It’s been a great quarter… This week we will review material we’ve been developing over the last 9 weeks. And we also have Tim Russell playing music for us.
Our final will be on Monday, Dec 9 at 4:00pm.
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Gerald's class 
Thank you Tim Russell for playing music for us this week! It was a really cool change of pace from what we usually danced to! Today’s class was definitely my favorite class this entire quarter. Although I was sore from Tuesday’s class (Thanksgiving break put me out of shape), it was so fun to challenge myself for so long! I really enjoyed our lesson on contact improvisation last week and didn’t think we would do it again this quarter! Whenever I ran out of ideas, I looked for inspiration in my fellow classmates. I even went through combinations we learned in class and switched my relationship with gravity. Any floor combinations we did I tried to do standing and vice versa. It was so liberating to just go with the flow of the music and the energy the music and the other dancers presented. Thank you to Gerald, Tim, our other musicians Ken and Michael, and all the other dancers for making this class and my first quarter here at UCSC so great!
I also enjoyed the music for class this week! Whenever I found myself feeling stuck or self-conscious while improvising I would listen to the music! I would find one specific part of it and let that inspire my next movement. And I also just really enjoyed this class in general, thank you!
It felt great to review the material and to see how far we’ve come since the first week of class. I liked that for Thursdays class we had the freedom to incorporate our favorite pieces from the quarter. I found myself looking outside for inspiration while improvising. I also found myself loosing sense of space. It didn’t feel like we where in a room with four walls, it felt more like we each created our own unique space. I truly enjoyed this class. Dancing with you guys was great.
I found great inspiration in the music that Tim created in these last couple of classes. During the day that we all engaged in improv I felt that the music and the nuances in the sounds he developed helped me embody the emotions and feelings in the room of dancing bodies. I really enjoyed engaging in contact improvisation because that is where I really got to be inquisitive and curious about someone else. I learned from contact and from solo improvisation that there is a lot of listening involved. Whether it be adapting to the shifts in weight and changes in music, I find that being a good listener and letting go of judgement is the best way to move with emotion and to understand the organic flow of movement in one’s body.
I really enjoyed his music, I liked how our movements went with the music. I thought that was so cool!
I’m so glad to have grown so much in this class. I couldn’t even do figure-8s when we first started! I have become conscious of my body as an instrument and it is really great to feel confident in that. Last week was amazing. Day one was refreshing and relaxing. Day two was incredibly immersive and engaging. It was the perfect end to a wonderful quarter. I’m going to miss everyone and the time spent dancing together; I’m not the only one who’s grown.
Thursday’s improv class was an important one for me — here we are three days later and I’m still thinking about it. I felt as though I could dance so uninhibitedly and with such power that I was able to tap into emotion that I only find rarely through dance. The environment Gerald set up in order for such growth to happen was crucial because I never once felt judged or self conscious. Whereas other times that I have attempted improv I’ve felt awkward and stagnant, this particular environment made it effortless to dance to my fullest potential. Additionally, I felt that the amount of time allotted to this exploration was crucial as well because after a while simply moving for that long will evoke a certain amount of organic quality. Thank you, Gerald, for creating that space for us all and for helping me find such emotional depth.
I loved being able to dance to Tim’s music. I think it is much easier to dance to a percussionist than the electronic symphony that Tim was conducting. The change of rhythm, speed, and sounds greatly altered the way I moved. And it didn’t really have a genre, some parts were very ambient and others had a slight rhythm. It was overall a very enriching experience.
Tim’s music was an exciting change of pace in terms of the sounds we have been moving to for most of this quarter. During the last class, I found that his music had us dancing in very linear motions (grids and 90 degree angles) which I’m not a big fan of and had some reservations about. As soon as the music started, however, I let myself go (which I’ve learned a lot about in this class) and allowed my body to move on impulse. I loved this class. I loved what I’ve learned and how I’ve grown more comfortable in my body. Thank you so much Gerald!
Following Tim’s music this week was such a change of pace that my body completely lost itself in both the music and movements I was performing. This whole class was such a positive experience for me, and I honestly can’t thank Gerald and everyone else for making this class one of my favorite classes my whole time here. Thanks everybody and thank you Gerald!
I absolutely loved that we were able to do improv as one of our last classes. I think it was the perfect way to end a class that began with the intention to find our own organic, individual movement. And I am grateful that our class created such an open and respectful environment that allowed everyone to feel safe from judgement when doing improv. That really is a gift and an invaluable opportunity for dancer’s of all levels of experience. I also like that for the final class we did the piece of choreography we have been working on, one last time. Practicing that dance phrase was one of my favorite parts of the class, so I loved being able to put everything I had into it one last time. I had a great quarter in this class and I have gained important perspective and an even greater love for dance.