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STRUCTURE FOR PERFORMANCES IN JUNE:

GUIDING THE MIND TO THE HEART 

Time: 3 mins

Space:

• Kamee is with the tree in the right back corner - Top light
• Anneloes is with the balloons in the front left corner - Sidelight 
• Dennis enters from the left side to do the somatic guidance in NSL
• The lights are soft and dark 

DAY 1

28-01-2023

Navigation: Scroll down to see what happened every day, and scroll to the side to navigate between days.

Scroll more down to see the work in progress structure 

It is important to have conversations about cultural appropriation for this project because SL is not my language even though I am in love with it. 

Staying connected to the fascia, we did the tree exercise. Each of us danced from our roots, from our souls. Then we moved the roots in the space and we finished with an instant composition. I asked the dancers to bring a lot of emphasis on the hands and fingers, to explore those eloquent and expressive hands. 

Then, we went into the body by addressing the fascia.

In couples, we entered this wonderful tissue with touch. We sensed the interconnectivity, the web, the network, and how when you touch a part, you touch the whole body.

After that, we traced the spiral line, with the image as a reference. From that experience, we moved. 

We started by learning the alphabet in Dutch Sign Language (NGT)

In the second part of the rehearsal, we played with the balloons. We were surprised by the quality of care that was emerging. The balloons stay attached to your body so they feel like a pet or some kind of animated cute creature that you need to take care of.

Some discoveries and questions that emerged:

• Anna discovered that we can mix the Hellium with Air, to make the balloons stay lower. We need to investigate what is the exact proportion. 
• We need to try different cords to play with the right weight and that it looks nice
• The medium size balloon is quite nice. The super big not so much.
• White or transparent? The transparent is better than we tough. But the white will reflect better the stage lights. 
• We need to try with gloves! 
• We perceived the vibrations of the music on the balloons. This is a connection to the fascia tissue, which also vibrates. 

• Analous with many Ballons super attached to her

• Dennis doing a big balloon dance

• Lenna with a hair dance

• The ballon in your body and you do something else

• Ballons as landscape. Attach them in different configurations

MEETING THE BALLOONS 

Time: 1 min

Space:

• Anneloes meets the ballons very gently 
• Kamee is dimed down 
• Dennis is outside 

NGT practice: 

We started by practicing the alphabet with both hands, spelling our names, and learning some vocabulary:

• Leuk
• makkelih
• Ik ben danser
• Ik - Myn
• Ja, ne, ok
• Myn naam (gebaar) is

DAY 2

2023-03-04

TREE

Time: 3:00 min

Space:

• Anneloes is dimed down 
• Kamee takes over with her solo with the tree and the rock 
• Dennis is outside 

Guardian Angel: 

Today we focus on listening with the hands using the guardian angel exercise. In this exercise, one person moves, and the other walks in their territory with their hands, not directing but listening. Only after the listening is very clear and established, the person touching can suggest some directions or play contrabalance, giving weight, etc. These are some of the things we discovered:

• This exercise also brings the caring feeling, as with the balloons.
• "It feels like we are one"
• For Denis was good to work without the headphones because then he can feel freer to move around, enter the floor and focus on the partner completely.
• Again, the same idea of connecting with the whole body through the touch of the hand. 
• The hands on the head were working very nicely.
• Actions with the hands: walk, slide, roll (more difficult) 
• Action with the body: spin around each other, melt together towards the floor, exchange fast between roles, emphasis on head, under each other.
• HUG

Sign Language Choreo - braid

At the end, we started to create a small choreo using the simple phrase "Hi, my name is Denis", using the Braid method. I wanted to do this not to keep the material, but to practice this way to fix material. It was very fun.

BALLOONS 

Time: 2:30 min

Space:

• Anneloes takes over and develops her duet with the balloons structure 
• Kamee dims down
• Dennis is outside 

DAY 3

2023-03-19

Cloud

We also worked with the balloons. The most significant result was the configuration of a cloud, where the 3 dancers move together with 3 ballons. The movement that works is one slow and subtle, as the balloons propose. The dancers were moving in between the balloons, passing the balloons to each other without touching them directly with their hands and trying to keep them together.

NGT practice: 

We started by practicing the alphabet with both hands, spelling our names, and learning some vocabulary. It was the first time with Kamee, so she learned her name. 

Moving each other from the fascia

We came back to touch the fascia and from there, we explore how to manipulate each other, coming into partnering tools. We divided into couples to create a short sequence as a result. 

CLOUD 

Time: 4:00 min

Space:

• Dennis enters with the bigger balloons and collects Anneloes first and the Kamee
• They create a cloud with the 3 big balloons. The cloud moves through the space 
•  They start to transition their mind from the softness and caring feeling of the heart, to its pumping and energetic characteristic. 

FLOWER HANDS 

Time: 2:00 min

Space:

• Dennis goes out of the cloud and does his solo, moving his whole body from his hands 
• Anneloes and Kamee have a soft duet in the back, moving each other with heart hands on the fascia 

DAY 4

2023-04-01

Tree solo: 

We started to create a solo with Dennis from the exercise of the Tree, growing the roots from the feet and bringing all that support to the arms and hands to make them very expressive. We played with different rhythms and ways to approach this. 

• My whole body in my hands and between my hands, as David Zambrano says
• I am my own puppet. I control my body from my hands
•  Hands as the head of the snake, and the body as the tale of the snake
• And the opposite: move the hands from the body
• Play with the 7 handshapes
• When the movement is slow and soft, it works better
• Eyes? looking at the hands, looking at the space, eyes closed?
• Playing with symmetry and asymmetry between the hands
• Playing with different tempos
• It's very important to always start from the grounded feeling that the Tree exercise gives. 
• Then, it is important to bring the mind to the fascia, and the interconnectivity of the body. 
• The spine had a very beautiful resonance in Denni's dance. Also, it was very connected to the hip and therefore, the legs. 
• Fall and recover
• It needs more precision, a lot of precision  
• Connection hands and feet

BRAIDING 

Time: 1:30 min

Space:

• With the sound cue, they all come together to do the choreo with Sign Language 
• The end of the song is the end of the choreo and that's where we stop for now

NGT practice: 

Dennis brought a book about NGT where we could find not only the alphabet but the most used handshapes. 

Handshape is one of the important components of sign language. It refers to the shape and position of the hand used to produce a sign. Handshape is a distinctive feature of sign language, and different signs can be distinguished based on the shape and orientation of the hands. In American Sign Language (ASL), for example, there are over 40 different handshapes that are used to produce signs. Some of the most common handshapes include an open hand, a closed fist, a pointed index finger, and a hooked index finger. These handshapes can be combined with other features, such as movement, location, and facial expression, to produce a wide range of signs with different meanings. Handshape is also important for distinguishing between signs that may be similar in other ways. For example, in ASL, the signs for "book" and "paper" use the same movement and location, but they are distinguished by a difference in handshape - "book" uses a flattened hand, while "paper" uses a curved hand.

In addition, handshape can also be used to convey additional information about a sign, such as size, shape, or texture. For example, in ASL, the sign for "ball" is produced with a curved handshape, which conveys the round shape of a ball.

Overall, handshape is an essential component of sign language, and it plays a crucial role in the grammar and syntax of sign languages. Understanding handshape is essential for effective communication in sign language, as it helps to distinguish between signs with similar movements and locations.

In sign languages, the basic unit of language is the sign, which can be composed of different elements, such as handshape, movement, location, orientation, and facial expression. These elements are combined in different ways to create signs with different meanings.

See this video that explains it very clearly

Most used handshapes in NGT

DAY 5

2023-04-29