Crystal Centre Shared Blog

Milling 1

Objective

To engender freedom of motion and kinetic group awareness.

Walk freely at a continuous pace.

Explore the perimeters make eye contact

Do the same moving backwards.

Notice that to stop bumping into people you need to make small half turns. Try not to stop or slow down.

Try to pivot and narrow your body to pass by.

Milling forward again, now the group should be able to move between, forward and backward without anxiety or too much congestion.

Passing Diagonals

This exercise can be used in conjunction with the rhythm of a text or with music as a guide.

Stand across the room from your partner (no diagonal yet). A steady medium-slow beat is established. Starting on the right foot, walk across the room to your partner in 5 steps, one step for each count meeting in the middle of the room directly facing each other. On the 6^th count pivot on your right foot and pass your partner with a half turn clockwise stepping back on your left.

The students will feel the freedom and excitement of the potential collision and continual movement. Through repetition partners develop a complicit sense of tension and release, like the forces of a magnet.

Parallel Walking Exercise.

Side by side with a partner travel across the room. Your goal is move in unison using exactly the same movements and at the same rate of motion without looking at each other, instead keep your focus directly in front of you.

Hand/ Raise/ Fall

A person puts their hands up and says “Me” they then fall backwards and other members of the group run to catch them. They must learn to do it lightly and allow each fall not to be blip, but to keep the room charged and get on with it after catching someone.

Add 2/3 people doing it at the same time.

Take out the “Me” and just raise your hand.

Small dance

Close eyes.

Notice the body’s natural sway with no sight. The body is trying to keep you upright, don’t interfere. Gradually start to exaggerate this sway.

Explore the full range of your balance, wobble to the point that you lose balance and catch yourself in every direction, front, back, side to side.

Stage balancing

Working round a shared centre point in pairs balance the space around you. As if the room is balanced upon a needle through the centre. This exercise is not to arbitrarily balance the space but should be used to create a relationship between the protagonists. A cheeky experimental feeling should be attempted to be created whilst playing. Not a competition but a conversation.

Try it in pairs then mix to 2, 4, 6 people increasing to everyone. This can be linked to the energy passing exercise (where movements are received by the other person)