In the introduction circle Benno Vorham talked about the Use of Music.  He uses a lot of (different kind) of music in his classes (while teaching) as well as in his art work. Questions were put up (without reflecting on it really) about: how important is the kind of music we use during teaching? do we change depending  on the classes’ make-up (gender, age)? Anyway, how does music affect our dancing, our improvisation? In another way how does it affect our being during dancing?

After the circle talk we received a task.  What we knew was the following: we were divided into couples. We would hear (around) 12 different music (very different!), one after the other, (around) one minute each. One person of the pair dances for the other to the music. When the short music ends the members in the pair switch roles and the observer becomes the dancer. Do we do the dance right to the beat, right to the music? on it? Do we connect to all the layers of the music (beat, rhythm, melody, mood, expression)? „Just” to selected layers? Do we go right against it?

This was followed by a group improvisation with this score: doing your „own dance”, „connecting to what’s already happening”, „lying on the floor”, „being off stage and observing”. These are the actions you must do. Each part you do for ¼ of the time. The time is 20 mins. This doesn’t mean you have to do one part after the other for 5 mins (you can of course). You can break the times with another happening for example: you lie on the floor for 10 seconds and then you do your own dance for 3 mins… Eventually every part (summed up) gives out the ¼ of the time (of course not totally precise).

Next, we did two rounds of a new group improvisation with the only difference in music. The score: There can only be a maximum of 12 people on stage and a maximum of 3 events happening at the same time. The two music played were extremely different. First an electronic music was heard expressing a deep mood. For the second round the famous track of The Doors. When the music was over it had a celebrating, liberating effect on people. It was interesting to see just because the psychological effect of music, two very different improvisations was seen on the same task.

You cannot avoid sound! It comes directly through your ear into your brain/heart/body!