Tai Chi heet voluit Tai Chi Chuan, wat betekent op heel hoog niveau werken met de handen. De houding die we tijdens het langzaam bewegen aldoor oefenen heet ‘holding the ball’. We proberen de denkbeeldige bal zo vast te houden dat ie niet valt maar ook zo min mogelijk druk van onze handen ondervindt.
Cursisten aan het woord:
“Ondanks dat we door corona geen live les kunnen volgen, ben ik heel blij en gelukkig met alle momenten dat we via zoom toch les konden krijgen. Het was een digitale bron van Tai-Chi-inspiratie in mijn huiskamer.”
“Op naar nog een heleboel meer Tai Chi in de toekomst!”
“Door de Zoom Tai Chi lessen van onze CREA-docent (perfect!) was er gelukkig goede continuïteit en een fijne binding met de groep.”
Docent aan het woord:
“Toen ik eind maart de eerste online les gaf, merkte ik hoezeer ik alles en iedereen gemist had! Ik zag er wekelijks naar uit om met mijn cursisten in de zoomopstelling thuis Tai Chi te doen.”
Modern II and III (about the Chair dance)
This small chair dance was made as a result of dancing in confinement. The students of Modern II and III inspired me with their enthusiasm for dancing even within limiting conditions. Since we all had different amount of space available, I wanted to find a common ground – everyone was likely to have a chair at home – and so the idea of a chair dance was born. Even dancing in sync with wifi connection being interrupted constantly was a challenge, but fun to do! Since follo wing choreography through webcam was also not really that effective, we did a lot of guided improvisations together, using it to discover new textures, qualities, intentions. I definitely learned a lot in the process, as teaching dance online is a whole other discipline! I did miss everyone´s physical presence a lot, but it was nice to connect to my students at least in some way. Dancing online can never substitute the real feeling of moving in a common space, but limitations often birth interesting realizations and I am happy we had the chance to try it out together!
Choreography Project
With my group of Choreography Project students we dived into a full process of translating live choreography we had made before the confinement, as well as new parts created in online sessions, into a Dance Video. We discussed dancing for the camera, intention, contrast and performance on screen as well as filming, lighting, costume choices and more. We are now finishing all these steps and putting together the final video. We moved in response to the senses, music, painting and art styles, played with architecture, gestures, limitations and the whole process has been incredibly rewarding and interesting. Even though we were not able to physically explore together in a common space, the creative process of making new material based on different tasks was fruitful. The connection we built together in class remained strong and fully committed, which becomes even more precious in the context of confinement. I loved working with my group of students and am very much looking forward to presenting our Dance Video at CREA Theater on June 27th!
