In this week’s lesson we began to link the movements we have created and use that to initiate more content for our group piece. It was slightly more challenging than previous tasks as we only had 4 members of our group rather than 6. Despite this, we decided to use it as an opportunity to create a section of our dance with contact material as members of my household are allowed to touch whereas the two missing members of the group aren’t able to touch us. This supports the idea of conformity as there is four of us dancing together and two which are away from the group which suggests individuality.
We inspiration from Crystal Pite’s ‘Solo Echo’ (Video inserted below, timestamp 0:15-0:18). The section we looked at has the dancers stood in a group reaching and touching each other. We liked the idea of this as it links to a task which we have done previously during contact improvisation in our contemporary lesson. It involved us rapidly reacting to someone else’s impact, using simple movements to create an interesting set of motifs . This first half of the movement is performed in two pairs facing away from each other and then moves into a unison section where we repeat a motif three times, the first time we all do the same however the second and third time, someone breaks away from the mould and does a movement slightly differently such as an arm or head. This further implies to idea of conformity as we are performing the same motif in unison and even when someone breaks away to do something different, they still return to the original motif.
We performed this section of our dance to our classmates and teacher to gain some verbal feedback to help us improve our dance. We were told that the movements clearly showed the intentions and stimulus but that we need to be more precise when someone isn’t conforming so it is clearly intentional that someone is doing a different movement rather than being wrong or late. This is something we will be able to work on in upcoming lessons and while we make our group cleaner.
[video] Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JfokSokH0M&feature=youtu.be> [Accessed 25 October 2020].
Very well structured blog post Mhairi! You have really explained and given evidence of work done in these lessons. What do you think about getting feedback from your classmates, was it helpful? Why is feedback important when creating choreography?
ReplyDeleteThank you Erin! I found receiving feedback very helpful as my classmates are able to spot things, good and bad, which my group and I may miss as its harder to see errors when you are dancing. I also like having an outside perspective to help us understand if our intentions of the piece are clear to the audience. Receiving feedback is important when choreographing because it helps us stay on track with our goals, find areas to improve on and potentially help to create more ideas.
DeleteEven though you had members from your group missing, you carried on the creative process and remained productive, well done Mhairi! How will you make sure it’s clear to the audience that the person who isn’t conforming is intentionally doing different movements?
ReplyDeleteThank you Caitlin. We will make sure this is clear to the audience by repeating the motif 3 times and making obvious differences such as a head or arm movement. Everyone will perform the motif once and each time after only one person will make a change while the rest of the dancers continue with the original motif. In another section of the dance we make it obvious by looking at the person who is doing different movements.
DeleteThis is a really clear and descriptive blog post! I really like how you were able to gain inspiration from watching some of Crystal Pite's work. In the future will you try and gain inspiration from other practitioners' styles ? if so, who and why?
ReplyDeleteThank you! I think using other practitioner's work as inspiration is really useful when choreographing as it allows us to see how they work with dancers, methods they use to choreograph, what gives them inspiration and see the formations and choreographic devices they use. I will definitely research more practitioners such as Wayne McGregor as it gives a greater insight into how they create their work.
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