R.A.D.S- Space

This lesson was focused on space, however I was not present in one lesson. So I am going to analyse movement pieces I have found online and analyse them. There are many key components that make up the word space, they are the following:

• Spatial Awareness.
• Levels (Low,Medium and High).
• Pathways- On the floor and in the air.
• Peripheral Vision .
• Direction- this can also include stage directions as well.
• Dimension E.g Height,Depth and Width.
• Lines in space (Curved, Straight or free form).
• Personal and General space (Body Shape and Group shape).
• Planes (Vertical,Horizontal and Sagittal).

This video above explores Air and Floor pathways. After watching the video I soon discovered that you do not necessarily have to be lying on the floor or jumping in the air in order for a move to be considered pathways. In my opinion, Pathways just seems to be the way you move your body along floor (or air) whether that be like the marching/walking (0.07-0.0.14) or even to the way they move their arms in the air from (0.21-0.30), they are still creating some sort of pathway for their body to direct in. You can also see in the video the dancers draw other aspects of movement into this piece as for the most part they complete it in unison by mirroring each other, bringing aspects of Relationships into this. For someone who has does not know what R.A.D.S is or involves, this piece would highlight to them how each part of RADS can be found working together in movement. The girls in the video use a diverse range of examples of pathways, for example the delicate rolling (at 0.54 and 1.04) creates a pathway for their whole body however a move like the arm flicks (at 1.00). I think i'm right in saying that they also create individual pathways for different parts of their body at the same time, For example, at 0.51 you can see their arms extend forward however they elongate one of their legs backward, this creates a some sort of alternate pathway for each body part in some sense, however this is how i interpret it, and you may not. This piece is also very elegant in terms of how they move themselves however I don't think pathways HAS to be elegant at all it can be used in a variety of pace it just depends on how the dancer moves themselves in their own pathway on stage.

I think knowledge of pathways would have aided me and Henri when we were experimenting with Relationships as we did find we was wandering around on stage too much, perhaps adding pathways into our performance would have meant our movements would look sustained throughout as we would have had allocated spaces- now I have an understanding of how pathways can be used in movement, I'm also eager to use this in our masterpiece as I think this would be affective in a group move beacuse i like the way the two girls use pathways as a duo- perhaps using it to create a mad rush, or a slow flow.

This was also another video which I think could be used to highlight the key words of space. Let's start of with spatial awareness, as this is a group performance having spatial awareness is key, Knowing where and who are behind you is essential otherwise if you do not then it can lead to serious injuries, especially in a dance like above where it requires all of your focus. The group use the idea of levels in a very creative way. For example at 0.36 you can see the literal sense of the word levels, you have some people holding the bottom piece of plastic (low) and some holding the top and the man in between the plastic (medium) and then the girl at the very top (high) making it easily distinguishable. From 0.46-52 you can see how peripheral vision would be used. The two men at the front who spin the girl will have to make sure that they know that the people behind them- or next to them are in the right position or on the right beat otherwise again injury can occur. 1.28-1.33 is a defined representation of the word direction, the group (apart from the girl on top) are all clearly moving in one single direction on stage until they drop her to the ground. There is also a subtle lines in space here and that is in the free form type at 1.09-1.17, the group conform into an almost zig zag formation line to dance in unison. Again the movements in this performance are very dramatic and harbour lots of emotion especially in moves such as 0.54 & 1.42 where the girls are pulled away from the men. I really like this move as the interpretation could be taken in many ways- I would like to use this concept if we could in our master piece to show some sort of distancing, breaking of a bong etc, however we will see. 

When I return to lesson I would like to particularly focus and experiment on Planes, I feel as though this is the one word in which I haven't been able to properly analyse and correlate to a movement with.  Once I gain an understanding of I will be to apply it to our masterpiece if necessary.