTD Theatre Faculties Congress @ Laban

This year the Theatre Faculties Congress was held at Laban (London) which, following the success of last year, the ISTD felt it was a well suited venue and had great adaptability for the needs of this diverse and large scale Congress.

Once again the Congress was a huge success and the variety of the lectures, demonstrations and workshops were impressive. The day was run with a high level of professionalism but also offering a lovely open and personal approach as the presenters and lecturers created a fun and welcoming atmosphere to all.

I attended five sessions on the day which included:

Tap class by Douglas Mills – Excellent, great fun! Amazing tapper and choreographer. (Tap Faculty)

Classical Greek: A Musical Approach  – Ancient to Modern by Amanda Wilkins and Carol Vasko – Fantastic! Incredibly informative, well presented and beautiful dancing! (Classical Greek Faculty)

Classical Ballet: Demonstration Class Year 11 Girls from White Lodge with Diane Von Schoor – Talented young dancers taught by an incredible and entertaining teacher. An eye opener into the training of young ballet professionals. (Imperial Ballet and Cecchetti Faculty)

National Dance: A Polish Experience by Wlodek Lesiecki – Two words describe the presenter ….. interesting and crazy! This was a lot of fun to watch, mainly because of the way it was presented and taught. Not perhaps the most conventional way of teaching, but a nice change from the norm! (National Dance Faculty)

Kathak Workshop by Urja Desai Thakore  – Excellent as we got chance to have one on one tution with Urja Desai Thakore! She was also very articulate in answering the questions the audience threw at her. (South Asian Faculty)

Classical Greek

My personal favourite from the day was the Classical Greek lecture and demonstration.  I had never atcually seen any Classical Greek dance before then and was totally blown away! Four styles of Classical Greek was shown and explained. The first being Lyrical which was very exspressive, worshipful and elegant. The movements were heavily linked with the music and orginally back in Accient Greece, the dance would have been accompinied by live singers. The physicality was incredible. Clearly strength, balance and great flexibilty is needed to perform this style well. Alot of back work and spinal curves were involved in the chorerograhy. You could also see Balletic and Release style qualities (Release technique from the Contemporary Dance).

The second style was Bacchic. This style represents the extremes of human nature. The movements looked animal-esque! The dancers were transformed through the movements into dark and grotesque looking creatures!

The Tragic style was very emotional and perhaps a more maturer way of moving as the dancers had to really engage in what they are dancing for and the story that they were trying to portray.

Last of all was the Piric style. This movement vocabulary is drawn from the days of war and battle. Props such as swords and sheilds were used to convey the intensity and the physicality of battle.

It is easy to see how Classical Greek can enhance a dancer’s way of movement and control. The technique encompeses many qualities and skills which are crucial for many forms of dance inculding Ballet and Contempory. The performances which were shown were beautiful and totally engaged / connected with the audience throughout.

If you have not seen any Classical Greek  or would like to know more about it then visit the ISTD Classical Greek’s website and have a read. There are many ISTD schools which offer lessons in Classical Greek and I would definatly recommend having ago!

Overview

The day was set in the Royal Society of Medicine which was a fantastic back drop. The building and the conference room was laid out beautifully with fantastic portraits of the great figures in medicine. The food was great and refreshments served throughout the day. There was a lovely atmosphere where around 80 people involved or interested in the Dance Science and Medicine industries gathered. I saw some old friends and tutors there which was lovely and met a handful of new experts who hopefully I will be working with at some point.

I thought it would be easier to split this review into seperate posts. So this is the first one ! This first post is a review on the talk by Wayne McGregor (Wayne McGregor / Random Dance and The Royal Ballet). Personally I found the talks from him and Rachel Peppin (Former principle dancer for the Birmingham Royal Ballet) perhaps the most interesting as they were personal accounts of their engagement with dance medicine and science as dance professionals.

Wayne McGregor -  Artistic Director of Wayne McGregor / Random Dance and Resident Choreographer of the The Royal Ballet amoungst many other artistic projects and companies.

Wayne is clearly very intelligent and absolutely passionate about what he does. Ever carefully selected word he spoke was said with real authority and demonstrated his wealth of experience and wisdom. As a speaker he was engaging, humorous and you literally had to keep your full attention on him as he spoke pretty fast!

I was very impressed with Wayne’s approach to working with dancers. The focus of his talk was on what is expected from a dancer. His expectation was that dancers have to be ready to work with a good approach and attitude - a “can do” attitude. His creative process demands the dancers to be responsive to his instructions and that requires a “healthy state of mind and body”.If a dancer is not properly taking care of themselves, this can affect the development of the piece. He wants his dancers to walk into the studio prepared and ready to work with him.  

What was great to hear was that when his dancers get injured,  he works around this and adapts to their current capabilities. This is a great attitude as many dancers continue on through injury as they worry they won’t get paid or they are letting the choreographer/company down.  This perhaps is a good time to point out that many artistic directors or choreographers do not have a good appreciation of how injury can affect a dancer and therefore their injury/sick policies and attitudes drive dancers to physical and often mental breakdown. Wayne McGregor is really a role model for these people and I hope that they hear this message in some way!

Wayne looks for dancers who have excellent cognitive and creative capabilities, not just physical. However, flexibility with strength and control is essential in performing his movement vocabulary. He also looks for individual style and signature, ability to distinguish movement between bones and muscles and developed proprioception in motion through time. 

It was good to hear that Wayne ensures that his dancers get breaks in schedules, training plans and regular screenings. However Wayne also believes it is down to the  dancer to take responsibility for their own bodies and communicate their boundaries to choreographers. He appreciates this is not always easy, however if you don’t you will only get worse and then be injured for a longer period of time.

I felt that Wayne had a great approach and attitude to what he expects from dancers and how he provides “open communication” with dancers. This has many advantages but most importantly for me, a safe environment for dancers to be honest about their physical limitations and feel properly supported both physically and emotionally.

Random Dance are performing at Sadlers Wells from the 4-6 June 2009. Try and go to see them, they are excellent, have a look at this video (just click on the link) and see for yourself !

 Random Dance – Entity

I really enjoyed this performance. It started out entertaining and continued throughout the whole perfromance! I felt the work was incredibly accesible to all audiences,  so no matter who you were, you could understand and follow the piece with great enjoyment.

The beginning drew on simple, stereotypical ‘gym user’ movements which the audience found very amusing as they were easy to  identify with. Gradually the piece’s story and movement vocabulary became more challenging and in depth, however at no point did you have to desperately try and figure out what was going on.

The piece was about how a lady who joins the gym for the first time and how different emotions and pressures  bombard her as she explores  the gym environemnt in her persuit of ‘body beauty’. These fears, pressures and feelings are something which I have found to be incredibly common with my clients.

Personally, I felt this was probably one of the best pieces I have seen this year. It was refreshing to simply enjoy the work and let it take you on a journey which was both hilarious and poignant.  

I would strongly recomend anybody (not just theatre goers!) to see this. I beleive this was movement based communication and theatre at its best which could have been enjoyed by everyone – not just the dance academics! And at the end of the day,  is that not what it is all about??

To read more about Protein go to www.proteindance.co.uk

The general atmosphere was that of learning, discovery and passion! Although the gentlemen attendees I spoke to seemed to want to display their superior knowledge! The majority of the people I met were extremely friendly with a genuine desire to learn. Overall there was not a competitive atmosphere, which personally I

cannot stand and unfortunately in my experience, seems to be present at many conventions.

I selected the seminars which I could most easily apply to training dancers or similar problems experienced by the dance community. I arrived on the Saturday morning and the first lecture set me up for the rest of the weekend – absolutely fantastic! Because every session was so interesting I thought it would be best to hear the highlights;

Muscle Activation Technique (MAT) – Greg Roskopf MA

www.muscleactivation.com

Greg Roskopf is the founder of this theory and it has rapidly been recognised as a technique which is essential for rehabilitation. His severe experience with sports related injuries in his early years prompted him to investigate pain and injuries. This is where he discovered the basis of his

‘Muscle Activation Technique’ which is ‘A biomechanically based process for identifying and correcting muscular imbalances that contribute to chronic pain and injury’ (Session notes 2009).

• Whilst many of us assume that we need to stretch out muscles to increase our flexibility and ease the pain, work through the pain or stop doing exercise which causes the pain, MAT has found that by following these actions either does not address the problem or can actually increase the problem and cause more pain. The fundamental thinking behind this technique is to find the actual problem (not necessarily where the pain is) and activate and strengthen those muscles.

• Improving the communication pathways between the brain and the muscles is a key process in this technique. By strengthening this communication, movement can be dramatically improved with out flexibility or strength training. MAT looks at the neural issue behind the pain and stiffness as opposed to the soft tissue/muscle problem.

• Muscle tightness is the body’s reaction to instability which is an automatic protection mechanism. Stabilise the body and range of movement can be increased. The stabilising muscles are slow twitch fibres which means slow controlled stabilising movements need to be included within a training program. These deep muscles need stamina and endurance as they are used constantly within the body (involved in posture and alignment).

The great thing about this technique is that it is a prerequisite to movement and prepares the body to move in an efficient and healthy manner. This is defiantly something which will benefit dancers.

Instead of stretching or massaging pain away, how about locating the REAL issue first and improve the communication between the brain and that weak muscle?  Not only does this require less strenuous activity but it will improve your technique and movement in general.

 For more information contact me or visit the MAT website.

Swiss ball techniques for corrective posture & stability deficits – Paul Check HHP

www.chekinstitute.com

Paul Check him self is an interesting character! His presentation was vibrant, well communicated and entertaining! Although personally I did not feel quite at comfort with his style of presenting, his knowledge and Swiss ball techniques were excellent.

·        Paul began the workshop with a survival reflex exercise which was really interesting and a useful tool. ‘Using the survival reflex overrides the inhibitory pathways which have been developed, to active the correct muscles’. Just by lightly pushing a client who is sat on a Swiss ball, can activate core muscles which have been, or are inactive. This really works and is actually quite tiring! People in general develop bad posture and alignment by not activating the correct muscles in the body. The problem is they do not often realise it! This method is simple but extremely effective and you can feel the difference in the body instantly!

·        ‘The brain always moves where there is strength’. So the stronger muscles dominate the movement which ultimately increases their strength. This also ingrains and strengthens the communication between the brain and the dominant muscles creating imbalance. It is the weaker muscles which must be focused on, which means taking simpler movements and practising/strengthening those pathways slowly.   

·        A simple trick to quickly activate muscles is to gently touch them. Whilst a client is moving, you can gently tap the muscles which should be working. This activates the muscle and allows you to find out if they are actually using the correct muscles or not. 

·        There are four main training benefits of using the Swiss ball in this approach;

1.       Nervous system training

2.       Survival reflexes (dormant muscles, reflex training for righting and tilting

      reflexes)

3.       Avoiding fixed patterns of movement

4.       Assessment, postural and stability improvement plus core conditioning rolled into one exercise (Big Bang^TM exercises)

All of the exercises and techniques are great for dancers. Rather than trying to build strength in the conventional way – lifting weights, conditioning exercises (which many dancers do not like for fear of ‘bulking up’), these exercises provide strength training for the many other areas of the body which are commonly neglected.

After all, it is the combination of the core, stabilisers and proprioception (communication between the brain and muscle receptors) which actually determine our quality of movement. Quality of movement – Is this not we strive so greatly for as dancers? Yes! So strengthening these 3 areas should be a priority. 

For more information contact me or visit the Check Institute website.