Icosa A dance company

Repertory

The Table Is Level

The first piece the company made in the table plane, and the one that is hardest to name.

First performed
2,017
Running time
16 minutes
Dancers
5
Music
A metronome, and nothing else
Travelled
5.5 radii

Scored almost exactly in the middle on all three factors, which means Laban’s table cannot confidently say what it is — and the site admits that rather than picking the nearest word. That ambiguity is the piece.

High right — Door plane High left — Door plane Deep right — Door plane Deep left — Door plane Forward high — Wheel plane Forward deep — Wheel plane Back high — Wheel plane Back deep — Wheel plane Right forward — Table plane Right forward Right back — Table plane Right back Left forward — Table plane Left forward Left back — Table plane Left back

The phrase, written down

5 reaches · 100% of them in the table plane · 5.5 radii travelled

  1. Right forward Table plane start
  2. Right back Table plane 1.05
  3. Left back Table plane 1.70
  4. Left forward Table plane 1.05
  5. Right forward Table plane 1.70

The last column is the straight-line distance from the previous reach, in kinesphere radii. Two is right across the body; the shortest possible step between two of the twelve is 1.05.

How it is danced

Basic Effort Action

Press

Strong, sustained, direct. Moving something that does not want to move.

Scored close to the middle on at least one factor, so this naming is weak — 2%. The piece is between two actions and the honest thing is to say so.

Weight
Light Strong
How much the body commits its mass. Not how hard the dancer works.
Time
Sustained Sudden
The attitude to time, not the tempo. A slow piece can be full of suddenness.
Space
Indirect Direct
Whether attention goes everywhere at once or to one place.
Flow
Free Bound
How readily the movement could be stopped half way. Not part of the action names.

Also in the repertoire