Pure Movement

The entirety of my dancing experience consists of a year of tap dance in third grade. The reason I quit was because wearing tights made me itchy. Thus my loathing of tights ended my career as a dancer. My lack of dancing experience made Mary Wigman’s Composition in Pure Movement somewhat foreign to me. I thought her process of coming up with her dances was quite free sounding, just as she described it. I also found it interesting that she thought “the creation of a dance to music already written cannot be complete and satisfactory.” I never really thought of dance this way. To me it was always the creation of only movement to preexisting music. The fact that she just improvises with her musicians until it all works and fits together is quite fascinating. The thing about improvisation that scares me is that you have to be okay with making mistakes. Its hard for semi-OCD perfectionists like myself to really throw myself out there and be okay if what I do is bad. But I suppose all creation is just throwing yourself out there and seeing what comes out. I agree with Wigman when she talks about being a firm believer in individual freedom. I think creativity is completely unique to each person and we shouldn’t try to put anybody to a mold and make them the same as everybody else.