Skälva decided to try a score in the jam-space in one of the evening jams at Skiing on skin. We talked to people we wanted to do it with, but did not announce it offically. The dressing room outside was our meeting place. We did some excersises to synch the group and make us feel as a group. We practiced 'the center of the group' (in Swedish: gemmensamma punkten) which is a term were you imagine that the group have a common point which is in the middle of all the bodies it consists of. The group trained to search for compostions and pausing the movement at the same time. Bodies explored the walls, floor and other objects within the changing room-space. Sometimes some sounds from touching different materials were added to the sounds of movement.
 
The score worked very well in this limited space. Things were happening. Evolving. A sense of togetherness. Timing. And suddenly stopping all at once. We could have gone on with this for hours. 
 
We decided to drop into the jamspace in smaller groups. If the whole group entered at once and started to do the same thing the other jam-participants would immediately sense it. We were more interested in blending than performing. To give energy to the jam rather than interrupting it.
 
When in the room we lost the groupconnection. The room was huge, about 80 people dancing or sitting watching… We realised we could have given a structure for the entrance. All groups travelling across the dancefloor to meet up at the other side, for example. When we had not planned this it took some time to find each other again and some people dropped off as they got caught in intresting dances. When in an Skälva-event you always have the possbility to do this. To step out is always a possibility as well as to step in and join.
 
A lot of people joined. The joy of doing something together attracted people in. The score did not keep its original form. After some time most of the people dancing together didn't know somethings had been planned. The stopping all at once was lost. The most working group-movements was of the kind of being really clear; for example raising both arms over our heads or sitting down in a row with our legs streched out in front of us. If it was combined with sounds a lot of people joined. What is the point of having group-movements? There is something really fascinating in listening to a lot of people at the same time, ready for action. 
 
We didn´t explore the room as much as we had planned. It was enough to focus on keeping the group together, exploring how to move away and than gather again. We moved around in the large space crowded with dancers. Many of them doing wonderful contactmoves in the more traditional duos. After some time the group stayed very much in the center of the dancefloor. And in the last part of the event people were making more and more sounds. Louder and louder. It was beautiful but at the same time very dominat, impossible not to notice. A lot of people joined. Many of them attracted by this play with sound.  A musical score with intense humming. 
 
When time had come for the group to find an end (the score had a timelimit of 30 minutes) there were around fifteen people all connecteded in a circle facing inwards humming. We (The Skälva collective) had a discussion on what we wanted to happen and what we should do. The humming circle had been going on for some time and did not seem to be ending. It was quite dominant in the jam-space, but the circle did not seem to care. After a few different attempts to gather the original score group (the people who had joined the introduction), we decided to join the circle instead. We did not particapte in the singing which had the effect tha we became witnesses of the group rather than a part of it. The singing stopped and the group joined hands and walked backward until we couldn't reach each other anymore. The group was gone.
 
 
On the last jam Skälva initiated a dance with the schedule (a big piece of hard paper) of the week . It was an exploration of the schedules possibilities of movement. People joined in. There  was an exploration of how to move as a group with the large paper. The schedule started to be broken down into pieces, structure pulled into fragments. Parts of the paper was explored in solos and duetts, letting the paperbits fly and land on the bodies. Pieces were collected into a costume. In the end the paper was being torn into very small pieces that were built together into something new.
 
Photos by Olga Zotova.
 
This is one version of the events. If you were there dancing in the score or outsidet it, give us your thoughts. We're curious!
Exploration number: 023
Where: Skiing on skin, dance camp, Finland,
When: February 2012
Archive material: a few photos from a jam