First PAR Session (25-11-09)

- With Rhian (Dancer)
- Myself (Conductor)

In this session I went through the concept behind the investigation with Rhian so as to give her an understanding of my background and research. We then went through some basics of general conducting and how this conducting method would be slightly different and involving that of gestures and signals.

In introducting her to this method i decided to use that of a standard conducting technique, so beating a metric metre of 4/4 to begin. I explained and showed to her the pattern used and how it could be changed using gestures and signal. I then also explained to her that in using Conduction I will set some rules, (may change as dancer gets more familiar with task) these being:
- Once a movement is established for a particular gesture it must remain (during that improvisation)
- Dancer may interpret gestures in anyway they feel at that moment in time
- Dancer may use such techniques as half-time or double time
- Dancer may rest at any time (it is improvisation)
We then tried some of this stuff out, changing some of the metric metre beatings to gestural ones but using the same shape of the 4/4 e.g.
- 1,2,3,4 would become 1, gesture, gesture,gesture, etc... and we would change between the two therefore creating two phrases of movement that begin the same primarily.

From this session it was clear that this dialect between conductor and and ensemble could translate to suit the body (with enough brain power). It will take time and a lot of hard work.

Rhian says:
'Today's session I practiced improvising to the conducting signals by shev, I found this session fun, I enjoyed experimenting with something new. I also think that i will gain more knowledge with shev's dissertation, it is a challenge I look forward to!'