What dance structures or movement choices can I use to create a heightened experience of place?

Repeating simple dance structures in different locations immediately brings attention to place. We practiced Barbara Dilley's "Grid" structure (as well as linear scores that Nancy Stark Smith often combines with Dilley’s work) in several different settings: a four walled dance studio; a three-quarters round stage; a cement-paved library courtyard; a hill in the middle of a large landscaped lawn; an almost empty parking lot.

Working from sensation also helps to create a clear sense of place, when we focus on the sensations that arise from the body's meeting with the external environment. Allowing ourselves to fully experience these sensations, and to be witnessed in that experience, creates a heightened sense of place, which may not find its way into language or rational thought. For instance, dancing on a beach at the edge of an incoming tide, playing with the surface tension of river mud, using the lines of a building to inspire movement choices, all create a clear experience of place for dancers and witnesses.

For our site-specific performance, we asked the audience to follow us across campus from one "dance station" to the next. We had them move through the environment along with us, hoping it would awaken their kinesthetic sense as well as their vision, to create a richer sense of place.