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The Motional Improvisation of Al Wunder
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The Motional Improvisation of Al Wunder
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Book Description
The Motional Improvisation of Al Wunder takes readers on a journey through the life history, creative genealogies and unique working processes of one of the master teachers of Euro-American postmodern movement-based improvisational performance who has, until now, received scant critical attention.
The book offers a long overdue examination of the significant impact made by an important figure on grassroots movement-based improvisational performance in 1960s/1970s US and in Australia from the 1980s onwards. It revisits the work of groundbreaking New York choreographer Alwin Nikolais, with whom Wunder trained and for whom he later taught in the 1960s; covers collaborations with founders of ‘Action Theater’ Ruth Zaporah and ‘Motivity Aerial Dance’ Terry Sendgraff as part of the explosion of improvisation in San Francisco in the 1970s and tracks the consolidation of a unique pedagogy that would see hundreds of students learn how to map their performative creativity in Melbourne from the 1980s onwards. It conducts a fascinating investigation into the wellsprings of Wunder’s approach to improvised performance as an end in itself, covering teaching innovations such as his use of the Hum Drum, positive feedback, personal power sources and articulators. It includes valuable contributions from a number of ex-students and established Australian artists in dance, music and visual art who share the profound impact Wunder has made on their creative practices.
This book will be a valuable resource to movement/dance improvisation students and teachers at undergraduate and postgraduate level and independent artists drawn to movement improvisation as performance.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
List of FiguresList of Contributors
Preface
Introduction
It began with a class
Why Wunder?
The author and contributors
Chapter outlines
Wunder’s definition of Totally Improvised Performance
A Unique Lexicon
PART I I WONDER
Chapter One: Creative Genealogies
A snapshot of an unfocussed 1950s New York teenager with a dodgy leg
It began with a class
Alwin Nikolais
Henry Street
A quick spell in Nikolais’ company
Teaching Improvisation
Artistic Antecedents
Rudolf Laban
Mary Wigman
Hanya Holm
Decentralization
Nikolais and Improvisation
Judson Dance Theater
Chapter Two: Theatre of the Ordinary
Celebrating Difference
A Typical Class: relived and reconstructed through embodied memory and scraps of notes
Self-teacher
Total improvisation
The Big Four
Space
Vision
Peripheral space
Shape
Time
Motion
Motional
Chapter Three: The Dancing Drummer
Sound and Motion
Non-Western Influences
Jazz
Hum Drumming
Chapter Four: Shifting Place
San Francisco
Berkeley Dance Theater & Gymnasium
Open Scores
Ranting and raving on street corners
Fertile Void
Melbourne
TotO
Cubitt Street
Cecil Street
One-on-One
PART TWO PEDAGOGICAL FOUNDATIONS
Chapter Five: Positive Feedback and Power Sources
The Voice of Judgement
What is Going Right
Inside Feedback
Outside Feedback
Impulse, Structure and Positive Feedback
Power Sources
Coenesthesis
I Can
Chapter Six: Developing A Descriptive Language
Teaching With Words
Learning With Words
Phenomenological Description
What Is It?
PART III STRUCTURES
Chapter Seven: Basic, Necessary and Clarifying Articulators
Articulus
Basic Articulators
In Place
Still Movement or Dancing with Stillness
Stillness in Space and Time
Locomotion
The Necessary Articulator or Initiating and Responding
YES
The Clarifying Articulators
Chapter Eight: The Four Modes: Pedestrian, Character, Caricature and Abstract
Polymedia
Pedestrian
Boring Pedestrian
Character
Caricature
Freedom
Energy, High Energy, Extreme Energy
Abstract
Dance is the Art of Motion, not Emotion
It’s a Showing Of, Not Showing Off
Chapter Nine: Four Possible Ways of Entertaining an Audience: Expertise, Being Beautiful or Profound, Humour and Challenge
Across Boundaries
Expertise
Habit
Beauty
Humour
Challenge
Control
Risk & Failure & Trust
States of Mind
Searching
Working
Inspired
Chapter Ten: Word/Body
Talking Performers
Pregnant statements and fast talking
Gibberish
Words and Movement
Movement Into Words
PART FOUR LIVED EXPERIENCE
Chapter Eleven: Beyond Wunder
by Warren Burt
Leesa Nash
David Naylor
Lynden Nicholls
Anne O’Keeffe
Concluding Note Forward Roll
References
Appendix Shades of Green by Peter Trotman
Index
Author(s)
Biography
H.R. Elliott is an improviser, dancer and teacher who has performed and taught in Australia, Germany, the UK and the US. She is an Affiliate and Visiting Lecturer in Physical Theatre at the University of Huddersfield.