Underscore 5 23 2020 Remote and or Durational

BASIC INFORMATION: WHAT: PHILLY UNDERSCORE PRACTICE- REMOTE AND/OR DURATIONAL WHERE: your own remote location (sometimes on Zoom), could be inside or outside WHEN: Saturday, May 23, 2020 11:00am-1:00pm OR 9:00pm ADVANCE REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED: https://muhlenberg.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0rf-Gppz0uE9G0ksIujROc8ZrpHXCjAQ5E WHO: Any mover who has had an Underscore talk through may participate. ADMISSION: $0-$20 suggested donation No advance tickets. Pay with paypal [email protected] or Venmo @Loren-Groenendaal QUESTIONS: [email protected] DETAILED SCHEDULE ON SATURDAY, MAY 23 (times EDT): 10:45am -11:00 am = Zoom Room opens for Zoom Session #1 11:00am-1:00pm = ZOOM SESSION #1 for Check-in and Beginning a Physical Practice of the Underscore We will arrive and do Assembly to introduce ourselves, the day, plant seeds/intentions for the Practice, and ask questions about adapted Underscore. Then, Loren will verbally and physically facilitate the solo warm-up part of the Underscore. Then, Loren will offer further physical instruction and conceptual tips on how to transition into the more collaborative and compositional aspects of the Underscore. We will continue to dance and connect over Zoom with more Engagements, potentially Recirculating through the Score, and into a Open Score. Around 12:30 or 12:45pm, we will have our first conclusion with a brief Reflection/Harvest and Sharing/Thanksgiving. 1:00pm We will log off of Zoom to either continue in our own way or be done for the day. 1:00pm - 8:00pm = OPTIONAL REMOTE continued physical or conceptual practice of the Underscore This is a time to engage in the Underscore in your own way for any duration. One could dance, or just live life while thinking about the Underscore, probably have lunch too. You can practice inside or outside, alone or with people with whom you are quarantining. You can rest. This is an opportunity to practice Bonding with the Earth and other glyphs outside with nature. 8:00 pm - 9:00 pm = OPTIONAL ZOOM SESSION #2 for Sharing and Thanksgiving The durational participants will reconvene on Zoom to share our experience and to give thanks for our experience. I will also invite feedback on this experiment. Participants are strongly encouraged to bring dinner or snacks to this meeting. NOTES ABOUT REMOTE/DURATIONAL UNDERSCORE: The underscore is a carefully held container and an intentional space. I hope that those who come to the Assembly at 11am will stay through the first session's conclusion at 1pm. Further, I hope that those who choose to be durational participants return for the Sharing / Thanksgiving at 8pm to conclude their day-long practice. But in these stressful times of Covid-19 pandemic, I ask us all to be understanding with ourselves and others, if we or another participant is unable to commit to the full event. The Underscore is an amazing container. The contents are usually somatic mindfulness, contact improvisation, and compositional dancing in a studio simultaneously. This remote version extends the container to hold our lives as well as some physically distanced dancing and community connecting. I believe the Underscore and Contact Improvisation teach us much about ourselves, humanity, and the earth that there is much wisdom that we have gained from these forms that we could apply to our "regular" lives. Further, there is much pleasure in the Underscore that we could find ways to insert into our not so normal lives during this pandemic. This extended remote underscore is a wild idea, but we found much success with it last month and hope that you join us this time. This new remote Underscore will be longer in duration to allow us to have ample time to check-in and move together online. At the end of this online movement session (11am-1pm), there will be a first Sharing/Thanksgiving which can serve as the conclusion for dancers who want a shorter more contained experience. For dancers who would like a longer duration to explore the container of the Underscore throughout their day (1pm-8pm), they can log off of zoom, but we can continue to integrate the Underscore into our lives offline in various ways, and then come back together to integrate and conclude with a second Sharing/Thanksgiving (8-9pm). The zoom link for this second conclusion will be shared during the first Zoom session. If you are new to the Underscore, but have significant experience with contact or compositional improvisation, please email [email protected] by 5pm on WEDNESDAY, MAY 20 TO SET UP A TIME FOR A TALK THROUGH to get oriented to the Underscore in general. MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE UNDERSCORE IN GENERAL: The Underscore Practice is a simple and beautiful structure for a focused jam-like practice developed by Nancy Stark Smith. The structure is a precise, but open platform for investigation of contact improvisation and solo and group improvised composition. The score is an organic developmental nonverbal sequence that provides focus to the dancing community and opens up possibilities for movement, awareness, connection, and various physical/mental states. We (do our best to) commit to participating in the entire score (which includes resting, eating, digesting, observing, bonding with the earth). Nancy Stark Smith, who originated the practice, describes it this way: "The Underscore is a vehicle for incorporating Contact Improvisation into a broader arena of improvisational dance practice; for developing greater ease dancing in spherical space—alone and with others; and for integrating kinesthetic and compositional concerns while improvising. It allows for a full spectrum of energetic and physical expressions, embodying a range of forms and changing states. Its practice is familiar yet unpredictable."(http://nancystarksmith.com/underscore) REMINDER: ADVANCE REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED FOR ZOOM SESSION #1: https://muhlenberg.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0rf-Gppz0uE9G0ksIujROc8ZrpHXCjAQ5E QUESTIONS: [email protected] PHOTO by Arthur Fink