Make a Duet

Hi & welcome (10 minutes)

Introducing leaders and theme. The Leader initiates by encouraging participants to “Start the body” by pushing the imaginary start button. Making a slight sway or shifting from side to side with the intention to bridge nicely from stillness to movement. Everyone, starting with the leader, is encouraged to say their name together with a movement which is repeated afterwards by everyone before passed on to the next person in the circle.
Outcomes: To gently initiate the group and the body for movement, come up with a first movement yourself and get a sense of the other participants.

Energizing and introduction of touch (5 minutes)

From standing in a circle, now reshape passing through an oval shape by squeezing the circle ending up arranging yourselves into two lines. Everyone is rubbing their hands to create some heat. One line is turning their backs to the other line to get energized by the others when rubbing their backs quite rigorously.
Outcomes: To energize a partners’ body and introduce touch.

Give attention to | in pairs (15 minutes)

One is receiving; another one is giving attention with parts of the body to different places on the recipients´ body. Three choices then alternate and in total 3×3 times each.
Outcomes: To continue from the previous exercise, to get familiar with the sensation of touch, muscle tonus and different places on your own and the body of another person.

The Rock & the Investigator (20 minutes)

Change pairs. One is being “the Rock” and is asked to choose a position with a solid base. The other one is “the Investigator” checking the steadiness of the rock from all four directions (front, side, back & side). The Rock should always adjust to find a steady place.
Investigate different ways of being supported by the Rock. Take turn and if there a possibility of adding more you can bring in instructions as “connecting the movements between choices” and /or merge the roles.
Guide accordingly with tools & terms like support & weight.
The Rock
 give support
 sharing weight
 carry weight
The Investigator
 giving a bit of weight
 sharing weight
 giving full weight

BREAK (20 minutes)

A link in a chain (10 minutes)

3 by 3 connecting in a way that allows an interchangeable grip.
Focus is in the beginning on the middle person that will make choices affecting the others while they adjust and sometimes suggests actions as well.
The instruction for the middle link is to investigate possibilities for movement.
Guidance can be given with words like: move, travel through, move down, hold on, resist, hang from, challenge or move in space. Take turns so everyone has tried to be the middle ink. A person in need of more support can find a wall or something to hold on to get the “non-linked” side supported.

Your own version of a duet (20 minutes)

Show a prepared duet phrase and let the participants shout out immediately what they see in the duet. Write down the words and let participants in new pairs choose three words to build their own duet.
Outcomes: To watch a piece of movement, to describe what you see, to use words, to get inspiration for the participants owns ideas, to use all previous mentioned when making a duet together with someone and in the end dancing that duet.

Share your own version (10 minutes)

Let them dance their compositions with different groupings of couples every time so everyone will see all the others´ versions.
Outcomes: To create a short duet together, share and watching the other participants’ dance.

Amazonas cool down (5 minutes)

Connect in a very big chained circle, investigate the links calm and continuously and finally coming to a stillness with huge lungs of the Amazonas breathing three deep breaths together.

Sharing (5 minutes)

Gather in a circle for a chat, a word of the day and a goodbye.