Practitioner Evaluation

 Throughout the choreographic process, my group have drawn inspiration from different practitioners, using their works to create movement of a similar style, how they’ve used their dancers, the processes they use, how they work and the impact they have on their audience.

 

‘Solo Echo’ is a piece created by Crystal Pite. It was inspired by “Lines for Winter” which is a poem by Mark Strand, the dance is meant to “express something essential about acceptance and loss” (Solo Echo | The Göteborg Opera, n.d.). Pite also takes a lot of inspiration from world crises and music. Her works are very socially aware and have a purpose behind them. In an interview she did with the Royal Opera House she mentioned that she starts with the music first and then creates movement to the music. This is different to how we created our group dance as initially we started creating movement based around our stimulus and added music after. However, we have taken inspiration from the social issue of conformity within society, albeit, not as serious as some issues Pite references to such as the refugee crisis in ‘Flight Pattern’. Within ‘Solo Echo’, Pite uses a range of choreographic devices such as canon, unison and repetition. We also use these choreographic devices in our piece as they’re effective at showing motif development. Our piece also features group work, duets and solos which is also shown in ‘Solo Echo’. Pite’s work has a lot of contact between the dancers and the uses the idea of one person influencing another person’s movement. We used this idea in one of our duet sections where we’ve used contact with our partner to influence the other’s ‘reaction’. The movements are really expansive and inspired us to use a floor work section to add levels into our dance.  

 

The other piece we looked at was ‘Zero Degrees’ by Akram Khan and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. The short excerpt I watched featured a duet with two men, they perform a sequence of hand gestures in unison while using spoken word. This really inspired us within our dance, using the idea of hand gestures to emphasise the emotion and stimulus in our dance. There is a section where we repeat three hand gestures which show the idea of sweaty palms, anxiety and a pacing heart. This is contrasting to ‘Solo Echo’ as in the video I watched, there wasn’t any clear gestural movements, it was made up of large, expansive movements. Later on in ‘Zero Degrees’ the men are on their feet repeating a sequence of movements multiple times and also perform two separate motifs which are complementary to each other while using different spacing on the stage. Similarly, repetition was used in ‘Solo Echo’ during one of the duets and also in my group piece. We use it throughout our group while developing the motifs to show the idea of individuality. Unison is used in all three pieces which is effective at showing themes within a dance which is demonstrated in our choreography by showing the idea of conformity. Similarly to Pite’s work, ‘Zero Degrees’ has a narrative. It is based on a journey which Akram Khan had from Bangladesh to India where he had been sharing the train carriage with a dead man(Mackrell, 2005). The most prominent themes in the piece are love, lonliness, life and death, very similar to the themes of love, acceptance and loss in ‘Solo Echo’. The impact the works have on the audience are quite different. I personally feel that ‘Zero Degrees’ is very hard-hitting, tense and emotional. This is achieved really well by the use of spoken word and gestural movements which makes it seem like the two men have lived through the same traumas. In contrast, I feel that ‘Solo Echo’ is open to interpretation regarding the narrative. The themes of loss are clear from the movements in the duets as it seems like they are ‘fighting’ for acceptance. In my choreography, the impact on the audience is to show the idea of individuality and breaking free from the pressures of society, initially this may leave some questions, however they are answered by the end of the piece, as they are in ‘Zero Degrees’. 

 

References

Mackrell, J., 2005. Zero Degrees, Sadler's Wells, London. [online] the Guardian. Available at: <https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2005/jul/13/dance> [Accessed 21 November 2020].

 

Göteborgs Operan. n.d. Solo Echo | The Göteborg Opera. [online] Available at: <https://en.opera.se/repertoire-for-dance-tour/solo-echo/> [Accessed 21 November 2020].

 

The Royal Opera House, 2017. Crystal Pite Rehearses Her New Piece With The Royal Ballet. [video] Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipnL4TeIbzs> [Accessed 21 November 2020].