Passing Through

In the making of movement compositions, David Zambrano focuses on creating and developing the dynamics for complex systems to present leadership in the form of a group web. In science, cells do not need a protein leader to create life. Neither does the brain need one protein leader to create a thought. With this in mind, Zambrano feels that movement needs no leader increation.

The “passing through” takes students through various exercises to manifest that same philosophy. The group will create dynamics that will be flexible, complex, getting the group to fit tight together, yet always keeping doors open for the unpredictable. The group moves constantly,transforming the environment of the dance.

After taking part in the “passing through” the student will learn to instantly connect with their environment and become more spontaneous in the making of choices as an improviser, choreographer or dancing in someone else’s work.

Zambrano uses three main exercises to complete this training. Under, over and around enables the student to make instantaneous creative choices as well as increases flexibility in both the mind and body. Itis a very physical game that requires a lot of endurance in which the full body of the student goes under, over and around the bodies of other students.Zambrano allows no time to take to make a plan, therefore the student learns the choosing and doing as one. By the end, dancers will dissolve into other dancers as one with the environment.

With leading and following, the students use their bodies to constantly exchange the roles of leader and follower. They do so unprompted, according to their instantaneous individual needs. The student must focus on either leading or following, how and when to make the choice to change, and how to control their body while doing so. The student can never get lost because they are constantly leading or following. From an outside vantage point, the group should give the appearance that it is moving without a leader or a follower while truthfully, everyone is leading and following.

The workshop culminates when Zambrano asks the students to see the room full of pathways – infinite pathways passing through the walls, the floor, even the bodies. These pathways go in any direction and are filled with curves, large and small.

Visible and invisible spirals are constantly passing through the students. Thus the “passing through” is created into a spontaneous composition. When the group becomes one mind, it can never get lost, there is never one person leading, everyone is following. The whole group is constantly traveling, weaving their bodies inside and out of their classmates and still always aware of the environment around them.

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