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I was trying to find something on Nancy's Underscore on the web. as it was surprisingly not-easy to find it written out, when i did find it, I thought to post it here. It is from a jam that happened (is happening?) in Amsterdam, but i don't know who wrote it.
I am wondering about people's experiences of being in Underscore jams and how you experience it changes the opportunities... what does it add, what does it take away (both in terms of explicit intentions and effective practice). any thoughts?
regards
Karl
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description of Nancy's Underscore from Amsterdam Underscore Jam
UNDERSCORE:
Developed by Nancy Stark Smith, it is a structure that organizes a contact impro and allows people to work together in a warm-up or an impro session. It generates a very interesting frame to share that may orient the impro and provides a language to be able talk about the experience later.
I. Sequential Aspects: These Aspects of the Score serve as a guide that develops sequentially. The changes from one aspect to the next occurs spontaneously for each dancer rather than being strictly controlled.
a. Arriving:
i. Arriving energetically: bring the focus to the present.
ii. Arriving Physically: bring the attention to the sensation you have in the body at this moment.
iii. Pow-wow (optional): coming together to talk in a circle (names, injuries, how long it will last)
iv. Pre- ambulation: (optional): go through the space, open connections with the space and the people after the talk.
b. Skinesphere:
What’s inside the skin, sensation, what we feel in the small dance.
i. Bonding with the earth: to relax the body, to feel the support from below, connection with the floor.
ii. Mobilizing, agitating the mass: To mix the mass with the air, by jumping, moving, to get a new organization afterwards.
c. Kinesphere:
Attention to what you can reach with your limbs.
i. Low kinsphere: Dome, centre on the floor.
ii. High kinsphere: With the centre high.
(Maybe a moment to balance, to increase our tone.)
iii. Expanding and traveling kinsphere: The base of it is the connection with your centre and with the floor. Breath.
d. Overlapping kinspheres:
We start to be more conscious of the others in the space.
e. Connections- Grazing:
Short connections happening during the Overlapping Ks. Between one and the other is your solo.
i. Coincidence: same time same thing.
ii. Confluence: two rivers that meet.
iii. Divergence
iv. Touch
v. Attraction: is magnetic, you feel attracted by a body or a movement.
vi. Repulsion or Aversion
vii. Intersection: cross ways.
viii. Influence: music, people…
ix. Contrast: acknowledge that difference is a way of connection.
x. Collisions: soft, they wake us up.
xi. Tangent: when our route meets another just on a point.
xii. Empathy and Resonance: I feel something from the distance.
xiii. Shearing: from shearing sheeps.
f. Engagement:
At some point we start to be more implicated with the connection.
i. Development: developing a duo
ii. Resolution: disengagement, end of the duo.
g. Re-circulation through the score:
Allow the sensation to continue. Where am I? What do I want to do? Don’t cut it, don’t escape to drink water.
h. Open Score:
We can use different ways to re-enter the score.
i. Observation
ii. Re-Entrance
i. Final Resolution of the room:
The beginning of the last chapter. Each person resolves his own activity arriving to stillness where we can feel the experience of had been dancing.
j. Disengagement of the whole pattern:
From the stillness we imagine the group as a crystalline form, and when we are ready….end of the total design.
k. Reflection and Harvest:
Introspective revision of the body. And then harvest, you may write or draw or…
l. Sharing:
Harvest’s celebration. Listening to the authentic of the personal experience, we learn, we feel.
II. Non Sequential Aspects- Any time All the time:
a. Streaming:
Current, flow, stream. Small particles of light in movement (like the fffffff of the tv). Vital force. Related with the breath.
b. Gap:
Temporal moment of absence of reference. You don’t have orientation.If we experience a gap we may focus on the streaming, for the current not to diminish, because we need it to orient ourselves. Also allow ourselves to explore the gap, we don’t have to fill it always.
c. Telescoping Mind:
We can zoom in and out when we like to.
i. Zoom in: We concentrate on a particular sensation and we increase the focus. It gives context.
ii. Zoom out: Consciousness of the total composition, without loosing the consciousness of what we are doing.
d. Idiot Button:
When it gets too much the trying to be aware of so many things we press this button and we simplify. We feel, we breath, and if we want awareness we press it again.
I am wondering about people's experiences of being in Underscore jams and how you experience it changes the opportunities... what does it add, what does it take away (both in terms of explicit intentions and effective practice). any thoughts?
regards
Karl
-----
description of Nancy's Underscore from Amsterdam Underscore Jam
UNDERSCORE:
Developed by Nancy Stark Smith, it is a structure that organizes a contact impro and allows people to work together in a warm-up or an impro session. It generates a very interesting frame to share that may orient the impro and provides a language to be able talk about the experience later.
I. Sequential Aspects: These Aspects of the Score serve as a guide that develops sequentially. The changes from one aspect to the next occurs spontaneously for each dancer rather than being strictly controlled.
a. Arriving:
i. Arriving energetically: bring the focus to the present.
ii. Arriving Physically: bring the attention to the sensation you have in the body at this moment.
iii. Pow-wow (optional): coming together to talk in a circle (names, injuries, how long it will last)
iv. Pre- ambulation: (optional): go through the space, open connections with the space and the people after the talk.
b. Skinesphere:
What’s inside the skin, sensation, what we feel in the small dance.
i. Bonding with the earth: to relax the body, to feel the support from below, connection with the floor.
ii. Mobilizing, agitating the mass: To mix the mass with the air, by jumping, moving, to get a new organization afterwards.
c. Kinesphere:
Attention to what you can reach with your limbs.
i. Low kinsphere: Dome, centre on the floor.
ii. High kinsphere: With the centre high.
(Maybe a moment to balance, to increase our tone.)
iii. Expanding and traveling kinsphere: The base of it is the connection with your centre and with the floor. Breath.
d. Overlapping kinspheres:
We start to be more conscious of the others in the space.
e. Connections- Grazing:
Short connections happening during the Overlapping Ks. Between one and the other is your solo.
i. Coincidence: same time same thing.
ii. Confluence: two rivers that meet.
iii. Divergence
iv. Touch
v. Attraction: is magnetic, you feel attracted by a body or a movement.
vi. Repulsion or Aversion
vii. Intersection: cross ways.
viii. Influence: music, people…
ix. Contrast: acknowledge that difference is a way of connection.
x. Collisions: soft, they wake us up.
xi. Tangent: when our route meets another just on a point.
xii. Empathy and Resonance: I feel something from the distance.
xiii. Shearing: from shearing sheeps.
f. Engagement:
At some point we start to be more implicated with the connection.
i. Development: developing a duo
ii. Resolution: disengagement, end of the duo.
g. Re-circulation through the score:
Allow the sensation to continue. Where am I? What do I want to do? Don’t cut it, don’t escape to drink water.
h. Open Score:
We can use different ways to re-enter the score.
i. Observation
ii. Re-Entrance
i. Final Resolution of the room:
The beginning of the last chapter. Each person resolves his own activity arriving to stillness where we can feel the experience of had been dancing.
j. Disengagement of the whole pattern:
From the stillness we imagine the group as a crystalline form, and when we are ready….end of the total design.
k. Reflection and Harvest:
Introspective revision of the body. And then harvest, you may write or draw or…
l. Sharing:
Harvest’s celebration. Listening to the authentic of the personal experience, we learn, we feel.
II. Non Sequential Aspects- Any time All the time:
a. Streaming:
Current, flow, stream. Small particles of light in movement (like the fffffff of the tv). Vital force. Related with the breath.
b. Gap:
Temporal moment of absence of reference. You don’t have orientation.If we experience a gap we may focus on the streaming, for the current not to diminish, because we need it to orient ourselves. Also allow ourselves to explore the gap, we don’t have to fill it always.
c. Telescoping Mind:
We can zoom in and out when we like to.
i. Zoom in: We concentrate on a particular sensation and we increase the focus. It gives context.
ii. Zoom out: Consciousness of the total composition, without loosing the consciousness of what we are doing.
d. Idiot Button:
When it gets too much the trying to be aware of so many things we press this button and we simplify. We feel, we breath, and if we want awareness we press it again.
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Re: Underscore
10/12How many participants does it take to make an underscore jam? 51% If only one person of the many at a jam knows the Underscore, does that make it an Underscore jam?
Or are all jams an Underscore jam? Whether or not anyone is calling it that?
All penguins are penguins even if they don't call themselves that. And, yes, they are all wearing tuxedos! -
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Re: Underscore
10/14I think the difference is that, from what I understand, their is a verbal invitation into each part so the group is doing each at the same time. In that, the difference is the group experience rather than individual experience (or rather ind within the group - almost authentic movement and witness). The sharing is optional, but to me an essential ingredient.
I was unsure what underscore meant also, but reading the shared description it seems that the score is internal - rather than a score where you are totally present to your environment and partners, the score begins with your presence inward (even in external movement - the language is directed this way, invites us to use a different part of our brain - to come to the jam as a spiritual being almost... or a quantum-physical being rather than as one with ego expectations) and asks that awareness be maintained as you branch out.
I experienced some of this in my first classes, and I think it takes awhile for all the connections to be made. I'm not sure if I've done an entire class that way... and in that way I feel the sharing may break up some of the energy.
This is great to read and think about, thanks Karl! Can I ask what brought you to find it? Is it something you have or plan to use? I had forgotten all about this term.
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