week five, gestures and deciding structure

 This week, we started by thinking about how we may structure our piece. Kate Platt's book, 'Choreography: Creating and Developing Dance for Performance', encouraged us to consider the importance of the atmosphere we immediately create in the opening, and the last thing that the audience will see or question in the ending (Flatt, 2019). After developing mine and Caitlyn's motif last week, we have all decided that this will be a powerful entrance to our piece, creating both mystery and intrigue due to the unusual use of canon, and uncertainty of the copying of movement from one another. We have also decided to repeat this same motif at the end of our piece to allude to the conformity previously help upon us, but with each person breaking off into their own movement, to show how we have have dared to embrace our individuality and freedom. Other ideas that we have for moments in our choreography have been noted, however we haven't decided an order, as we would like to form an episodic structure with an abstract connection, which will form an overarching theme, rather than our piece having a linear narrative. 


In the second part of this lesson, we developed six gestures, using the words 'pressure', 'uncertainty', 'influence', 'judgement', 'restraint' and 'nonchalance' to inspire us. Once we had created these simple movements, we experimented with how we could develop and expand upon them, making them more extreme and engaging. Initially we found this challenging, as we didn't just want to perform them 'bigger' in the sense of the capacity they filled or how fast we did them, so instead we thought about the intention or execution of the movement, adding contrasting dynamics of an intense initiation, followed by a melting release. Using gestures in our piece will be an effective way to communicate with our audience and when repeated throughout our choreography, they could serve as a reinforcement for certain thoughts or emotions that have been evoked previously.

Here is a video showing the gestures we created and their developed version: https://youtu.be/6Lp5SQ4yrbA

References:

  • Flatt, K., 2019. Choreography : Creating And Developing Dance For Performance. Ramsbury: The Crowood Press Ltd, p.158.

Comments

  1. Megan FosterOctober 21, 2020 at 2:51 PM

    You have structured this blog really well as well as explaining the task in great detail, I also like how you included the video for a better understanding. You spoke about how one of the motifs will be the entrance, what impact do you think this will have on the audience?

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  2. Daisy StonierOctober 21, 2020 at 9:07 PM

    Thankyou for your comments Megan. I think that this will be a powerful entrance to the stage, as I feel that each of us entering one by one, seemingly feeling compelled to copy the person in front, and being drawn into unison as a group will create intrigue within the audience, due to the unusual setting and uncertainty within the dancers as they feel the need to conform. I think as well as it being engaging for the audience, it will also quickly establish the theme behind our piece, solidifying our intention right as the piece begins. We hope that the entrance will evoke an emotion that will be relatable for our audience, for example feeling peer pressured or self-conscious, and therefore will be engaging for them to discover the purpose and outcome of the scenario that we are creating.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Lucy Athorns choreographyNovember 3, 2020 at 9:50 AM

    Your blog is presented very well and your layout along with the image presented is very appealing to the reader. I really liked your idea on repeating your motif at the end as I believe this will be excellent way to round off your piece and to keep the audience captivated. Following on from this, when you break off and individually do your own movements, will you all have the same dynamics and rhythm or will it be varied. What do you think will capture the audiences attention more?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Daisy StonierNovember 7, 2020 at 4:20 PM

    Thankyou Lucy. We are hoping to demonstrate a variety of dynamics and intentions behind our movement during the solo section, to clearly show our individuality as a sharp contrast to the previous, rigid conformity. To develop this authentically, we plan to choreograph these sections by each improvising first to naturally find our unique style and movement quality, and will then further exaggerate this by highlighting key qualities of our dancing. For example, do we naturally have quite expansive, melting movements, or do we feel comfortable with powerful and defined accents? I feel as though the variety amongst us will catch the audiences attention much more and they will be drawn to watch each of us with such striking contrasts.

    ReplyDelete
  5. LouisaBratbyNovember 15, 2020 at 3:30 PM

    This is a very well structured blog, well done. I can see you are carefully experimenting with your ideas and considering multiple angles in your work. Did you find the process of expanding and developing your gestures an easy one? Also, how did you manage to make the gestures more extreme and engaging?

    ReplyDelete
  6. Daisy StonierNovember 16, 2020 at 8:04 AM

    Thankyou Louisa. At first we were a little lost on how to expand on our gestures without simply performing them 'bigger' in the sense of just reaching further or shrugging our shoulders harder. However, we instead thought about the impulse of the movement and what part of our body could influence the gesture, or alternatively what the gesture could lead to. For example, Caitlyn started her nonchalance gesture using shoulder rolls to initiate her swaying from side to side, whereas my 'restraint' gesture pulled me into an off-balance. I think that this made our gestures more extreme and engaging because rather than just being a stand alone movement, we already started experimenting with what they could lead to and doing so gave them more purpose. For example, the off-balance in my gesture could represent the idea of being pulled and forced to conform, despite it being the thing that is restraining you and holding you back.

    ReplyDelete

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