It’s a daily routine in itself to figure out each morning practice. Ranging from micro-movement exploration to narrative detail and context on a sensory level more than on a conceptual. Some material slips out spontaneously. Coming from a fraction of a memory, teeny gestures, a dream still hovering between the cells.
As I move figuring how spontaneous thought streams like to be expressed. Which parts like to be left in silence? Or more general, how finding the groove of the day? Quickly checking in mood(y)-wise, relating to the environment, the room, here a friends apartment I housesat last week. Plus for example changing forth and back my camera relation-dynamic, from an imagined observer thingy to being a comfortable partner. Inevitably working with lens proximity indoors which allows bodily perception to rest closer, within 1,50 meter. Also mime-wise there is something extra invasive communicating in this private circumference with an anonymous lens.
Often physical wear and tear play a role in discovering new and more counterintuitive coordination, because new patterns lie outside of the years of training routines. So I am navigating along the threshold of anatomical restrictions and habits and gradually transforming them into repeatable principles. Much enjoy grinding neuro-motor-pathways and thereby sort of reclaiming vocabulary which has been executed endlessly as pure movement and can grow more selfhood if wanted. That’s a difference I am choreographically curious about, balancing between dance-dance and performative-dance qualities.
Another question is about the the old good creative way…Considering semi-pleasurable/ tragic experiences, stories as nourishing sources. I like drama and pathos but equally want to find other logics, pleasure, lightness for making.
The score for this session was dancing a dream inside a dream.
Podcast on Instagram: June Tuesday 29th at 4pm @Dasniya_Sommer
Currently there are still no group classes taking place in my studio.
I can offer private classes for people who are vaccinated and can come with a partner. If you are interested, please email me for more details at workshops(at)dasniyasommer.de.
Foto: Tryouts at Ballhaus Ost during TakeCareResidenzen
(Sadly) another project cancelled:
without the pandemic we would now be in Brussels for the ten year anniversary of Romeo Castellucci’s Parsifal, at De Munt/La Monnaie Opera. A mammut staging with intricate mass scenes, the highest and greenest forrest in opera history and flying flowergirls in act II.
Reviving and choreographing ropes for such a special production, with a beloved bondage crew, would have been a fun challenge after ten years.
DE MUNT / LA MONNAIE
PARSIFAL Premiere: 27.01.2011
Direction musicale: Hartmut Haenchen
Mis en scne, Decor, Dcors et Costumes / Kostuums, clairages / Belichting: Romeo Castellucci
Video: Apparati Effimeri
Choreography: Cindy Van Acker
Shibari Art: Dasniya Sommer
Photo shows: Tomas Tomasson, Frances d’ Ath, Gala, Moody, Dasniya Sommer
Talking Toes‘ adds hip action to the previous shoulder exploration ⬇️ because foot habits usually start at the architecture of the pelvis and from there root downward. Activating individual muscles groups in the pelvic region takes a moment since it seems like one massive bone structure, sheltering and protecting our guts from external impact.
Staying on the level of movement research, I am again using PNF -proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation – a taktile sense ⬇️ to work out axes and patterns of the pelvic joint, and how it’s micro movement travel up the spine if wanted.
At first its not about moving the leg but finding the individual impulse of the right and left pelvic half. Later these impulses are extended into the periphery and shaped to classical forms but originating at the very core.
I am reading into stereometry in dance, or dynamic spatial geometry. Starting.
An arabesque cut in half brakes the idea of the infinite line, as well as the wrist rope. If there is the full circumference of movement, there also is the folded in or the restricted spacial imprint. With smaller reach, with the lower leg being visually deleted. But therefor more differentiation and attention towards surrounding and often neglected parts and their opportunities to move. Now, by immobilising the lower leg, this becomes obvious. The surrounding parts, like toe or sacrum articulation need to take over. Get creative. For a moment it’s a little brain fuck. Sensory unfamiliar. Staminawise harder, but I am after these alternative sources of movement. For now. Twitches in uncoordinated corners of the little toe, and some time later adding goofy fun stuff.
My (not so virgin) lower back also appreciates this routine. Intrinsic fibres between the vertebrae’s are waking up with deeper blood circulation, and if you do it for a while some blood will rush pleasantly across the pelvic floor.
The dance support program is part of Neustart Kultur, an initiative of the federal government comissioner for culture and the medea. A special focus here is on the development and testing of new forms of artistic and dance education or dance-transfer work. #distanzsolo#slowballet#coronacoronacorona
Im Rahmen von GLUTAMAT research stellt die Berliner Choreographin und Tänzerin Dasniya Sommer die Normierung von Körperbildern, Exotismen und Fast Food Konsum in einen irritierenden Zusammenhang. Als Analysetools dienen ihr dabei ein dekonstruierndes Verständnis von klassischem Ballett, die japanische Bondage Variante Shibari und eine originäre Pop Art Adaption.
Konzept, Choreografie, Set design, Kostüme, Tanz: Dasniya Sommer
Tanz und Co-Choreografie: Tara Jade Samaya und Yui Kawaguchi
Critical companion: Ursina Tossi
Kamera und Schnitt: Pippa Samaya
Tomorrow Friday on Instagram at Dasniya_Sommer – February 26, 4pm
Rope Barre‘ starts with a shoulder blade warm up. With ‚Musculus Subscapularis‘, one of the deep shoulder and breast muscles. Running between the front part of the blade to the upper arm where it inserts on the very inside. When the arm is turned in or pushed against the torso, like when it is freezing or the soul is tensing up, it‘s this M. Subscapularis which get’s active.
Personally both of mine have been injured for a few years. With the arm positions in ballet, with pulling up weights in bondage, or with the arms cross tied behind the back it’s the tendons of this muscle which can get inflamed. (Like to say here that this is not necessarily the ‚fault‘ of the practices, but rather how it’s done and taught.) Nevertheless both ballet and bondage are radical in terms of anatomical intensity (and perhaps from other perspectives). Doing both extensively I see it as the collateral damage of professional ‚use‘ of my body. Nevertheless the price is high. DisTanzenSolo currently supports me to take care of many old dance injuries and at the same time develop a gentle choreographic training routine without production pressure.
This month focus is on developing a somatic strength training for the scapula and it‘s surrounding structures, a not so tiny part of the arm. And because it‘s invisible for our forward looking species I am rediscovering it’s minor movement by sensing it’s location to start with. Inspired by the manual therapeutic practice ‚PNF‘, which I learned about in my physio therapie training more than 15 years ago. I had forgotten about it, but my shoulder misery led me to integrate it in my current daily training and movement research. ‚PNF‘ means proprioceptive-neuro-fascilitation. Kind of an anatomical self-sensing skill, which most people on the planet use navigating through space. If functioning, this sense tells the mover in which position their joints are. So that also in the dark we know our physical positioning in time and space. That’s the neuro-wiring between the joint capsule- and skin tension, and the brainy part – that‘s how I roughly remember. A pretty awesome and complex sense, which is used mostly without thinking.
For the shoulder blade warm up it‘s necessary to relay on this tactile sense. It’s especially trained in dance and other high coordination sports. But I find the scapula gets often neglected (especially in more conventional classical training), cause it‘s not an obvious articulation like hip or shoulder, and from the old days it‘s all about ‚Isolation‘.
After warming the blade up the routine of a ballet barre follows. The barre is almost an institution by itself I find. A ritual, a codified and useful object, and therefor it’s replaced by ropes. An experimental ‚barre‘ with impromptus steps. Requiring the shoulder girdle to stabilise the arms. For the moment there are no fixed sequences, the guts pour out steps by heart.
The wrist rope make sensible (fühlbar) how the upper limb connects to the blade in the back. From there letting your creative part of the brain take over. Playing with partial restriction. Going back to floor level. Don‘t pull strongly, rather use ropes holding your wrists to push (thrust) down and move rather slow than fast.
There are lot‘s of bridges between, ballet inspired impulses and bondage somatics. Let‘s not hunt shapes! But rather going through them and staying on a sensing level while breathing. And than, once in a while letting go of the concentration part and the muscle support, so that weight is actually falling into ropes or towards the floor. Integrating inner imagery and emo moments can be fun. If you hover over them for a while they might transform, intensify or go away. Think it‘s all valid on an experience level (without forceful phantasies for this round.)
Undoing the ropes can be a moment by itself. Same here, taking the inner drive into the action. Gently, exhausted or wild are colours of mind sets which inform the action/movement quality.
This is my current ‚freeing the shoulder blade and connecting back to my upper limb spirits!‘ tutorial. Tomorrow Friday on Instagram at Dasniya_Sommer – February 26, 4pm
Gefördert durch die Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien im Programm NEUSTART KULTUR,
Hilfsprogramm DIS-TANZEN des Dachverband Tanz Deutschland. #distanzsolo#slowballet#coronacoronacorona
Two weeks into ‘Glutamat’. Researching by myself. Once in a while different dancers are joining on the forth floor of Ballhaus Ost. Collecting material about fast- and slow food behaviour. Climbing up and down the small ladder to fit the set into the space. Eating Ramen. Reading on ballet by ‘Mishima’ (Thx to Gestalta! And yes, he is problematic.) Learning sequences to the dancers, in- and outdoors. Eating Ramen. Checking out Codemiko (Thx to Frances!), this awesome fem streamer and former gaming programer, who drives people crazy on snitch these days. I much enjoy her edgy, over the top style! Here are some in between steps. ..
This research is part of Take Care Residenzen, supported by Ballhaus Ost, Flausen Netzwerk and Fonds Darstellende Künste. Very glad to continue this work in progress which started last year for ‘An unboxing Ballet Beat’. Choreographic documentation on video will be up on this blog from mid April.
For the closing event of Tanznacht Berlin 2020, two very different female artists have been invited to combine their practices: Mmakgosi Kgabi is a voice-over artist who finds ways of embodying language and speech with her own «(Dance) Encyclopedia of the Mouth». Dasniya Baddhanasiri is a ballet dancer and choreographer who runs a dojo in Wedding in the Japanese art of Tight Bondage.
In «An Unboxing Ballet Beat», Mmakgosi Kgabi and Dasniya Baddhanasiri conduct an open, body-voice dialogue, simultaneously breaking down sentences and ballet vocabulary to create a rough working environment. By their reciprocal approach of bodily listening, they open spaces in which processes of connecting and dividing occur equally, in parallel. The audience is cordially invited to engage with this exchange and to join the artists on their journey through a space-time continuum full of surprises.
Mmakgosi Kgabi is a trained physical theatre and improvisation performer and also a performance facilitator. Her work often interrogates the premise of identity and nationalism, revisiting themes on the Black Female Body Politics and Migration.
The choreographer Dasniya Baddhanasiri researches movement from the perspective of the dancer. Her primary interest is the redefinition of body images, which she seeks within a physical and cultural spectrum ranging from Japanese bondage art to deconstructed ballet practice.
