The Global Underscore

Will be taking part in The Global Underscore this Sunday night. Should have mentioned it a week ago and you could have come with me... 

                    Date: Sunday 23rd June

Time: 9pm- 1am

Venue: WAAPA*

What is the Global Underscore? The Global Underscore is a simultaneous practice of the Underscore around the world (read below for a little more info of the Underscore).

                   The Underscore

The Underscore is a long-form dance improvisation structure developed by Nancy Stark Smith. It has been evolving since 1990 and is practiced all over the globe.

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.

The practice—usually between 3 and 4 hours—progresses through a broad range of dynamic states, including long periods of very small, private, and quiet internal activity and other times of higher energy and interactive dancing.

           

There are 20+ phases of the score—each with a name and a graphic symbol—which create a general map for the dancers. Within that frame, dancers are free to create their own movements, dynamics, and relationships—with themselves, each other, the group, the music, and the environment. Each Underscore is unique, providing rich and often inspiring experiences of the human and artistic phenomena of dance improvisation.

The GLOBAL UNDERSCORE is an annual event in which the Underscore is practiced simultaneously for a 4 hour period by people all over world near the summer solstice (northern hemisphere). In 2012, there were 70+ sites. Claire Filmon proposed the event to Nancy in 2000 from a desire to connect dancers all around the planet to dance and to compose together in the moment and organized it until 2010.

 www.globalunderscore.blogspot.com

To participate in an Underscore, one should have some experience with Contact Improvisation and attend a talk-through of the Underscore (Perth will do this at 9pm), which often takes about an hour.