Final Blog Entry.

                If we had received more time to create our piece I would definitely liked to have explored and executed many different, interesting and more complex ways of jumping and creating height. I also would have spent a lot of time working on gaining extra height, by doing what many athletes do - practicing jumping whilst carrying a heavy load on their backs.
                What I most liked about our piece was how it was full, but not overflowing with movement and ideas. There were little moments of stillness and a balanced amount of slow, relaxed and fast, energetic movements, keeping the audience interested and engaged.
                I was a bit worried when I discovered that our piece was the only one that had a musical score, especially since I know that this university seems to love “found sounds”, however, after hearing feedback from our audience, I am extremely glad that we went in this direction, as it meant that our piece stood out and for me personally, it helped me to feel the movement and the meanings a lot more, meaning that I enjoyed dancing it a great deal.
                Watching all the other pieces really made me think about how much I have enjoyed this module. Every single group took aspects from the different classes we attended and the skills which we learned in them and embodied them in their pieces, yet every groups dance looked completely different from one another.

                I am very sad that this is all over now and that I will not get to work with Bick and Rebecka anytime in the near future. Creating this piece has made me realise how beneficial working in a group can be. Imaginative ideas and beautiful movements are can transpire tenfold.

(Blog for Dec 4^th)
Week 10
Today we met with Mike and discussed our lighting options and ideas.
Luckily for us, Bick is taking the lighting module, so was able to explain to Mike what kindof lights we wanted to create certain effects.
We were very keen on the idea of jumping in the dark, however, Mike very rightly raised the issue of danger. Height is very hard to judge in the dark, making dancers nervous and panicky, which can then lead to injury from landing incorrectly.
We tried jumping in very faint light and all agreed that we would be brave enough to jump in complete darkness, however, we are open to considering other options, to prevent putting ourselves in dangerous situations – we could all three just be big talkers, and then, when it actually comes to jumping in the pitch black, completely freak out.
We also discussed flashing lights to catch fragments of our jumps in motion, which Mike warned us could look tacky.
Finally, we talked about lights creating diagonal lines, which Mike said may not work so well, and also slowly bringing up all the side lights, one level at a time, which Mike didn’t seem to have any qualms about –finally.
As lighting is not a key concern of ours, we have agreed to leave our decision making on the subject until later. We have not yet finished our piece and therefore feel that the choreography should influence the lighting and not the other way round.

(Blog for Dec 11^th)
Week 11
My group and I finished our piece today.  It was the first time we performed it to the completed score and it worked perfectly. I was a little worried about making music to fit the choreography, as I thought it might end up a little too literal and fit the piece too well, i.e. every step met with a beat/key in the music, but now I am very glad that we made this decision.
There is still a lot of tidying up we need to do with certain transitions, but I am generally very happy with the piece.
After sending Simon a recorded copy of the piece and receiving his feedback (for which I had to dig out a dictionary in order to understand half of those words!! ‘Dramaturgical misnomer’ ???? ha!) , I have been left with a number of things to think/worry about.
1) He felt that some of the movement is a little too technique class-like, with which I have to agree. It is hard to create a dance about height without jumping, and it is even harder to jump in a non-technique like style, because these are the only jumps we have learnt, and there are not many others that we can do with our existing physical abilities. I am not against taking these out, but I am quite uncertain about what to replace them with. I very much like Simon idea that...
2) We could try to “push the sense of our physical fatigue even further”, so that we genuinely struggle to execute further movement, which is partly what our piece is about. This could fill in the gaps after we remove some of the weaker material.
3) The random introduction of the chair is a little unnecessary. Although I L-O-V-E Flashdance, I don’t really want to be evoking, from the audience, thoughts of half naked girls flapping their wet hair around a tacky stage.
4) Some of the music was created by myself and a friend, but Simon was correct in noticing that part of the piece was an edited version of Sia’s ‘Breathe Me’. The song was used in the very sad, final episode of TV series ‘Six Feet Under’, and therefore may, for anyone who has seen this episode, evoke memories of the tragedies recalled in it. However, I do not feel as though this is an issue, because the song itself is a sad one, about a girl who is desperate to be helped, which is what we want at the end of the piece, not about lots of people dying. At the end of our piece, we are desperate and we want help getting higher. It is a beautiful piece of music, which will make different people feel and think different things. As I have just learnt in my other module ‘Dance philosophy and aesthetics’, with a piece of artwork, it is not just the artists intentions that are important, but what everyone who observes it makes of it and what is means and says to them. The piece of music makes me feel desperate and serious, it may make others who know the lyrics feel sad, and people who have never heard it before just feel privileged to hear such a beautiful piece of music. Either way, I don’t mind, as long as they see how lovely our movement looks with it. J
5) We need to mess around with the structure a little to make it less predictable!

Stressful but exciting times.

(Blog for Nov 6^th)
Week 6
I was extremely delighted to find out who I was working with for the final assessment.
I was initially very against the idea of creating a piece of choreography as a group because I already had an idea about what I wanted to create and I know that sometimes working in a group with people, especially people you’re not used to or not enthusiastic about working with, can lead to confrontation and also leave some people doing less than others, either through laziness, or, and usually, due to some people being dictators.
However, after reading Simon’s (very lengthy) notes on today’s class, I thought about what was most important for me when working with others (which is what I would have to do regardless of whether or not I was the sole choreographer). I realised that I strongly value harmony, connections, commitment, experimentation, enjoyment and enthusiasm.

After conversing with my group, I see that fate has drawn me a lucky card, because the girls both seem as open, enthusiastic and easy-going as feel I am (we shall see if this reads true...)
At first we talked about possible ideas for each of the three choices and we all seemed to be swaying towards the idea of the constraints – a great start! Wahay!
Then we started discussing other factors such as interesting lights, locations and props and we all liked the idea of being outside on the trees, or outside in the playground, or on-stage under a glass box, or wrapped in fairy lights. We all liked each other’s ideas and seemed to be thinking the same way – another ‘wahay!’

I really look forward to working with my group and have faith that we will be able to create a very interesting piece, whilst having lots of fun and no confrontation; because we’re all such kind and easy-going girls – a final ‘Wahay’!

I have actually been blogging, I just haven't posted them, because I kept having trouble posting, so gave up.

I have finally got my arse into gear and persisted in making this work!
So... here are my long awaited (nearly up to date) blogs!

I've lost this weeks and last weeks  somewhere on my computer (saved them in the wrong place!), but I assure you they will be up in no time!!!!!!

(Blog for Oct 23^th)
Week 4

“Idiosyncrasy - a way of behaving, thinking, or feeling that is peculiar to an individual or group, especially an odd or unusual one.”
I found today’s task of having to create movement from a particular body part that I am not used to using, extremely difficult and quite exasperating. Originality was almost impossible with some body parts such as the left eye or the pelvis, as these body parts allow for only a limited amount of movement. I had to scrap most of my initial ideas and even found myself watching other people in the class for ideas - something I usually try my hardest not to do.
In the end we ended up with an idiosyncratic piece, but not an original one. Through being nosey and conversing with other groups, I felt that all the pieces looked very similar because everyone seemed to have picked the least likely way in which they would move a certain body part, making it the most popular way in this situation.
From this, I have learnt that in order to create an idiosyncratic piece, you don’t have to think outside the box, you have to think as far away from it as possible.

I have been partnered with Becky for task 2.
I have never worked with Becky before and do not have any knowledge of how she moves. I predict (and hope) that this is a good thing as we will both be completely knew to each other’s way of moving and this should make personal idiosyncrasy a breeze. And I know this doesn’t make actual sense but - we are both idiosyncratic to one another - you get what I mean! THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX!!!!

"It's the darkness that gives birth to Light" (Joel Heathcote - The Architect of Light)

I was not very happy with how our piece turned out.
A) Our torch battery started running low, meaning that the light given was very dim.
B) Because, whilst we were rehearsing, there were so many light sources being used, we did not realise how much light the gap in the curtain spilled out, resulting in the audience having to "imagine the darkness."
Had those two problems not occurred, I feel that we would have had a much stronger piece.
Observing some of the other pieces inspired me... a lot. Particularly the one in the bathroom. It made me realise how much fun you can have with light and how, by using it, the options for creativity are multiplied.
I am not usually a fan of static dance, however, I would love to watch this piece again and probably even pay to see it. The intimate location made the dance that little bit more interesting, because we could see facial expressions very clearly and could hear every single movement. Also, I did not realise that there was a second dancer in the piece until she started making noise, which made for a nice, yet eerie surprise.

I am now a lover of light! J

“Excellence is in the details. Give attention to the details and excellence will come.” (Perry Paxton)

 Reflection of first class.

I had never really considered the importance of light until today’s lesson. I’d thought about colours and how they created different moods, but I’d always believed that everything a dancer is doing should be seen, otherwise, what’s the point in it being there?
Playing around with the different light sources and seeing how people used them in different ways to enhance and focus upon different parts of the body and different movements, made me realise just how much detail you miss when given everything to look at.
A few days later, in my ‘Dance Aesthetics and Philosophy’ lecture, we were shown a video recording of a 1998 piece called Two by Russell Maliphant. It featured one female dancer with an extraordinary physique performing under a very dim and minimal lighting source, which meant that part of her body was always in shadow and at times you could see nothing but the curve of her spine or a rippling movement of her arm.
I am not usually a fan of such static work, however, the way the light enhanced her muscularity and forced the audience to focus on specific parts of her body made it one of the most interesting and beautiful pieces I have ever seen. To see how the muscles, tendons and bones worked together, whilst not actually having a clear idea of how she was moving to create this activity, left me feeling happily confused and very intrigued.
Watching this made me instantly think back to our choreography class on Friday and made me appreciate what I did and saw ten times more.