finding our final stimulus idea
Now in our final groups for this module, we needed to begin looking for a stimulus idea which would be the source of inspiration for our choreography. To start generating some ideas, I found a variety of pieces of art that were thought-provoking and intriguing, and as a group we began brainstorming any emotions they evoked, or messages we thought they were portraying. Out of all the images I found, we were most drawn to an illustration by Lena Macka, of five dancing figures all connected by a loop of string that they're holding above their heads.
From this, we first started thinking about the fact that there will be multiple people in our piece and therefore it would be useful for us to consider what group or social settings we could portray. Furthermore, we observed the fact that coming up with quite an abstract theme would provide us with lots of potential for choreography, as well as a scientific theme, which would bring us pre-existing research and articles to stimulate and broaden our ideas.
Therefore, the first idea that we looked into was exploring conformity through social experiments, which brought us to Soloman Asch's 1951 conformity experiment (Mcleod, 2018). During this task, the test subjects were asked to choose a line that matched the length of one of three lines, but unknown to them their were a number of confederates in the room who had been previously told to purposefully answer incorrectly. Despite knowing that they were incorrect, 75% of participants went along with the confederates answers at least once, as they feared being ridiculed or looking stupid if they didn't go along with the majority answer. This is a clear example of conformity, which is described by Simply Psychology as being 'a type of social influence involving a change in belief or behavior in order to fit in with a group', which can be in response to real or imagined peer pressure (Mcleod, 2016). It has been found that conformity tends to increase when a task becomes difficult, for example if you don't know that answer to a question, but someone else does, you are more inclined to believe thir answer regardless of whether it is correct or not. Conformity is also present within society today, such as wearing certain clothes to fit in, drinking at a party to not feel left out or following social media trends. Another example of conformity within society today is the bystander effect, which can be seen when something is happening but no one is responding, people tend to take their social cues from the rest of the group and assume that a response is not required, even when there is the risk of danger.
The second idea which stemmed from our initial image was exploring the unique social setting in the London Underground. We thought about how everyone is connected by their intent to travel, all with their own lives and different destinations, but strangely avoiding eye contact with one another and queuing in silence - simply because that is what everyone else is doing. The entwined, overlapping routes shown on the London Underground map could also be an interesting source of inspiration for pathways and formations within our choreography.
We combined these to reach our final idea and confirmed focus of 'Conformity within Society', with the ultimate message that we want to portray in our piece being to encourage individuality. Over the next few weeks of choreography, we would like to look into: 'Why are we influenced by those around us and how does that influence happen?', 'Are we fearful of individuality?', 'How can we be free of conformity within society and why should we want to break away from it?'. As a group, we are feeling very inspired to begin exploring this topic and developing our choreography through further research and conservation.
References:
- Macka, L., n.d. [Illustration]. Gillespie, I., 2019. Recognising The Tribe & Influencer Culture. [online] The Hemp Temple. Available at: <https://hemptemple.org/blogs/news/recognising-the-tribe-influencer-culture> [Accessed 11 October 2020].
- Mcleod, S., 2018. Asch Conformity Experiment | Simply Psychology. [online] Simplypsychology.org. Available at: <https://www.simplypsychology.org/asch-conformity.html> [Accessed 11 October 2020].
- Mcleod, S., 2016. What Is Conformity? | Simply Psychology. [online] Simplypsychology.org. Available at: <https://www.simplypsychology.org/conformity.html#:~:text=Conformity%20is%20a%20type%20of,norms%20%2F%20expectations)%20group%20pressure.> [Accessed 11 October 2020].
- Beck, H., 2019. London Underground Map. [image] Available at: <https://www.custom-wallpaper-printing.co.uk/wallpaper-map-tube.html> [Accessed 11 October 2020].
I like how you really researched each topic in detail before deciding which topic you wanted to base your choreography on. Your structure is also very clear with the addition of photos to help us as a reader visualise your ideas. How are you going to clearly portray the idea of 'individuality' to the audience?
ReplyDeleteThankyou for your comments. We are going to have two opposing sections to our choreography defined by two strikingly different pieces of music and dynamics. The first section will contain very sharp movements with defined, harsh accents to convey the regimented atmosphere due to conformity. To portray individuality, we would like to srongly contrast this in our second section with fluid and expansive movements, to convey a sense of freedom and exploration of creativity. Furthermore, to enhance the individuality amongst us, we think it would be a good idea for us to do some improvisation to find the true quirks and styles to each of our movement and to exaggerate these with repetition once we have identified them.
DeleteThis is an excellently written and thought out blog, well done! I loved reading your ideas and how you emerged from the one pictured stimuli. I think you have chosen a very thought provoking theme and I can't wait to see the finished result!
ReplyDeleteYou said conformity tends to increase when tasks become more difficult, how do you think you could represent this idea into your movements?
Thankyou for your comments! I think that we could show this by creating a sense of exhaustion through using grounded movements and heavy breath, to show the tiresome effects of a challenging task. Alongside this our repeated motif of uncertainty and looking at one another demonstrates the need of approval and reassurance when times become more difficult, and we will show the conformity in these situations by looking at one another and then proceeding to copy and join in with the movement of that person, as they feel that it must be the right thing to do in order to fit in.
DeleteVery interesting research Daisy. In your opinion is conformity a bad thing? Can it be good, in relation to dance or otherwise?
ReplyDeleteThankyou Nathan. I think that conformity can be a good thing in the sense that being influenced to follow the correct way to behave can help to create harmony within society, and if everyone broke away and rebelled then it would be difficult for people to work together. In dance, unity and coherency is need to create a well-considered and put together piece, with each dancer coming together to create perfectly simultaneous movement. However, when conformity causes people to be afraid to speak out, help someone in need, or do the things that they truly love, then I think that conformity can have a negative impact. Our piece is about embracing individuality and finding freedom in being yourself, which I think that conformity constricts.
ReplyDelete