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Northwest Theatre Review

Elemental Forms

 

BODY AS SCRIPT & THE MYTHOLOGY OF MOVEMENT

Each culture has or specifically creates coded movement as a consequence of its social interactions, relationship to the earth, its climate, and other creatures. Some cultures rigidly adhere to these coded movements as if sacred (claiming they were given by the ancestors, spirit, or gods) and by expressing them provide a window to the sacred and/or mythological.

These coded movements become both mnemonics and living, participatory pathways to a culture's origins and configuration. In a sense these movement are a culture's mythology that lives and is expressed in the human body.

Generally those cultures that depend and live more closely with their environment expressed themselves with performance more dependent on such movement coding.

Within some cultures the coded movements have evolved into highly codified artistic forms, retaining and recognizing, in some sense, a relationship that the culture once had with its part of the earth. It is interesting to consider the performance expressions of Noh Theatre, Kathakali, the Beijing Opera, yoga, Tai chi, and ballet as formalized, codified, and re-imagined coded movements from an earlier and now removed interaction with the earth.

Through codification these performance expressions hold, in the human body, their mythology and ancient connection with their indigenous place and way of being. Mircea Eliade, in his Cosmos and History: the Myth of the Eternal Return speaks about dance and its sacred, archetypal origins.

All dances were originally sacred; in other words they had an extra human model. The model may in some cases have been totemic or emblematic animal, who's motions were reproduced to conjure up its concrete presence through magic, to increase its numbers, to obtain incorporation into the animal on the part of man. […] The dance may be executed to acquire food, to honor the dead, or to assure good order in the cosmos [...] for every dance was created in illo tempore, in the mythical period, by an ancestor, totemic animal, a god, or a hero. Choreographic rhythms have their model outside of the profane life of man; whether they reproduce the movements of the totemic or emblematic animal, or the motions of the stars; whether they themselves constitute rituals (labyrinthine steps, leaps, gestures performed with ceremonial instruments) a dance always imitates an archetypal gesture or commemorates a mythical moment. In a word, it is a repetition, and consequently a reactualization, of illud tempus, "those days." [Eliade, 1959: 28-29]

from Northwest Theatre Review

 

ELEMENTAL FORMS

Sample

TRAVEL HAND WALKING: Palms down at waist and stepping forward with hands rigid and alternating in front as if feet. Performer walks forward with a measured pace. Neck movement with beat.

EASY WALK: As in Hand Walking, hands forward at waist, but hands are limp like a duck paddling. Performer walks forward with a measured pace. Neck movement with beat.

POLAR BEAR TRAVEL: Palms down and in front, as with Hand Walking, but raising and lowering hands top above shoulder level as if taking large steps forward. Performer walks likewise with large steps forward as a polar bear across the ice. Large neck movement with beat.

HIGH STEPS: Similar to above but with large, exaggerated steps. Knees high as if traveling through deep snow; arm movements alternate but rather than high and large they reach forward.

BIG WALK: An exaggerated and playful walk. Arms swinging to either side of the body and up and down with a forward motion. Upper body and neck reflect the beat. Performer moves forward with exaggerated, but not necessarily large steps. Meant to be a character or comic attitude walk

. GENEROUS WALKING: Palms up, as if giving. Movement sweeps with large movement to alternating sides to ‘give.’ The performer moves forward with a measured pace; the head alternates to either side in coordination with the beat.

HAPPY TRAVEL (The Jumbo Walk): Arms at either side, palms down, rising above and below the waist alternating; the hands ‘float’ with happiness. The performer moves in a measured pace forward. Neck moves with the beat.

HAPPY TRAVEL, TOO: Same as above but with palms up.

STORY TRAVEL: One hand extended forward in a specific direction, pointing. Other arm cocked at hip or brought tight to chest. Extended hand reflects the beat. High extension of hand signifies distant travel; chest level extension of hand signifies local travel. Extended hand moving in front and across the performer signifies travel. Arms may alternate to signify two different travelers (human or animals) for dance story telling. Performed in place. Neck movement accents the beat.

STALKING: Leading forward with one side of the body on a diagonal, one arm outstretched and attention/eyes focused on imagined prey. The outstretched hand signifies the location of the prey. Other arm cocked at side or close to chest. Performer moves with a shuffle step. Neck alternates with beat either side-to-side or forward and back.

UNCERTAIN TRAVEL: Palms pushing outward with cautious arms in front and sweeping alternately across the face as if trying to clear away the darkness, fog, brush, or to protect from harm. The performer bends at waist, moving cautiously with a small, forward movement. Neck and shoulder movement with the beat are likewise more cautious.

DIFFICULT TRAVEL: Same as Uncertain Travel but with performer hunched lower down and bent at knees, as moving slowly forward. Neck and shoulder movements are with every other beat rather than with the beat.

TRAVEL TURN AROUND: Can be used in combination with many of the above walks. Arms outstretched in front at waist, palms down, then one hand ‘steps’ over the other as the performer turns around.

TRAVEL & CARRY: Both hands are held close together (but not touching) at the abdomen. Performer moves forward with neck and shoulder accenting the beat.

WALKING IN PLACE: Arms bent at elbow, palms down and hands rigid. Alternate opposite up-down movement and coordinate with up and down leg movement. Performer walks in place. Neck and shoulders with the beat.

WALKING ON ICE: Arms and hands low and close to body, palms down. Legs slightly bent. With the beat the performer moves forward with an uncertain shuffle as if walking on thin ice. Neck and shoulders reflect the beat and uncertainty.

AKIMBO WALKS (four attitude variations): 1) Arms akimbo, palms on hips, forward movement with head beat forward-back. Forward movement of performer. 2) Arms akimbo, back of hand on hips, forward movement with head beat forward-back. 3) Arms akimbo at ribs, thumbs forward, forward movement with head beat forward-back. 4) Arms akimbo at ribs, back of hands at ribs, palms outward, with head beat forward-back.

FACING DESTINY: One arm outstretched and diagonal, palm upwards, other arm cocked with hand close to chest; both hands are straight. Alternate outstretched arms/hands and combine with forward motion. Maintain beat in arms or hands. Attitude of facing with courage what is ahead.

OLD PERSON TRAVEL: Hands behind back, back slightly hunched over as if old. Performer take small, fragile steps forward. Neck accents the beat forward-back.

SEAL TRAVEL ON ICE: Hands together, alternating to either side of body at waist as if clawing forward. Variation: both hands in front of body.

BIRD TRAVEL: Arms (chest level) to sides wide, as if wings then into chest as moving forward; chest expands outward as arms are to the sides. Performer moves forward with light steps and beat is accented in shoulders and neck.

CARIBOU TRAVEL (three variations): 1) Arms above head and slightly to either side of the body, slight bend at elbow. Hands spread wide and bent downward and rigid perpendicular to arms and as antlers (hands are not limp.) Hands alternated up and down to accent the beat. Performer moves with a shuffle step as if foraging. 2) Fists up, turned inwards towards forehead. Elbows down as if hooves moving forward alternating, walking, stomping, scratching the ground foraging. 3) Arms extended, bent at elbow with hands outstretched (fingers wide as if antlers) with one hand in front of the other. Spread wide hands ‘pulse’ with the beat as performer moves forward.

HIGH FLYING BIRD: Arms outstretched wide to sides, slight beat movement in arms or head; as if a bird riding the high air currents. Generally used for story telling and performed in place.

GOOSE LANDING: Arms wide to sides below the waist. As if wings, slightly bent at the elbows and moving with the beat. Arms push forward as if a bird landing. Performer moves slowly forward or performed in place. DUCK DIVING and SWIMMING: Head stoops low as if diving underwater then hands clap as hitting the water. The hands then go to behind the back to become the feet of the bird as it paddles forward, with hands alternating behind back. Performer moves with a ‘waddle’ step. Hands with neck accent the beat.

TRANSFORMATIONS

BIRD TRANSFORMATION: Pointing to a bird in the sky with one finger or full hand, then arms outstretch wide to move as a bird flying.

ZIG ZAG TRANSFORMATION: Transition from animal or bird, with both hands flat and in front of body, elbows slightly cocked, begin upper right (slightly above head) then zig-zag across the body to left (neck level), then right (chest level), then left (stomach level). As if coming from the spirit world and entering the human world again.

ANIMALS

WALRUS: Arms close to body, cocked at elbow, hands at face with fingers pointed straight down as if walrus tusks. Emphasis and beat with the hands. Performed in place.

WALRUS or SEAL LOOKING: Hands at diagonal in front of the body and below the waist as if seal or walrus flippers. Stretching, looking upward and leaning slightly back with head as if to see better above the surface of the water. Entire torso moves with the beat of the drum. Performed in place.

EAGLE-WOLF DANCE: Arms down in front, body slightly bent at waist. Beat expressed in the shoulders with an up and down movement of arms. The arms alternate, moving up and down towards the ground.

from Elemental Forms