SCORES 

25th January 2020 

During my training as a Tamalpa Practitioner I was very fortunate to work with the legendary Anna Halprin and her daughter Daria Halprin who are great masters in the field of expressive and healing arts. It’s a significant time in the Tamalpa and expressive arts community as Anna is in her 100th year.

“Over the course of seventy years in dance, I have honed some simple and direct approaches to movement by focusing on embodied awareness, ordinary movement, how ordinary movement becomes dance, and the power of embodied wisdom. In my search for living myths and rituals, I have evolved powerful processes for helping people make dances that make a difference. These are the LifeArt Process, the Psychokinetic Visualisation Process, the Five Stages of healing, and the RSVP Cycles. All of theses processes provide maps to the territory of the self; they help us make authentic art expressions derived from real life experience.” Anna Halprin Making Dances that matter 

Studying these processes over the past 9 years really have opened my world up to the power and inspiration that a creative practice offers. I have experienced it in myself and I observe it with the many others I teach and facilitate. 

So in this Blog I felt to share on one the greatest resources that has supported me immensely: Scores!!! I use Scores as the basis of all my workshops, they are like a map, guiding the participants into their creative source. As explained by Anna Halprin…

“The word ‘score’ is derived form music and refers to a visual and /or verbal plan the instructs a group of people to carry out prescribed activities to fulfil a particular intention. In addition to the activities, a score delineates place, time, space, and the cast of people, as well as sound and other related elements. It guides performers in what to do, who does it, when to do it, and where to do it. 

One of my “tests” for a good score is: Does it generate creativity in the performers?”

So the intention of a Score is to generate creativity…..it is so rewarding when I see people in my workshops moving, drawing, writing, making creations that could be a transformative and life changing moment for them, as their were many times for me where literally a drawing or piece of writing changed the course of my life by seeing a new possibility or seeing things from a new perspective.  

A simple Self Portrait Score that I did today was: Move for 20 mins, then draw three images reflecting on how am I experiencing myself in this moment – physically, mentally, emotionally, then write a few sentences from each drawing… this is a great way to plug in, tune in to ourselves, to check in and follow impulses and to have fun!. I love dancing, drawing and I always feel invigorated after.

Watch this space I will be posting lots of ideas for scores that you can do at home, out in nature or in a group. Thanks for reading and go well

Lauren x