Choreography Blog - Year 3

Currently I am on route to finishing the final part of my choreography. Section 4 has been the hardest section to choreograph due to it being the closing of my choreography. I felt overwhelmed and pressured to get the ending section perfect so that the final message of my piece comes across clearly as well as having an  impact  on the audiences perspective. From  personal  experience a  performance   that  leaves the  audience feeling moved and motivated are the performances that are memorable and the idea of having an impact on someones life is very inspiring to me. I researched into why we are emotional after watching a dance piece,  The British Psychological society claims that " researchers found that rounded dance movements, rather than edgy ones, made watchers happier, as did more impressive moves, up to a point. The research also showed that, like music, watching dance can provoke visual imagery and personal memories in the viewer...

Looking back on my choreographic journey throughout the year, it is interesting to see what has changed, the challenges I faced and resolutions I made to develop my final piece of choreography. This year has been a challenge for me personally due to the lack of collaboration between my teacher and peers in comparison to the previous years. However, I have learnt to trust the process and to not be too hard on myself when it comes to creating movement.  After running through my piece beginning to end for the first time, I realised how exhausting it was and I struggled to perform the ending as highly as I did the start. I knew that I wanted to have a big impact at the end - as this has been my goal from the start of the process- so I knew adjustments had to be made. I went through each section and found different ways in which I can reserve energy for example allowing pauses or slowing down movements. This also links back to my stimulus as throughout the book the characters take time ...

 After researching into Rudolf Laban and being highly restricted with resources and study material, I decided to pick a second practitioner that would bond with Laban's work while also allowing me to experiment with a different dance style and choreographic method.  My second chosen Practitioner is Crystal Pite a female choreographer from Canada, she has choreographed over 50 dance works for companies such as The Paris Opera Ballet, The Royal Ballet and The National Ballet of Canada.  'Body and Soul' a dance piece created by Pite sparked my interest through expressive body movements that rippled through the body creating a wave like affect, this makes the movements look effortless and rhythmical. Her ballet fused contemporary dance style is what I've aimed to use within my own choreography work from the beginning of the process and being able to see how Pite moves her classical trained dancers in such unique and unusual ways is highly inspiring. I also admire how she ta...

 Currently I am choreographing the third section of my choreography 'understanding'. In this section I am conveying a feeling of acceptance while also embracing her last moments on earth. This really counteracts the last section where I demonstrate a lot of chaos and tension within my body movements. My overall goal for my dance is to play with the audiences’ emotions and I think the big chances in mood and music will help me achieve this goal.  Recently we performed -what we had so far- to our peers and choreography teacher. At first was nervous, showing other people your choreography can be very exposing and make you feel very venerable. However, after watching my other peers show and perform their choreography so brilliantly it motivated me to show off what I had created and soon became a highly exciting experience, I got positive and helpful feedback, here were my comments: - The story was presented clearly as well as the character you were portraying - Good use of the mus...

 Reflecting on this week’s choreography I have created a further 40 seconds onto my choreography. This week I have been focusing on Rudolf Laban's 'effort system' which revolves 8 different characterizations in which the body its moved: - Floating -Dabbing -Wringing - Thrusting  -Pressing -Flicking -Slashing -Gliding  I began by organising the 8 effort qualities based on their dynamics, this allowed to me then plan in advance where I wanted portray each effort throughout the whole of my solo. This is how I organised them: I then chose my Music in which correlated with the first section of my stimulus idea, the song is called "We Will Never Come Back Here Again" by Tim Linghaus. As soon as I heard this instrumental and the different rhythms that is proceeds. Here is the link to my first chosen song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx-nI8glvHM From here I created small movements in which fitted to the 'soft' category. At first, I was overwhelmed by the varie...

 Researching into 'The Living Idol' a choreographic piece by Rudolf Laban (1921) - my chosen practitioner - I have been able examine how Laban uses his choreographic processes in practice. Throughout the piece you can clearly see his 8 efforts and how he adapts them throughout the scene to fit within a group of dancers. For example, at 0:42 - when the male dancer enters- you can see how the dancer uses float and glide as a way to increase the body ripples making the overall movement more expressive and dynamic. In correlation, Body ripples with dynamic arm-lines are repeated throughout by the men and women... in addition, this creates and huge juxtaposition and creates a sense of surprise to the audience increasing their participation.  The Living Idol Final Scene:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h30TZREaiio Having viewed 'The Living Idol' I have identified similar qualities between this piece and my choreography so far... using glide, float and press as a way to resem...