Release technique

Release technique is a dance technique that focuses on breathing, skeletal alignment, joint articulation, muscle relaxation, and the use of gravity and momentum to facilitate efficient movement. Release techniques can be found in modern and postmodern dance, and have been highly influenced by therapeutic movement techniques such as Feldenkrais and Alexander Technique, and in yoga and martial arts.

History

The beginnings of release technique start with the early modernists such as Isodora Duncan. At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century dancers were beginning to question the rigidity and formality of classical ballet. Duncan in particular articulated the need for dance which she described as being connected to the earth, to sensuality and to the natural body.

Subsequent generations of dancers began to take this on and began actively searching for and developing dance techniques that reinvented the balletic tradition with radically different execution of movement. In the modern dance generation, techniques and approaches emerged for movement, coming from pioneers such as Margeret D'Oubler, Martha Graham, Rudolf von Laban and Doris Humphrey.

Later their students, such as Merce Cunningham, Jose Limon, Irmgaard Bartenieff, Erick Hawkins, Anna Halprin and others began to contribute to this development. In these second and third waves, the conceptual groundwork for release technique began to emerge. D'Oubler insisting on developing a sound understanding of human anatomy and movement studies as a basis for dance; Humphrey's technique was based on allowing gravity and momentum to affect the body. Erick Hawkins, in his essay The Body is a Clear Place, articulated, in fine detail, that physiologically effectient movement was also aesthetically beautiful.

At this time, dancer began also seeking influence from other movement disciplines - for example Hawkins actively invited teachers from the tradition of Ideokinesis (the work influence by Mabel Elsworth Todd) to teach his dance company, some were also influenced by F.M. Alexander's teachings. In Europe the Folkswang Hochschule was receiving teachers from the tradition of Else Gindler.

These dance technques, although not universally agreed on to be "Release Techniques" certainly laid the ground for the next generation to come.

When the Post-Modern dance generation emerged in the 1970s, this is when "release technique" emerged more distinctly and was named. Joan Skinner, a modern dancer and a student of the Alexander Technique, created "Skinner Releasing Technique" which utilised elements of Alexander Technique in a dynamic and free flowing way. Mary O'Donnel Fulkerson created "Anatomical Release Techique" which was highly influenced by elements of Body-Mind Centering, the work of Bonnie Bainbridge-Cohen. Steve Paxton, a member of the Judson Church Dance Theatre and the Grand Union pioneered Contact Improvisation and developed a body of work known as "Material for the Spine" which incorporates many release principles. As well as these techniques, dancers of this generation were exploring many of the various contemporay somatic practices which were becoming more available, such as the Feldenkrais method, as well as traditional techniques such as Tai Chi and Yoga. Although not so clearly codified as Fulkerson's or Skinner's work this was arguably the "release generation", which influence continues, albeit in a less formalised way.

Contemporary Release Technique

It is rare nowaday to find pure "Release Technique" teachers and classes, or formalised release technique, being taught in a consistent way. The trend is towards highly hybridised classes based on a mix a wider canon of contemporary dance and somatic practices, based, on the individual experience, interests and expertise of the teacher. The principles of release technique have become popularised within contemporary dance and it usually taught as an integrated element, rather than a stand-alone class. However, some teacher do never-the-less offer release technique classes as a distinct method of teaching, performing, dancing and as an aesthetic philosophy.

See also

• Skinner releasing technique
• Doris Humphrey

References

• Olsen, Andrea; Caryn McHose (2004). Bodystories. Lebanon NH: University Press of New England. ISBN 1-58465-354-X.
• Bainbridge-Cohen, Bonnie (1993). Sensing, Feeling and Action: The Experiential Anatomy of Body-Mind Centering. Northampton MA: Contact Editions.
• Johson, Don Hanlon (1995). Bone, Breath, Gesture: Practices of Embodiment. Berkeley CA: North Atlantic Books.
• Lepkoff, Daniel (1999). "What is Release Technique?" (PDF). Movement Performance Research Journal (19).

External links

• An article about release technique at contemporary-dance.org