Dearest reader,
This week was the third week of sketching during my thesis project where I am utilizing bodily knowledge in designing of bags inspired by rococo and ballet. It was also the last week of dancing during this process and even though I am sad to leave the dancing part here I need to move on, otherwise, I would stay in this phase forever.
But without further chatting let's have a look at what I have been sketching this week!
S K E T C H I N G 3
Dance day 3
On the third dance day I started exploring my body-half connections. The first somatic exercise was a stable-mobile side connections using color where I sensed what colors my right and left side are in my imagination as I moved. It turned out that the right side of my body is pink and orange while my left side is blue and green.
The second exercise was a body-half yield & push where I tried to sense how during movement the body-half colors live. I found that the stable side would bulge and the mobile side would radiate color. After that I did a body-half improvisation where I investigated the connection of the two sides and how they interact during movement. I found that while dancing the colors of my body-halfs mix together which means the body-half connection is not only vertival but also diagonal.
Next exercise of the day was a body-half inner character improvisation where I explored the different movement qualities of my two body sides. During this improvisation it was important to ask who is my right/left side? After moving I drew and wrote down the characters of each side from which I also created some rough design ideas for bags.
Dance day 4
On dance day four I continued with the inner character exercise but this time I used only my arm to translate the quality of movement that inhabits each of my body sides. After moving I once again drew and wrote about each body side's inner character using the same arm I used during movement. So even on my left side I had to use the left hand to write and draw. Of course, I then used my discoveries to generate quick design ideas for bags.
The last exercise of the week was a body-half polarities exercise where I came up with opposite words, concepts or phenomenon that either fit with my design theme (ballet and rococo) or were something I was currently dealing with in my personal life. After having a list of polarities I chose five of them to work with through movement. With each polarity pair I chose I had to decide first which side of my body would suit it better and move that side of my body according to the polarity. For example "good" on the right side and "bad" on the left side. Naturally, after moving, I then drew out how the polarity felt and looked on my body. When I had gone through all five polarity pairs I then chose the most fitting ones for this particular design project and turned my drawings of the polarities into rough bag ideas. The polarities I drew bag ideas from were symmetric – asymmetric, realistic – romantic and heavy – light.
All the exercise I did this week were from Peggy Hackney's book "Making Connections: Total Body Integration Through Bartenieff Fundamentals".
What colors your body halfs inhabit?
Yours truly,