PROF. AMOS HETZ
- MOVEMENT STUDIES
Email: amos.hetz@gmail.com
Games.
Games are a set of given rules allowing the participants the freedom to move spontaneously in respect to the set of constraints. In the games that I use, the mover enters into interaction with another person, or with an object, usually with both. As most of the actions can be done in more than one way, the mover is asked to act according to the given rules, and yet s/he needs to find solutions to situations that are created by the other movers and by the objects.
Almost from the beginning of my teaching I include movement games in my classes. Down the years I have invented and developed many games. I have repeated and examined them again and again, improving the rules and definitions, so that I can explain the rules clearly, and then let the important part be learnt through direct experience. Some of the games have many different roles, and the participants need to repeat the game several times before they can feel free and enjoy playing. Part of the learning is to give the participants the possibility not only to play the game, but also to observe it.
In the following part I explain some of the concepts I have incorporated into my workshops and games:
Curves.
The six primary spine curves: front, back, right side, left side, rotation to the right and to the left. These six major configurations of the spine are very pronounced in the first years of life, when the child is mainly in a horizontal position. Slowly they are inhibited as the child acquires the ability to differentiate head movement from the pelvis, arm gestures from the torso and the movement of the legs from the pelvis. The potential ability to differentiate increases as specific movement skills are acquired, yet every differentiation depends on inhibiting the other limbs. Usually this inhibition is acquired unconsciously and is not always very efficient. Reconstructing the six primary curves gives the mover the ability to sense again the work that is done during inhibition, and to improve it. Even with such a specific and delicate subject I incorporate the use of games. By touching each other, leading and following, or as a group going in a circle with the participants calling to change the direction with a new curve.
Modulation.
Every gesture is goal-oriented, which means that the end position is chosen consciously but the path of movement is done automatically, not through choice. Modulation is the attempt to observe the gesture, to use the energy invested and not to block it. To take into consideration the initial position, to follow the curves that are involved, to observe the beginning and the end of the gesture, and to continue the movement in the initial direction and not hold out against it. Exercising it through small and large gestures like throwing and catching balls, kicking balls and handling sticks while moving with a partner. Opening any action to the many ways it can be done, and integrating it to the whole of the person who is involved. Touching, leaning, following and observing each other’s gestural direction. A basic way to train the mover to modulate is to do the "same gestures" on many different bases, in lying, crawling, sitting standing, walking and running. Not assuming that once you have done it in lying you will know to translate it to any other position. In essence most of the games as all the other elements of the work deal with modulations curves and waves.
Amos Hetz
Studied visual art, music and dance. Studies movement at the Kibbutzim Teachers’ Training College in Israel with Lotte Kristeler (a disciple of Elsa Gindler). Graduate form the Avni Art institute. He later made the acquaintance of Noa Eshkol (co-creator of the Eshkol-Wachman Movement Notation). He studied the F. M. Alexander Method and with Moshe Feldenkrais and later was invited to teach in the Amherst training. He was the coordinator of the Movement Section of the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, where he could establish a “Movement Department”, separate from the existing Dance Department. In 1972, Amos set up a dance ensemble called “TNU’Ot” (“Movements”) and from 1989 he is the artistic director of of a chamber dance festival ("Room Dances Festival") in its frame he was performing his dances composed with the EWMN (Eshkol-Wachman Movement- Notation) in Israel and all over the world. He spent a year in Berlin, Germany at the invitation of the “Wissenschaftskolleg”, the Institute for Advanced Study. In 1999 got the Jerusalem award for his achievements in dance, and movement education.
As a loner on the chaotically expanding forefront of movement arts, Hetz rigorously avoids the trend toward ever more intricate extravagances in the search for so-called “originality”. His interests, background, history, and vision as a mover and body-philosopher instead bring him to focus on the origins of movement, creativity, and the ability to learn.
Studied visual art, music and dance. Studies movement at the Kibbutzim Teachers’ Training College in Israel with Lotte Kristeler (a disciple of Elsa Gindler). Graduate form the Avni Art institute. He later made the acquaintance of Noa Eshkol (co-creator of the Eshkol-Wachman Movement Notation). He studied the F. M. Alexander Method and with Moshe Feldenkrais and later was invited to teach in the Amherst training. He was the coordinator of the Movement Section of the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, where he could establish a “Movement Department”, separate from the existing Dance Department. In 1972, Amos set up a dance ensemble called “TNU’Ot” (“Movements”) and from 1989 he is the artistic director of of a chamber dance festival ("Room Dances Festival") in its frame he was performing his dances composed with the EWMN (Eshkol-Wachman Movement- Notation) in Israel and all over the world. He spent a year in Berlin, Germany at the invitation of the “Wissenschaftskolleg”, the Institute for Advanced Study. In 1999 got the Jerusalem award for his achievements in dance, and movement education.
As a loner on the chaotically expanding forefront of movement arts, Hetz rigorously avoids the trend toward ever more intricate extravagances in the search for so-called “originality”. His interests, background, history, and vision as a mover and body-philosopher instead bring him to focus on the origins of movement, creativity, and the ability to learn.
Eyes.
Training the eyes is a very subtle task. We do it in a number of different ways: Connecting the eyes with the different curves of the spine. Training the eyes in peripheral vision by asking the mover to follow two people simultaneously. Moving the eyes as a limb in given directions. Training the eyes to observe movement from different bases: standing, lying, on all fours, looking between the legs upside down, observing while moving. Talking about the movement that was observed and making a distinction between sensations and feelings, description and judgment.
Eshkol-Wachman Movement Notation.
Teaching the EWMN Eshkol-Wachman Movement Notation, I found myself using games even in this analytical subject. Each participant was asked to compose a movement sequence for a group of limbs, to teach it to the others by imitation and then to create a small dance phrase from all the gestures together. Playing with gestures related to one’s own body or to the absolute space, alternating between these two, bringing us closer to the ideal mover who erases the dichotomy between body and space. Or a game for two people: one is passive, with closed eyes, and is moved by the other. The person with closed eyes has to identify the kind of movement by naming the limb and the movement type (plane, cone, or rotation).
Learning the notation gives the mover the posibility to articulate the differences in clear concepts and as such bringing us closer to an objective knowledge of movement.
Circle Dances
Along the years of teaching I composed many circle dances that gives the mover the posibility to to dance as part of the group (and not only in an spontaneous improvisation form). To train him/herself in this ancient social forms of dance, with the deep pleasure and satisfaction to be in rhythm and to coordinate not only with the whole body but with the rest of the group.
(in part from: Notes On Games - Berlin 9.3.02 by Amos Hetz
printed in Feldenkraisforum 40 in June 2002 in Germany)
Articles in “Contact Quarterly” on Amos Hetz and the Eshkol-Wachman Movement Notation: “Notation for Liberation of Movement” by Zvi Yannai, CQ7:2, Winter ‘82. “The Fine Art of Teaching: Amos Hetz in Jerusalem” by Julie Sandler, CQ 13:1, Winter ‘88. “School for Movement: Interview with Amos Hetz” by Michal Wydra, CQ 15:2, S/S ‘90. “Why do I move? What moves me? - Conversations with Amos Hetz” by Irene Sieben, CQ S/F ‘97
