Performance Space


Today, when I performed properly for the first time, I was relieved when it was not that big of a deal. However, I was extremely surprised by the difficulty of communicating my ideas after the performance in words. Again, this confusion arose in which I used to have a clear understanding of communicating my ideas […]

How Movement makes Meaning so far


The main idea of this course is of course the choreography and meaning of movement approached not only through a performance, but throughout the perception of life. We already spent an appropriate amount of time exploring different patterns of moving starting from thinking, researching, writing and reading and ending up with breathing, letting our bodies […]

Struggles and Pleasure


Ondrey’s class has now a special meaning for my personality and the inner world of mine. As the tasks become more performative and extraordinary it becomes more complicated for me to be open to the people around me and to myself as well. I always care about my appearance and realize immediately when I do […]

The further the deeper


The specific of Ondrej’s class today was a real brain storm for me. In order to cross the hall we needed to use a second chance, to think about the second option each of us understood in the own way. Although there was no wrong way to complete the task, I felt quite confused as […]

Broadening the Mind


Day 2 with Ondrej seemed very similar in the structure of the previous class, however, was different for my perception. The Ondrej’s expectations considering the class directed on students being rather free, relaxed and not so tight in their actions and emotions did not coincide with my feelings. Although the intersubjectivity between others was common […]

Feeling the Body


I was very exited about the class as the description was about everything I adore: dance, arts, theatre. However, I did not know what exactly to expect and could not wait to see what will happen. The first part fascinated me completely. I could not stop asking myself: is this really a university class? Closing […]

Significance of Costumes


Every performance lasts the just moments, but its preparation – the whole eternity. Eternity not in a sense of long lasting rehearsals, but in the emotional state its process requires. An artist is constantly searching for inspiration, tries new things out, falls and stays up again in pursuit for the desired result. Usually I do […]

How it was


Every performance lasts the just moments, but its preparation – the whole eternity. Eternity not in a sense of long lasting rehearsals, but in the emotional state its process requires. An artist is constantly searching for inspiration, tries new things out, falls and stays up again in pursuit for the desired result. Usually I do […]

Thinking the Unthought


The activities we did with Ondrej were fun and some parts of them made me think about the foundations of dance again. For example, he reiterated the importance of breathing, especially while using the back consciously, and transferring all of our bodies’ weight to the ground to gain balance. These are some things that seem […]

What is Dance without Performance?


The activities we did in Ondrej’s class felt more comfortable than yesterday, especially the partner activity that one person has to close their eyes and the other has to lead them to move to other space in the room. Yesterday, some classmates said that they felt relaxed, to a point where they forgot that there […]

Second Thought


My favorite part of today’s dance class with Ondrej was ‘second-option’. I was initially confused about what second-option meant—are we expected to predict our future? But then I realized it shouldn’t be taken literally and the main focus should be on deliberately creating an unconventional (in my perspective) flow of movements. It took me a lot […]

It’s about How


I was partnered up with Marika for today’s exercise of initiating movement from a specific part of the body. I went first, before Marika, and whenever Marika touched a certain body part of mine, I tried to move from that exact point and connect it to other movements. I tried to vary the position of […]

Trust


What I love about Professor Harrell is the way he values us as artists, despite our lack of knowledge and experience in dance. Whenever he talks to us, I see only passion and genuineness to share his stories and philosophy about dance in his eyes, and no trace of any judgment for our imperfections. I […]

A Crucial Mirror


Whether it is choreographing or putting together a presentation, watching other people’s works has always had an interesting influence on my work. I am quite ambivalent about it; sometimes it brings inspirations but also often an unpleasant guest, insecurity. Owing to the supportive class environment, I did not feel much of the latter sentiment today […]

What do you see?


My stage fright has been my constant companion for any kind of performance throughout my entire life—regardless of whether by ‘stage’ I mean a 600 seat auditorium or my bedroom, in front of my friends to sing. I think my fear stemmed from the pursuit of perfectionism and others’ judgments that entail if I fail. […]

Hierarchy in Dance


I sat next to Vania during the dinner today, one of the dancers of Trajal’s company (and a truly lovely, inspiring woman). We had an interesting conversation which jumped from one topic to another, from what having an accent while speaking English means in each other’s cultures to what our childhood dreams were. I was […]

Inspiration


I find it so interesting that even though it is Trajal who is using this course to share with us his creative process, by studying it we get to learn even more about ourselves than we learn about him. And Trajal seems to be very supportive of this: each time he talks about the importance […]

Style


Today in movement class we repeated the group formation exercise that we’ve been working on since last week – this time, Ondrej told us to start moving in the space while still keeping track of the shifting “leader” and maintaining our formation as a group. Today I genuinely tried to let go of myself and […]

Heaviness


Today I felt scared in class for the first time. I wasn’t afraid of speaking, or presenting, or dancing, or anything specific, but for some reason with each minute passing I could feel fear creeping over me. Although it’s been only a week since j-term started, I feel that I’ve already learned a lot about […]

Distracting the Self


In yesterday’s movement class Ondrej wanted us to come back to the lead/follow exercise, one that we tried in our very first class with him. This time, however, he wanted us to aim the opposite of what I previously thought we had to do – instead of simply losing control and moving as the other […]

Material


One of the exercises Ondrej gave us today in the morning had to do with response. We split into groups of two: one person would lay still on the ground while the other one would gently touch different body parts, which had to then become the point from which the laying person would initiate their […]

Form


I think that the most unexpectedly enjoyable moment in today’s movement class for me was when Ondrej lead us to do the “rolling star” exercise: you lay down on the floor with your legs and arms stretched out in the form of a star and, initiating the movement from your torso, you roll to the […]

Dancer or Choreographer? Who Owns What?


Today in Ondrej’s class I realized that dancing requires people to let it slightly more loose than usual. Some genres, such as contemporary, may require it more than others, but all dances fundamentally require a person to relax their body, distant themselves from the reality, and become somewhat of a marionette, either for a specific […]

Exploration & Risk


Even though I was somewhat preparing for an unusual type of class for today, throughout the first movement class I could not help but feel a bit out of place – this is not to say that it was not interesting or unpleasant, but rather that I did not have a clear idea of what […]

performance space/language/choreography


How does one know in what way to ‘speak’ to an audience with his body, dance movements and individual interpretation of well-known dance piece? This question haunts all day since we were in class with Trajal and some of my colleagues were performing their propositions on voguing and postmodernism as one. Thoughts on my body, […]

Principles


Reading about Martha Graham in Trajal’s class moved me immensely as I am a big admirer of her and the work she has done in the dance field back in the day. It really reminded me of the years back when I was in primary school just starting to learn about her and her dance […]

Playfulness and Exploration


Being a part of the exercise where one leads and the other follows as they are moving around the space in different ways and switching their roles was what fully engaged me in Ondrej’s workshop today. The sense of playfullness, excitement and unpredictability of what the next move of your partner or your own would […]

The Significance of Each Dancer


To begin with, Ondrej’s class today surprised and excited me in a sense of being part of the exercise ‘Second Thought’ and the one where we were split into two groups. The satisfaction from participating in the two exercises came from the fact that they provided me with a wonderful opportunity to experiment and express […]

Exploration


As a second day of class, I experienced  even more content than yesterday while participating in Ondrej’s workshop as I had the chance to partner up with a great ‘leader’ during the partners’ dance exercise. What made the experience most fulfilling was the joy and excitement that the other person  brought into the exercise as […]

Inspiration/Self-Exression


As I found myself entering the class this morning, what made an impact on me during the first dance workshop was the dance experimentation exercise where each of us, the students, had the chance to improvise dance movements on a music piece with our eyes closed so as to fully tap into the music and […]

#9 History


Today in the studio I felt a particular familiarity with the space I was moving in, whether it was during the warm up, during the breaks, group dance exercise or research. I wonder if it takes this amount of time for someone to be fully comfortable in a space. And I don’t say I wasn’t […]

#7 Ideas


Today I felt the difference between a classroom and a studio, due to the fact that in the first 20 minutes we were free to rehearse our piece, do research, or watch Kazuo Ohno’s work. It was like the ‘jumping’ mentioned at the beginning of the course, that in the end proves to be more […]

#6 Technique


I think we’ve reached a point in this class where we can start reflecting back on the beginning and on the experiences we’ve been going through since last week. Having this in mind, I can only say that dance slowly becomes a source of knowledge that is shaped by certain parameters I was not familiar […]

#5 Audience


Today I felt the concept of audience the most, because in both classes, Ondrej’s and Trajal’s, we were asked at some point to split in ones and twos and perform with our smaller group; and that gave me not necessarily an anxiety, but something close to that, putting pressure on my movements unconsciously. The fear […]

#4 Relation


Today this word – ‘relation’ – came up in my mind at the end of the class and I was lucky enough to find it in A Choreographer’s Handbook. Now I think it is an essential part of dance, experiencing the final exercises in Ondrej’s class. The moving of only one specific area in my body […]

#3 Self-consciousnesses


Always a Second Option With each day I feel like I get more and more out of Ondrej’s class. I start to feel new sensations in my muscles, especially when we did the ball under the back exercise for warming up.  It’s like you try to make the ball become a natural part of your […]

#2 Facing the Front


In A Choreographer’s Handbook, the first sentences defining ‘facing the front’ state: “our thinking about direction is in constant negotiation with compass points and square rooms. Is there another way we could orientate ourselves in relation to the room we are in and the people who are watching?’ – and this is what I began to feel Ondrej’s […]

#1 Distracting the Self


January 7, 2019 Today I asked myself why I hadn’t discovered dance sooner, because I was struck by how both expressive and intimate this experience can be. It was like a hidden treasure hidden in plain sight all this time. For me, the highlight of today’s class was the partner dance exercise in Ondrej’s class. […]

Ideas


This course becomes more and more interesting after we record our observations on the showing of O’Medea. This is the first time I find writing notes is difficult; it was hard for me to balance my focus and concentration. In the beginning, I tried to write observations from a wider scale but then, I narrowed […]

Form


Honestly, I just wanna reflect this time on something maybe quite obvious, which is the need of knowledge beyond the particular niche field of study in order to truly appreciate your research, in my case, Butoh. Reading a lot and watching videos of Kazu Ohno and especially “Admiring La Argentina” has brought me a great […]

Audience


Today, watching Kazu Ohno’s “Admiring La Argentina” I have come back to an old thought of what is indeed art? I have really started to compare the popular art and the more “niche” type of art such as contemporary dancing, classical music, contemporary music, abstract paintings and, today particularly, Butoh. When I discovered the true […]

Improvisation


Today, during Trajal’s class when we were trying to figure out our dance/perfect it, I have realized how much information our subconscious actually gathers and how much we can actually grasp and develop without being aware of it. In my case, during the last class of Trajal when he told us we have to prepare […]

Originality


I really enjoyed doing the whole voguing scene where we had to showcast our costumes. It was really interesting to see everybody else’s choice of costumes and how each of us perceived Medeea or the Choral. Even more interesting was to imagine how that would be within an actual ballroom scene. I feel like our […]

Collaboration/Audience


  The second move experiment made me realize (only today) how homogenized we are by the society. I have never thought about the fact that I could walk differently on the street because it would definitely look “out of the ordinary” and people would stare at me for sure. I remember walking several times down […]

Hoarding/Beginnings-Day 4


  Today, in Ondrej’s class, it struck me how movement can influence us in so many ways, it almost feels as if it can manipulate us. We all, immediately, started following the pattern that the first leader had settled in terms of form and style of movements; we all immediately started following the pattern of […]

Breaking the rules-Day 2


  This morning, during Ondrej’s class I couldn’t help but think of what we have discussed the day before about the neutral pose and about how each of us has in the end their own neutral pose. I was analyzing people’s movements when we were standing, thinking that those exercises/the dancing are/is indeed perceived as […]

Expectation-Day 1


I particularly enjoyed the idea of focusing on my own body, the small parts such as my feet, my toes, the weight that I am putting on them. It made me be very aware of my physical presence which I usually disregard in my every day life and focus more on the outer surroundings. Also, […]

Studios


Today I felt the true nature of the studio. In that, I mean the sense of using the space how you need to use it; finding common use in the space but also an individualized use. This was especially present in Trajal’s workshop. Before class started, Deb approached me and reassured me that I could […]

Facing the Front


Today was another rough day, as my headache still persisted. Luckily, I seem to have made a breakthrough with a quick trip to Cleveland Clinic reducing my pain significantly! Let’s hope it continues to subside. However, as much as I struggled with my physical health today, I also made great breakthroughs with my own performance. […]

Keeping it Going


Today was rough. To put it simply, I had an off day that seriously affected my ability to put 100% into this class. I had to really focus on keeping myself going today, as I had a headache that wouldn’t quit. What kept me going throughout today was the focus I had in Ondrej’s class. […]

Failure


I feel like I may have gone backward instead of forward. This is in relation to the leader/follower exercise with our eyes closed. Today, we added in the idea of a more balanced relationship, rather than a strict leader and a strict follower, just moving blindly based on where the leader takes them. Today, we […]

Inspiration


How have I lived eighteen years without knowing how to move from my upper arm and not my elbow? Of course, this is a very specific example of how the exercise we did in Ondrej’s class today made me consider my body in ways I hadn’t before. The exercise consisted of one person on the […]

Fear of Being Boring


From Ondrej’s class, my brain is seriously doubting itself. The “Second Chance” exercise we did exemplified the point we made in Part Three of class about the difference between interesting and “liking” something. It was incredibly interesting to have to challenge my brain to move in a way it did not want to move. However, […]

Collaboration


The movement class today was extremely relaxing and was, again, a great way to begin the day. I found that I had a lot of tension in my body that was worked out during our warm-up. I am always grateful for the warm up, as I discovered a new relaxation I am not familiar with. […]

Predictable and Unpredictable / Expectations


The first movement class started the class off very strongly for me. During the Follower/Leader exercise, I felt more freedom than I have in a long time. In life, I generally struggle with trust and I hate the feeling of losing control. I was expecting to struggle with being a follower, but I actually found […]

Does It Work?


These days, Ondrej’s relaxation/exploration exercise was more like a review on every thing we did for the last nine days. Although there were still a little variation within the exercises, the central part on where we should focus on was pretty much similar. I feel a bit ashamed of myself for not being able to […]

Predictable and Unpredictable


I expected this class to be unpredictable, hence it became somewhat predictable in that the unpredictability was expected. My expectations of what this class would entail were only met to the extent that I knew that it would be a different teaching/learning method and a challenge distinct from the ordinary I face in my classes […]

Habits


I am inclined to believe that it changes my whole day starting out with with Ondrej’s movement class. Beginning with simple stretches as we had the previous day, I witnessed a certain comfort in the knowingness and predictability of what was happening. There was a certain comfort in the predictability and familiarity with Ondrej’s instructions, […]

Breaking the rules


During the morning class I was challenged to break the “rules” of my own mind. In the second-chance exercise we were asked to move along the floor by making the move we would make secondly after not making the move we would initially make. This required a certain self-awareness that I could feel conflicting with […]

Inspiration


Today I was inspired to think differently about my body parts in motion. Having to move from a very particular part of the body  I initially thought was a odd and impossible task. I convinced myself that I was moving from parts of my body that are physically impossible – like when being touched on […]

Costumes


Today we were to explain our choice of costume to the class. I was impressed as my peers articulately conveyed their thoughts behind their costume and how it related to their chosen category of character. It is fascinating how we all had created different costumes for the same categories. We of course interpret the characters […]

Music / Silence


Today some of us watched Kazuo Ohno’s “Admiring La Argentina”. We first watched the piece without music and then with. I noticed a major change in my experience as an audience between the two viewings. Watching the dance without music I had more difficult time focusing on the performance. I also think this has something […]

Repetition


It’s amazing how comfortable we have grown with each other throughout the course of this class. This is easily sensed in the laughter accompanying the group formation exercise. We have repeatedly done this exercise which has always resulted in some laugher but initially more so coming from an insecurity of the fear of doing it […]

Improvisation


In the movement class today, we ended the session by working on the “leader and follower” exercise, and I noticed that as a group we started to create a certain flow which just went in a singular direction when we changed the “leader”. In the way that we, as a collective, have resonated with what […]

Keeping It Going


Today was a pretty rough situation for me in terms of self confidence in performance based actions. While watching the other dancers performing, I had a battle to overcome my self conscience to be able to just enjoy and observe the wonderful performances going on. But in turn, that also helped me to motivate myself […]

Unfinished Business


I couldn’t go to class on this day because I wasn’t feeling well at all, but this still was a profoundly interesting day in context of the class. Although in some ways, not having that routine, which was becoming regular in my life, being removed from that situation, highlighted the impact it was having on […]

Curiosity


During this day I had an overarching thought across the different classes which is the ethics of research. Whether we are referring to research through the body, through conversation, through sifting through books. And how that is then documented. In “A Choreographer’s Handbook”, Jonathan Burrows says that “Research is whatever you need” (43). From this […]

Accept What Comes Easily


I was surprised with my own movement and behaviour when we did the exercise of crossing the room with Ondrej today. At first, I moved in a more elaborate manner, and the second time, after Ondrej reminded us that we should search for the ‘second option’, I think I relaxed and really began to think […]

Familiar movement


The movement experience today helped me to consolidate my comfort in the studio further. Experiencing the type of movements a second time felt familiar and understandable, less foreign. I could recognize this especially when the audio system stopped working: suddenly I felt comfortable to move, blindly or guiding someone else, even independently of the rhythm […]

The Landscape Is There Already


The idea of prior existence immediately came to mind as soon as I became acquainted with movement within this class. There was a landscape of bodies, of visual and auditory landscapes all around the room as we moved throughout. I was surprised when I was not nervous closing my eyes and trusting someone else to […]

Parrot on Your Shoulder


The moment I received the assignment – to choreograph a sequence of a voguer coming downtown to Judson Church in 1963 – I immediately thought of “being inspired by” Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning in Judson Church because I knew that that was the answer to the prompt. Although I decided not to do […]

Audience


That we are being watched is fearful. When a set of movements that I have prepared for a long time is observed, I know what the audience will see and therefore I have the responsibility of the nervousness. Everyday, as we develop our accumulation piece, we grow immune to the fact that we have an […]

Fear of Being Boring


Teagan turned, and it was my turn to become the leader. I had already been the leader of the group at the very beginning. When I was the leader the first time, I started the group with a set of simple movements: walking, running, and stopping, for example. For I am not good with incorporating […]

Material


When we stood in two groups, facing each other, Ondrej told us that the most important thing when moving in a group is to become organic. We slowly started to move and express ourselves through movement which the followers in the group embodied. The making of the organism was interesting enough. When I was the […]

Improvisation


When Ondrej told us to hold our partner’s hands and walk around the room, he might not have anticipated such liveliness. Maybe, he may have anticipated more activity. What we presented to the movement class instructor is unique to the specific batch of j-term students at the particular time. No other group of students or […]

Repetition


The morning started off with a series of movement exercises. We started off with simple movements, stretching our limbs and bouncing on our knees. Yet, the movements got much complex toward the end – from crossing our hands and lifting them without raising our shoulders to following our partner’s lead and walking around the room […]

Cut and Paste


As the course continues, my observations started to be broader and wider in scale. I started to not only observe my movements but also my peers’ movements and performance. I can see that our movements changed over time and still, some are originated from the first movements performed in the first class. In other words, […]

Performance Space


As I was choosing my objects and clothing in the costume shop, I depicted the selected items as extra accessories that will help in portraying the character of Medea. As we started to choreograph a sequence of movements, I started to observe the real usage and significance of the overall costume and selected items. When […]

Curiosity


In the movement class, I was on a confusion state when performing and doing movements. The touching body part exercise was interesting, it challenged my thinking. Basically, the touching exercise was all about starting to move your body with first moving the body part that has been touched by the partner. The person who is […]

How and What


After and during the movement class, I had different thoughts and observations on movements and meaning. For example, when we were told to make different movements in crossing the room exercise. I noticed that my movements were repetitive. I was just using my legs to make a movement. However, when we closed our eyes and […]

Breaking the Rules


Before starting taking this course, I felt a bit afraid because this type of class is different than any other class I took. This course revolves around moving, dancing, thinking, and reading. However, the morning dancing class vanished these feelings. In the dancing class, we were allocated in a comfy environment where we can be […]

Keeping It Going / Pacing


On Friday, there was one particular moment that struck me during Ondrej’s movement class. Yuki and I were partners for the pair lead and follow exercise but the feeling during the exercise was much deeper than what I had expected it to be. This time Yuki and I were partners with the only difference between […]

Predictable And Unpredictable / Expectation


Augusté and I paired up to do the Touch-Move exercise. It was an interesting experience I don’t remember isolating parts of my body in such a way before. Again, it was a challenge because the movement had to be initiated by the part of the body that was touched. Specifically, after Ondrej talked about how it is […]

How Can I Simplify All Of This?


Today, my body and mind were challenged immensely through the Second Chance exercise. My biggest takeaway from Fundamentals of Acting was to always follow my impulse, yet this game forced me to reject what I had learned in order to challenge myself. Moving across that floor had never felt so difficult because I was constantly second guessing if the […]

Repetition


In today’s movement class, we started off with many of the same exercises that we did yesterday. Although for some this might seem irritating, it helped me by being able to compare my body and its relaxedness to yesterday. Moreover, I feel as though this repetition is extremely helpful in the sense that it builds […]

Other Bodies / States


I came into class feeling tired and extreme tightness in my body but over the course of the movement class, I grew more and more relaxed and in tune with my body as well as with the group. One principle that I always go by is doing what feels good, as to not harm my […]

Breaking the Rules


“Unlike my other students that receive proper dancing training, you guys seemed to be more open-minded and not afraid of trying new things that made me feel… wow.” (not exactly the words that Professor Trajal said, but somehow close enough.) After watching all the people who performed in the class today, Professor Trajal put this […]

Self-Expression


I gradually felt my energy have been consumed more and more each day. It is not just physically tired because of my illness— we were all intellectually challenged. While doing some exercise that requires muscles strength, I felt both sides were pretty balance. However, coming into relaxing my body on the floor, I could clearly […]

Other Bodies


I am going to put a lot of assumptions and opinions of what I’ve thought about dance (or “art” as in general) in this paragraph. I assumed every artist creates their work through their “instinct” and just do whatever they “feel” that they want to do without further consideration or political and social historical content behind, especially […]

Referencing Other Sources


The relaxation exercises with Mr. Ondrej has slowly merged into a combination of the ones we did on the previous lessons. It was amazing that my body stretched with a larger angle as we repeated the exercise. The concept of “repetition” itself seemed to be pretty dry, but I found it meaningful since I could […]

Predictable and Unpredictable


Before, I thought Mr. Ondrej is the one who helps us “warm-up” for Professor Trajal’s class. But now, there is no doubt that Mr. Ondrej’s session is something I will look forward to every morning. Thinking the ball and other exercises were “predictable,” I was totally wrong. “Unpredictable” is one of the perfect words to […]

Exploration


Today’s “somatic and physical” dance lesson seemed to focus more on the relaxation part rather than the exploration of our body. “Remember to breathe. Breathe in, and then slowly breathe out.”  Mr. Ondrej emphasized “our breathe” multiple time throughout the exercises. This reminded me that my coach has told me the way how we breathe […]

Dancing


Before taking the course today, I want to say that I did not really look forward to it as the day approached to the end of winter break. Yes, there is no doubt for the fact that I enjoy dancing, and that is the reason why I picked this course. After I checked the syllabus […]