Jump Rhythm Technique II (261-0-21)
Instructors
William Lewis Siegenfeld
847/491-3147
10 Arts Circle Drive
Office Hours: Tuesday and Thursday, noon-2:00pm and by appointment
Meeting Info
Wirtz Center SOUTH: Mon, Wed 11:00AM - 12:50PM
Overview of class
Jump Rhythm® focuses on using the syncopated rhythms of jazz, funk, and/or rap music to generate emotion-rich, time-precise, rhythmic expression in both body and voice. In its classes we accompany all exercises, improvisations, and partnered movement-scenes with jazz-based scat-singing. We also use scat-singing's percussive quality to sing the words of songs that accompany some exercises. This prominent use of the voice turns this approach to performing arts training into an energy-charged, acting-singing class as much as a movement class. We also sing the lyrics to songs - but, again, singing them in this jazz-inflected way. Note the phrase "energy-charged." Jump Rhythm focuses on articulating the physical and emotional ENERGY we feel roiling about on the inside of our bodies, rather than on articulating the SPACE we see on the outside of the body, whether our own or another person's. That is, this class is not like what you may have experienced in a typical, ballet-based dance class. In the latter much of the learning depends on using a mirror to help you rearrange the positions of your body parts so that they can conform to a pre-established "look." There is also a continuous emphasis placed on the legs - learning how to place them in non-natural positions so we can turn them into marvelous engines of gymnastic virtuosity. Differently, Jump Rhythm focuses on expressing energy through our 2 eyes, 2 hands, and voice. We call these our 5 primary physical and emotional articulators. Actors and singers know these parts, especially the voice, as the means they use to deliver the words of a play or a song Given that Jump Rhythm is a both music-driven and acting-driven class, we team them up these small but might articulators to express clear rhythmic accents. That is, we use eyes-hands-voice as drumbeaters to strike sharp or explosive accents against the drumheads of the space with, as best we can, pinpoint accurate timing. These drumheads include the imaginary spaces that surround the body; the actual surfaces of the body we tap hands against and use like beatbox; and that very real drumhead loved by all tap and step dancers: the floor. In addition to the fact that we focus on expressing energy not shape, and in addition to the fact that we rhythmically vocalize all the movement we do, Jump Rhythm is also different from a typical ballet-based dance classes in one more way: it is built upon the foundation of a holistic approach to mind-body health called Standing Down Straight®. Standing Down Straight®. In Jump Rhythm, we do not explore movement or sing music using either an uplifted posture ("standing up straight") or core strength (over-contracted abdominal muscles). Differently, we do all voice-and-body work by standing down straight (SDS). SDS is a "green," less-is-more pedagogy. With it, we explore learning how to use less muscular tension when driving force through the body and voice. In this way we honor the animal in us - to the extent that we wish to emulate how our animal cousins know how to get what they want with ease, economy, fluency, and pinpoint power. Inspired by this model, we explore how to work from a base of anatomically fact-based, gravity-directed, skeletal relaxation. This inspiration in mind, we build into every activity of this class when not just to "do," to "perform," but also when to slow down both the mind and the body. Slowing them down so that we can teach the bones of our body not to lift and hypertense - which, for instance, standing up straight and core strength promote - but rather to "sit" and "hang" in response to gravity's downward pull. In sum: SDS allows us to, in a sense, not-work as well as work. We practice this apparently paradoxical approach to moving and vocalizing in all of our exercises beginning with the one called Constructive Rest. In it, we use visualizations to help the body's bones go where the pull of gravity is directing them to go
Registration Requirements
Sophomore, Juniors, and Senior Theatre majors who have taken Dance 161 JRJ I
Class Attributes
No Freshmen