Phase 2 of research

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In the following section, I will present how I adapted my research and choreographic methods during phase 2 to comply with the government guidelines and physical distancing measures imposed during the coronavirus pandemic. These adaptations were necessary to ensure the safety and well-being of my dancers while still exploring touch and connection as essential elements of our practice.

During the lockdown period, when physical meetings were not possible, we developed various practices and tools that allowed us to maintain our focus on touch and closer proximities within the constraints of social distancing. These practices emerged as we explored alternative ways of working from our respective homes.

One key approach we employed was the use of memory images to recall and recreate past events and experiences. This technique allowed us to tap into the sensations and emotions associated with touch, even without direct physical contact. Additionally, as some of the performers had never experienced physical contact with each other before, we also incorporated the use of imagination images. Through associations and the power of imagination, they were able to envision and explore what it might feel like to touch another person.

I invite you to read through the following tasks and consider trying them out at home. However, please ensure that you have sufficient space and remove any potential hazards to ensure your safety while engaging in these activities.

The sensation of your room:

Experience your home through the use of touch and senses differently in order to become more aware of your surroundings. Touch, here is a way to explore, receive and discover new information.

Score 1:

Choose a room in your flat/house that you enjoy being in the most
Sit down somewhere in this room and close your eyes
Listen to what sounds you can hear close to you and which ones are further away
Start to feel the area around you with your hands
Continue exploring the whole space while having the eyes closed. What textures can you feel? What is the temperature like? What surfaces are around you?
Start including your other body parts to feel and explore the space. How does a surface feel when touching it with your face or feet?
Make a journey around the space, finding nieces and gaps your body might fit in.
Choose to rest whenever you feel like it. While resting realise what body parts are in contact with another surface.
Find a place in the room that you enjoy to rest in for a longer while
Map your journey with your eyes closed one more time
Open your eyes and start drawing this map on a piece of paper. It can be very abstract. You can choose to use different colours. What areas did you enjoy exploring the most and why? Highlight these areas in your drawings.

Score 2:

Take your drawings of the map you just created and place it infront of you. Take one finger and pass along the lines.
Now use your drawing together with your experience from Score1 as an offering to create some movement within your body and around the space.
You can be inspired only by your drawing or also from your physical exploration before. I invite you to close your eyes sometimes.

Score 3:

After having embodied and remembered your own movement score repeat it and say words that describe feelings, movements, directions descriptions, textures, forms, materials or anything else that might come up for you while moving. Speak them out loud. They can be words or sentences and they don’t need to make any sense.

For example: sliding- wood- up-inside-rolling-sand-breath-soft

You can repeat this many times and your movement score might evolve and change over time, this is fine!

Score 4:

Take some time in your starting position of the space and close your eyes again
Map out the journey you have just been through with eyes closed and try to remember some details of the space again. What do you remember specifically? Why do you think you remember it in such detail?You can choose to open your eyes and write some of your experience or thoughts on a piece of paper or just remain in your chosen spot however long you want.

The sensation of your room

Imaginatively be with someone

I hope this exercise allows you to be with someone imaginatively for a while, during a time where physical contact is not possible for everyone. It can be repeated while thinking of different people and can be very fast and physical or slow and quite. The memory of touch can often transfer us back to moments we felt connected to another person and allows us to remember things in much more detail.

Find a space in your flat/house where you can easily rest and move at the same time. Wear comfortable clothes, ideally floaty gowns:

Close your eyes and take some deep breaths in and out.

Try to remember a situation when someone affectively touched your body. Whether this was when spooning in bed, a hug from your friends or family member, someone holding your hand when walking, a friend stroking your hair or when taking a bath with your partner, cuddling with your children or playing with them with a lot of body contact.

Choose only one of these memories. Think back to this moment in time. Where were you, what did you wear, what did you smell or hear? Really try to remember as much detail as possible.

Than try to remember how you felt during that moment. What sensations did you experience? How did the physical encounter make you feel? Can you still imagine this touch on your body? What body-parts were involved in the contact? If it helps you can also move into the same position you see yourself in during your memory.

From this position move towards the touch, you just imagined. Move into it. Imagine how the touch of the other person glides down your limbs and body while moving with it. Can you feel the weight of the touch? Is it light or heavy? Really focus on where and how your imaginative physical contact is happening on your body and decide where it will move next. Play with different rythms and timings as well. Can you find stillness together? Where are your bodies touching now?

I invite you to use self-touch in order to re-create touch-like sensations for yourself. How can your clothes affect you and remind you of touch?

You can also choose to play with different body-parts and imagine how and where your two bodies are meeting.

Slowly come to an end and find some stillness. Again, really try to imagine the body of your partner around your own. What body parts would now be touching? How does this feel? Do you have a different sensation in your body than before?

Imaginatively be with someone

Awareness through touch

There are so many things we are doing every day without really giving it our full attention. We are in contact with many objects and other people without reflecting about how this impacts our understanding of our surroundings. This exercise is designed to allow ourselves to live more in the present by tuning in with our sensory experience and to become more aware of every-day actions and sensations.

You can do this task anywhere inside of your flat/house or in your garden or park.

This exercise can span over 2-3 hours a day.

Choose these 2-3 hours according to your own time management, but it will require some attention and focus.

During these 2-3 hours try to really be aware of any object or body you are touching.

Always explore the object when realizing that you are in contact with it. Feel it’s weight, the texture, the density or surface. For example when cutting some vegetables really be aware of the sensation of the knife in your hands. How does it move? What is it’s temperature like? How does it feel to slice something with it?

When washing your hands be aware of the different sensations and steps you are going through. The cold water touching your hands. Hands rubbing each other. The soft, sticky soap between your hands. The smell of the soap touching your nose. The feeling of the towel when drying your hands.

At the end of your chosen time take a few minutes to reflect about your different encounters with objects that day and write down some of the things you might have noticed.

Try to repeat this exercise every day. You might realise that you become more aware of your sense of touch over time.

reta Gauhe

Choreographer, Dancer, Producer, Researcher

The sensation of your room

Imaginatively be with someone

Awareness Through Touch