Ensemble thinking
Ensemble Thinking is a group of movement training structures[1] that facilitates the reciprocal relationship between the individual performer and the group. The scores that comprise Ensemble Thinking enable the performer and the group to generate clear choices. By awakening the group towards the composition that exists in the moment, ET generates a framework, which can frame the individual performer’s efforts. Ensemble Thinking is simultaneously a means for creating improvised dance and a means to teach improvised dance making. Because the creative process of improvisation occurs in the moment, Ensemble Thinking emphasizes simplicity, allowing for quick, intuitive choice making. The alacrity of choice making helps the ensemble avoid ambiguous spacing and glacial timing. With the use of Ensemble Thinking, such spacing and timing can become conscious artistic choices in the moment of the group, rather than the default.
Ensemble Thinking was first developed by Nina Martin in the mid-1990s as a means to expand Contact Improvisation beyond the duet form and to compositionally animate the form in performance. Martin was also inspired by the ensemble performances and studies she had done with Mary Overlie, Simone Forti, Barbara Dilley, and Nancy Topf. In practice, Ensemble Thinking is similar to Overlie’s Six Viewpoints and can be seen as addressing the Viewpoints of Space, Shape, and Time.
In order to facilitate quick decision making, people practicing Ensemble Thinking make use of the “straightjacket dancing”[2], limiting movement vocabulary to sitting, standing, walking, running, and lying down. This limitation enables people to focus more on the spatial and temporal relationships and not get overwhelmed by their kinespheric movements.
One Idea is one score of Ensemble Thinking. In One Idea, the group trains how to create a series of clear spatial arrangements in which no person takes more focus than anyone else. Sequentially, the performers enter the space using the same vocabulary and spacing to create the One Idea. For example, the first person could lie down on her back center stage at the edge of the stage space. The second person could lie down next to her, and so on until all the performers are lying down in one line, spaced equally from one another. The condition of one idea would not be satisfied if one performer were standing up, were facing a different direction, or were spaced further or closer than the rest of the group.
Other Ensemble Thinking scores are:
- Hot Spot – giving and taking focus
- 3/2 – level, motion, contact, front/back, left/right
- Number Score
- Solo Ensemble
- Leader/Follower/Composer
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- ↑ Buckwalter, Melinda. Composing While Dancing. University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 978-029924814-7. Search this book on
- ↑ Martin, Nina (2007). "Ensemble Thinking". Contact Quarterly. Summer/Fall: 13.
