Monday 16th April was our very first Creative Living session at Cantley Court- Shelton Lock.
On arrival the building was buzzing with potential participants and I was thrilled to have a solid group of 15 attend the session on our very first week. The Liaison team had done a brilliant job as calling their fellow residents and getting the word out to other locals.
The session saw us using a large band to create shapes and movements together. The idea behind the band was to bring a sense of unity and to stay in contact with each other without using direct touch (skin to skin). The group worked together to create movements as a whole and also to share the band when improvising and making our own individual movements. This was fantastic to see so many people moving together but in different ways!
After using the band I brought some individual pieces of ribbon out, each piece was around 2 meter long and were in different pastel colours. I Brought these out to explore how we can continue of elastic exploration with a new piece of material. The ribbon is cut in long pieces (not a hoop like the elastic band), it also has no stretch so offers solid resistance if we were to pull on either end of the ribbon. This was very different and created very different shapes and movements in comparison to the elastic yet could still be used to join us together.
After having a few minutes to explore we placed the ribbons down and learn a short dance which used pull and stretch as a theme (very much like the elastic band movements). We tried this to various songs and were challenging both our bodies and mind when performing the movements in the correct order.
After successfully learning and performing the routine we picked up the ribbons and the group began to get creative! I asked each group use 3 of the movement we had learnt to create a short dance- However they must have the ribbon in contact with them at all time. At first this was a difficult concept to grasp. The group were unsure how to do movements that stretched and pulled using non elastic piece of ribbon. When I later explained that the movements might change slightly the group were able to access a whole new vocabulary of movement. Whilst most group stayed seated for this activity one group decided to stand and were turning each other in and out of the ribbon and pulling on the ribbon to create different body shapes.
This was a lovely experience for me as I was able to view all the creative movements at once. I wanted everyone else to have the same experience so asked if any groups would like to show theirs. To my amazement all groups wished to share their creations!
Overall the first session had be a wonderful start to the new group and I’m excited for what’s next!
