Reflections of Choreographic Process and Results

                On Wednesday May 4, 2011, the dance 3510 Principles and Theories of Dance Composition class presented their choreography to an outside audience for the first and only time this semester.  As a student choreographing a modern dance piece for the first time, this was somewhat nerve racking.  Even though I was confident in my work and the dancers within the piece I still had a fear of failure in the back of my mind.  Just before the show started, I was talking to Tyler about the feeling of vulnerability that was washing over my body, and he made a great point that calmed me down.  He basically said that if you are happy with your work and you genuinely feel that it is a good piece then you shouldn’t worry about the audience’s review.  This made me realize that all of the work and time invested had already paid off since my dancers had shown me their embodiment of my choreography in prior rehearsals, and the show was the resulting perk in which others would be able to view my work.  If the audience were to find some kind of value by being aesthetically pleased from watching, then I would be even happier.

                Choosing the costumes for this piece was pretty easy after thinking about the overall message that was trying to be spoken through the dance.  At first I had thought about relying on make-up as the sole portrayal of the intent through costuming.  This idea was set aside after careful consideration of the idea that the dance should be more powerful than the visual stimulation of costumes.  I’d much rather the audience read the intent through the movement than the costume and make-up scene.  Make-up still played a role in this portrayal, but in a more subtle way than covering their faces completely with literal clown-like carnival make-up.   Instead, I chose to have all of the dancers except for the soloist to wear dark eyes and lips as a way to differentiate between the innocent soloist trapped among a more evil crowd of freaks that would not let this new comer to their lifestyle leave their world of despair.  In contrast the soloist, Maggie, wore lighter colors with bright red lipstick to display her innocence and struggle.  In the same contrasting respect, Maggie was the only one dressed in a red leotard and skirt as she was surrounded by dancers dressed in all black, tight clothing that covered their bodies from the wrist to the ankles.  Seeing this on display during the performance was a reassurance of its validity as it read so well.

                The music read well with the movement also with its creepy sounding nature.  After searching for hours on end for the right music to go with my movement and theme, I had come across “Elegie” which is a piece by Hans Werner Henze.  This atonal music had plenty of contrasting sounds throughout the piece to keep the music alive instead of drowning out the movement.  It contained a build within itself that caused a feeling of suspense which was unfolded after every second.  The mixture of piano and violin played a huge role in its effectiveness for me.  These two instruments have always been very powerful to me and never cease to evoke emotion.

                I couldn’t have asked for a better performance from my dancers.  Each time a dancer appeared on stage I could see them embodying every choreographic detail and piece of imagery I had given to them throughout the process.  After the dress rehearsal, Maggie had been worried that she hadn’t portrayed the performance quality I desired.  I reassured her that the she was executing the look of exploration into a new lifestyle which developed into a sincere look of fear throughout the dance.  To my surprise, these emotions read even stronger on performance night.  All four of the other dancers performed to their top potential as well.  Terrynan went deep into her character as the powerful, evil ring master while the other three followed in her trail just as intense and dark.  There were several moments in the piece where I got chills from watching them perform.  The first time that Brittany Olsen enters the stage space she is sliding on her back with her pelvis high into the air while pushing into the floor with her feet in locomotion.  In the midst of it all Maggie looked unaware of this presence even as Brittany kept her eyes on Maggie as she slid across the entire stage.  At another point in the dance, Maggie and Shannon are fighting for the upper-hand, and once Maggie gained control there was a moment when Shannon embodied the submissiveness perfectly as she allowed Maggie to whip her body up and down until leading her off of the stage.  Toward the end of the piece Maggie and Brittany crawl away from Terrynan in fear only to be caught by Shannon and Lauren.  Lauren’s gaze into Brittany’s eyes was so intense that it looked as if she had complete control of Brittany while she pushed her back only using that powerful focus.  All of these moments among others throughout the dance were details that I had drilled into the dancers for several rehearsals.  I was thoroughly impressed by each and every one of my dancers for performing the choreography so well.

                Overall I had a good experience between my cast and the process in which the choreography developed.  From day one I couldn’t get that idea of creating a dance about circus freaks, and I’m glad that I stayed with this idea.  I think it’s amazing that this simple, broad idea developed into my own performed work.  I was so afraid of creating something that was either too literal on stage or so complex that it became washed out and boring.  I feel that with the guidance from Ellie I was able to find the balance between the two extremities, and even though I didn’t always follow every piece of advice I did listen to her words of wisdom and found my own ways of transforming the parts that weren’t working into parts that worked for the whole of the piece.  I have thoroughly enjoyed choreographing and working with my dancers.  Being able to see the end result last night made every eight o’ clock in the morning rehearsal worthwhile.

Relating Fraleigh's Ch 9, 10, and 11

                The intention of my piece has driven the choreography and movement qualities of my dancers.  Watching them grow into this intention has been so rewarding.  “When we understand our purposeful action- our  acts- in light of our embodiment, all dualisms collapse, and the metaphysical in our purposeful understandings appears to us” (Fraleigh 161).  As the dancers have understood my purpose for the piece they have grown into their characters as a metaphysical being in the dance.  I have been asked by some people as they watched the videos of my dance if Maggie is supposed to be shaky at the beginning of her solo.  Yes, she is supposed to be shaky, and she is supposed to fall every time she falls.  “Tripping on purpose is both a bodily and a mental process, but it is not two processes, such as one process of purposing to trip and as an effect, another process of tripping” (Fraleigh 162).  Maggie is one of my dancers who has become so metaphysical in the dance that her character has come to life in a way that I couldn’t have hoped for.  The purposefulness in each fall or wobble is so prevalent in her body that it looks as if she is actually in the action of the moment.  This purpose within her lived body as she moves comes from the intention I have given the dancers from the start which has made my choreographic idea come alive.  “The action of dancing is differentiated from habitually performed functionally directed action, since it is intentionally performed, skilled action directed toward an aesthetic outcome” (Fraleigh 167).  The dancers aren’t just moving because I have told them to move; instead they are getting into the movement as a way to express the aesthetic outcome I’ve set for them to an audience.  I can see the clearly that my dancers are moving purposefully, metaphysically even, and this is why they are differentiated from habitually movement.

                The idea that “time, space, and movement are continuous with one another,” is such an important part of dancing that every dancer should come to understand (Fraleigh 179).  This concept is difficult to grasp at first because we’ve been taught that a clock holds time, a space is the place in which you are in, and movement is unique to every choreographer.  All of this is true, but for dance time is connected to space and movement because being in space takes time as well as doing movement takes time.  All three aspects are connected in this way working like clock-work in which their relationship with one another will never cease or separate.  With this in mind, these three aspects are crucial to the success of choreography.  “The time and space we live is the time-space of dance, for dance is the embodied art, of life and our living of time and space through our movement.  Yet dance is aesthetically intended and designed” (Fraleigh 181).  With the many different variables between the two extremes of time, slow and fast, I found that I had a hard time remembering to use a range of timing rather than staying in a timing I am fond of when I dance.  About a week ago I realized that I choreographed all of my movement with the same time that was slower.  This could have work, but with the atonal music that I chose, it was putting myself and others who watched the piece in a trance.  The movement vocabulary was interesting and the way in which the dancers travel through space was interesting, but the combination of the timing of the music and the timing of the movement was too much alike.  In order to try and break that monotonous mood that had been created, I began playing with speeding certain sections of the dance up so as to give variation to the choreography.  This seemingly simple change made a world of difference to the piece.

                Getting the dancers to speed up the sections I had chosen was a tad bit harder than I had thought it would be.  “When we describe a dance or its movement images, we find ourselves also describing time and space in human (lived) and metaphoric images” (Fraleigh 190).  At first when the dancers sped the movement up, it still looked slow because the music was changing my human perspective.  In order to get the dancers to oppose this music I had to use metaphoric images to change the dynamic quality.  By describing to them that they need to be sharper in the execution of their movement phrases by thinking of each movement as an exclamation point rather than a comma the dancers broke free of that slow flow.  The way in which the movement looked after describing this to them was exactly what the piece needed to give it variety within its holistic value.  The dancers had to work together on finding that faster rhythm within the atonal sound.  “We all have unique energies, no two of us are alike.  Rhythm is the great leveler which brings us together” (Fraleigh 193).  Since there isn’t a rhythm for the dancers to hear by an audible sound, they have to find a rhythm among each other.  It took trying the phrases over and over again with the music playing for them to finally come together within the movement.  “When we are committed together toward the dance, we are focused in the here and now on a common project” (Fraleigh 193).  This common project of speeding up the movement but still being in unison brought the dancers to progression towards the success of my choreography.

                I am so very proud of the progress my dancers have made and the product that has come.  Every dancer has worked hard and have come along for the ride of all the changes I have made from the beginning of the process.  Between their hard work and my choreographic vision, we have created a piece worth presenting to an audience.

Costumes

In this video Brittany Olsen is missing because she has a 9 am class, and we didn't film until after she left.  Lauren will be borrowing a long-sleeved black shirt from me to complete the ensemble.  Also, I had the girls wearing there hair in a ponytail, but after watching I have decided to have Maggie wear her hair down with the rest of the cast putting their hair in a slicked back low bun.  The second video of Maggie is the work we did on her solo for timing and dynamics.

Relating Fraleigh's Ch 7 and 8

                I’ve always had hard time with abstracting movement so that it is not a “mickey-moused” movement phrase.  This is especially true for my pieces that could be considered representational dances.  “In representational dance, the dance movement is necessarily unlike what it represents.  The difference between the movement and what it represents renders representation a possibility” (Fraleigh 116).  I couldn’t help but thinking that abstracting is one way to create that difference between the movement and representation that is coming from the intent.  The movement of my solo has my interpretation of movement that would be found in a carnival.  The inspiration was derived from characters you would find within a carnival such as the lady with a mermaid tail, the juggler, the strongest man, the tight rope walker, and the lady on the horse.  The abstraction of these ideas led to the unique movement vocabulary within the first section.  For the rest of the dance the difference is found within the scary derivation of a fun time one would spend at a carnival.  With the use of abstraction I have been able to create movement that is different from what it represents so that representation of my intent is possible.

                I was worried about how I would make my intent more about artistic value than entertainment when I first thought of the idea of working with carnivals on my mind.  My first instinct was to go on a theatrical route that would focus on the unique characters within.  The first few rehearsals I had with this in mind produced comical movement phrases that I wasn’t quite happy with artistically.  Although this is a valid way of interpreting intent, I felt that the movement coming from this point of view was purely for entertainment and not for art.  Looking back I can see how the idea that “art makes meaning” is important when starting to choreograph.  “That is, art worlds are not life worlds, but create meanings of their own” (Fraleigh 116).  The path that I chose as a choreographer gave me a chance to create a meaningful art world of my own.  The idea of investigating movement creation from the darker side of carnival freaks made choreographing as an art form much easier.  Instead of creating movement with entertainment in mind, movement came to my body organically as a way to create a new world of dance.

                This different movement that came to me within the first week of my process was new, fresh, and more exciting.  “Meaning in dance is integral with the body and its motion; yet the dance work in its entirety transcends this medium as it becomes a meaningful whole” (Fraleigh 117).  I have noticed that when I give my dancers movement, it initially looks much different from what my body produces.  It took several rehearsals before I could see my movement becoming prevalent in their bodies.  It took time for them to really feel the direction I was going for, and I almost decided to change quite a bit of the dance before they got it.  Instead of giving up and settling for a different movement vocabulary, I waited for them to truly embody the choreography.  Now, the meaning of my dance, which is showing the dark and ugly side of those carnival freaks, can now be seen from the dancers’ embodiment of the motion I created.

                Even though I have purposely created a piece of art that holds meaning behind the movement, I do understand that not all dance as art has to be “overtly expressive” (Fraleigh 118).  Merce Cunningham who “had already cooled down expression in modern dance,” was a choreographer who executed this type of choreography excellently.  His post modern work set a new standard for creating dance pieces, and his style was brilliant; however I have a hard time creating movement for movement’s sake.  It is also by the contrast of those like Cunningham that the expressiveness of my piece, as well as others’, is able to stand out.  “The attempt to destroy values embedded in vividly expressive movement (which extends the body’s capacities and indeed indicates its reach toward the world and others) pointed out the vividly expressive as a quality by which we recognize dance” (Fraleigh 124).  This has allowed the modern dance of today which is moving away from post modern to go back to that vividly expressive quality but in a different way of those before post modern.  This is the great thing about modern dance and its ever changing qualities of value.

                What Cunningham brought to the modern dance world was his sense of focus on his dancers’ precision, dance ability, and technical strength.  Instead of creating with expressive intention, he created innovative movement that was aesthetically appealing.  This brought me to the realization that it doesn’t matter if I were to be creating with an expressiveness or formalist point of view, the success of my art would come from how innovative it is.  “Audience responsiveness depends on vital and inventive dance, which draws forth visionary intelligence” (Fraleigh 139).  When considering dance choreography this visionary intelligence not only entails inventive movement, but an ability to set other aspects of the dance like groupings and facings so that the art work as a whole reads to the audience.

                Although I have a firm knowledge of the history of modern dance I guess I never really came to the conclusion that “the field of modern dance in choreography and performance, both professionally and in education, has been created and sustained by women, in a very large measure” (Fraleigh 143).  With the revolt against ballet as the main reason of modern dance’s coming about it does make sense for the women of the time to accomplish this.  The breaking free of point shoes, rigid spines, and the codified ballet movement has allowed my generation to enjoy the freedom to choose between choreographing with strong technique or not, expressiveness, formalist, or any of the many choices we now have within modern dance.

Relating Fraleigh's Ch 5 and 6

 Rehearsal Progress    

Newest ending skeleton

              Form, which is highly important for the success of a dance work, is one aspect that I have been struggling with throughout the process of choreographing this final project.  I couldn’t help but connect the idea of the tension of opposites with this struggle even though this probably wasn’t the intent in most prominent on Fraleigh’s mind when writing this section.  The sentence that brought this into perspective for me was, “Heidegger turns our attention toward art as a “striving between opposites” within a final “coherence” or “repose” in the completed nature of the art work” (Fraleigh 83).  This idea of the final coherence has been what I have been searching for.  The sections of my choreography have been giving off a sense of separation and disconnection, and while I was reading this I had a sort of revalationary idea to bring my dance together.  The way it is set now, my dancers start off stage during the beginning solo to come in out of nowhere with no precedent of connection amongst one another.  Instead, I want to try having dancers going across that stage at different times with different movement from Maggie’s solo movement vocabulary traveling in sustainment.  I feel like this will give my dance a better since of continuity that will in turn connect the first section to the second section.  “Disconnection is only possible if connection is assumed” (Fraleigh 77).  With this being said, I have to establish a holistic connection of dancers, movement, and sections in order to use the tension of opposition to my advantage.

                Another realization I came across by reading Fraleigh’s text was the importance of every moment presented to the audience.  “In dance every moment counts” (Fraleigh 88).  This includes every movement, transition, moment of stillness, and anything in between.  When I focus on embellishing my choreography with specific details I lose my focus on the dance as one whole piece of art.  “The work stands out as meaningful only in its entire unfolding” (Fraleigh 89).  The integrity of my piece relies on how I piece my movement together.  Another idea I have for confirming continuity as well as strengthening the message is to have Maggie and Shannon partner by themselves toward the end where now there are two sets of two dancers (Shannon and Maggie, Lauren and Brittany) against the one (Terrynan).  After Maggie would break free of Shannon’s control she would have to face Terrynan who would eventually leaver her for the other three to come back on causing her to writhe away in fear.  This would be the final struggle before her complete submission into the world of the others.  At this submission I could have all five dancers repeating a small section of the movement vocabulary from the very beginning in unison before the revised ending brings the piece to a sensible close.  “The picture is only complete when the strivings of those precarious decisions toward the fully realized, aesthetic “saying” of movement are at repose in the work’s completion” (Fraleigh 90).  I’ve found that being persistent with my cast on repeating movement to get the movement aesthetic I am looking for gives me that end result of communication through my movement.  Instead of immediately giving up on a choreographic idea, I work with my cast until I get the look I want.  I was having trouble with this at first, but now I know what my cast can do when I give them a chance to work on the movement a little before I cut it.  This has opened up options within my choreography I had shut down previously.

                During my choreographic process, starting even at the beginning, I have been asking myself, “What is it that makes my piece an individually made dance, but is considered as such: a dance work?”  This question was resurfaced this week after watching Christina’s work.  Her dance is full of movement that is easily seen as beautiful dancing by her dancers.  I started to question my own work after seeing such organically made flow of clearly beautiful movement.  Then I was reminded that, “beauty, for instance, exists only in the mind or the eye of the beholder” (Fraleigh 95).  The movement in my work has beautiful moments brought about by the oppositional tension of quirky and awkward moments.  Even further, my piece is sure enough put into the artistic category of dance because it holds the “historically recurring constants as grace, strength, agility, and skill” which I have kept “open to interpretation, culturally, and stylistically” (Fraleigh 96).  As I have talked about in previous blogs, the aesthetic that I am working with is basically ugly so that I can find the beauty within this type of aesthetic.  I know that I can produce movement that isn’t from this aesthetic, but I am working towards finding a different movement vocabulary that will surprise the audience and be different enough to spark an interest that will stay in their minds.  One way that I feel can enhance this need for individual style is to embellish the skeleton of some parts of my piece with details that will make the movement even uglier so that it feeds into the holistic view of my intent.  With all of this being said, I am not working to redefine dance because, “dance is not so open a concept that it is subject to redefinition; redefinition works in terms of definition” (Fraleigh 98).  I am aware and have experienced the dance aesthetic I am trying to opposite, but I am not saying that the opposite isn’t valid or exciting.  I can work against the opposite only because it has been historically set before me.  On the same note, the idea of bringing an “ugly” aesthetic on to a stage production is not new either, but I hope to find my own interpretation of the definition with my personal style and “Jessy movement”.

                Even though time is short in terms of the process of this project, creativity found through playing with different ideas is still important.  “Thus it is not correct to say that modern dance has not achieved clear definitional stances.  But neither should we ignore that it concentrates- as a point of definition- on constantly rediscovering dance” (Fraleigh 104).  The difference between creating a modern dance piece as opposed to a ballet piece is that I’m not piecing together specific ballet positions as if piecing together a puzzle.  Instead I’m using different defined modern movement and refreshing it with my own personal style.  This piece still needs a lot of work in these terms, but I believe the ideas that have come after this week hold promise for giving my piece a better sense of connectedness, more interesting movement embellishments, and a more thought out approach to form.

Beginning Middle End...

                I’ve been trying to create movement within my piece that will be aesthetically pleasing to my audience.  “Primary to a definition of dance is its aesthetic intent” (Fraleigh 43).  This is the idea that has been keeping me in check when continuing on my choreographic process.  Anytime I watch my choreography and start to get bored I know that it’s not working which helps me to edit my work in a timely manner.  During the first rehearsals that I had I basically put out a bunch of movement ideas that I felt would communicate the intent I am trying to work with.  One concept that has really helped me in finding my personal aesthetic was found in these words, “being moved in feeling is the end result of the aesthetically affective” (Fraleigh 45).  Because I am dealing with a not so beautiful concept, my movement is reflecting that.  The idea of circus freaks has brought me to the use of a mangled or awkward way of moving my dancers that will hopefully strike the audience with the mixed feelings of intrigue of the unusual as well as experiencing empathy toward the sorrow of being shunned by society.  “Good has no moral connotation in the aesthetic realm but is, rather, a qualitative measure of perception, valuation, and evaluation” (Fraleigh 44).  The idea of good being pretty or pleasing in a way that evokes a sense of pleasure from beauty is completely valid and works wonderfully, but this is not the direction I want my piece to go in.  I feel that beauty within my choreography can serve a purpose of contrast, but for the most part the specific aesthetic for this piece will be full of asymmetry, quirkiness, and what most would call “ugly”.

                Because the dance that I’m creating is being performed for others, I have to think about how I’m communicating my intent to a subjective outside audience.  In Fraleigh’s book, Dance and The Lived Body, she quotes Friedman on page fifty seven, “Viable in its own exclusive and quiet reality there is a communion between the noticed dancer and the unnoticed spectator.”  The reality that I’m dealing with at this moment when speaking in terms of my choreography is that I have an opening solo that is strong with movement and dancer’s ability.  Even though I know that my group dancers are capable of being just as strong I hold a responsibility of developing movement so that this balance between strong solo and strong group work can occur.  The problem that I’m encountering with this challenge is discovering a way to incorporate my group dancers within the piece so that they are not seen by the audience as props, but rather as fundamental pieces to the puzzle work of my art.  “Some valued quality of this feeling passes between the dancer and the audience in its experience when dance is valued as art” (Fraleigh 61).  I don’t want my piece to be seen as movement put on dancers that aren’t connecting to the concept.  This makes the dance come off as superficial with no passion or feeling to be transferred from dancer to audience member.  I want the piece as a whole to affect the audience in a way that shows the piece as a valid form of art.

                With this in mind I am also taking the existential phenomenology idea of “feeling is not a matter of simply receiving a message… “To feel is not to receive, but to participate in an immediate way”’ into consideration (Fraleigh 62).  This means that I have to choreograph in a way that reaches my audience on a higher level than just observation.  The audience must be intrigued into experiencing my piece through the dancers’ performances of the movement I have created.  Whether the audience understands that my piece is about the emotional and dark side of the life of a circus freak is not as relevant as them being able to feel the essence of curiosity bringing about pain, manipulation, and being stuck within an ominous situation.  One way of doing this as Ellie had suggested is to take some of the strong movement of my solo work and transposing it differently onto my group dancers.  I felt better about this idea being able to bring about an affective quality to my dance when connecting it to this idea: “This initial emotion absorbs us, and we return to it as the object (in our experience of it) begins to separate from its background” (Fraleigh 64).  Instead of throwing away the artistic idea I have for my group dancers I’m going to attempt to use the strong solo work as a way to connect them to the concept I am working with.  I will continue with this idea as well as giving them as much imagery as I can to improve their ability to embody my choreography.

                It is so important for dancers to capture their choreographer’s movement and intention because without doing so it is hard for the audience to connect.  “A dance can only be of value when the dancer clearly manifests her intention in her movement; then she becomes what she signifies, what she marks for us- be that the truth of our common humanity or the play and work of life seen in movement itself” (Fraleigh 70).  Embodying an intention so that it can be deciphered by that outside subjective someone is the only way a choreographic piece can be successful.  With the same idea as talked about previously, the audience must me moved aesthetically for a piece to be an affective art form, and this is done by properly embodying the choreographer’s intention through his/her movement.  Instead of using verbal communication as poets do to share our artistic ideas with others; dancers use the human lived body for such expression.  “Dance takes us to the bodily lived source for language” (Fraleigh 71).  Because the body is moving through a lived manner, dance is made affective by its living form.  I hope that my dancers realize that they are living my choreography so that they will appreciate and understand their important role as the medium of my art from my mind to their audience.

Progress video:                

The music I have chosen:

Since this song isn't long enough I took the song and reversed it in audicity to play after the original.

Dance and the Lived Body Related to My World

                I’ve never been fond of philosophical readings only because it becomes so time consuming.  I can’t just skim through and somewhat grasp what the reading is about; rather I have to truly understand one sentence before moving to the next.  The idea of dualism as straying away from the Cartesian thought from a soul and mind separation to “recognizing a dialectical and lived dualism” was difficult for me to grasp at first (Fraleigh 4).  Every time I read or hear the word dualism I automatically go to the Cartesian dualism idea, so trying to give this word a new meaning was highly frustrating.  This explanation of how phenomenological existentialism is different from the old way of thinking helped me to put these two terms into understanding.  It makes sense to me if I think about how one’s environment and past experiences can structure the way in which new happenings are experienced within the lived body.  A very elementary way of connecting this within my life was thinking about how I had always been taught that making mistakes and taking risks in class were unacceptable as a young person, coming into college my lived body took a long time to adapt within the idea that these aspects of dancing are good for me. 

                The idea of phenomenological reduction helped me in developing a first draft to my choreography.  ‘This involves “a narrowing of attention to what is essential in the problem while disregarding or ignoring superfluous and accidental”’ (Fraleigh 6).  Instead of allowing myself to be distracted by ideas or movement not related to my intention within the piece, I focused on only the idea being portrayed in the here and now.  Cool tricks and how to clean the piece were not on the forefront of my intentional consciousness.  Cleaning is for later, and cool tricks aren’t relevant to a piece of art pertaining to movement. 

                Through taking classes such as Somatics and Improvisation, I can remember being told to let the body take over for the mind.  The idea of separation between the mind and body as Cartesian developed dualism.  “As the existential phenomenologists emphatically reject traditional dualism, they reject instrumental definitions of the body” (Fraleigh 8).  I have always had trouble with grasping the concept of allowing my mind to go into a sedated state while my body works in its place, moving how it wants to move and not how my mind wants it to move.  There have been times when I felt this sensation, but I’m now wondering if you can every really separate the two, mind and body.  The idea of “the whole person as a minded body, not a mind in command of something separable, called body” makes so much more sense when thinking about dance (Fraleigh 9).   I can still see how the body could be thought of as an instrument for the dancing artist, but instead of the mind playing the instrument the mind and body work as one.  Even though the mind and body can play against each other at times, Merleau-Ponty’s statement that these two entities ‘“can never be distinguished absolutely without ceasing to be”’ (Fraleigh 12).  The mind needs the body as the body needs the mind; each one giving the other purpose.

                Freedom within this body having to do with phenomenological existentialism also gave me another idea when forming movement for my piece.  Even though I still have a lot of work do with my piece, I already have lots of movement to work with and edit.  Instead of being “limited by being this particular body, which is mine and mine along” I am able to create movement and intent for others to communicate for me (Fraleigh 16).  I now have other dancers to utilize in doing movement that I create but may not necessarily be able to portray as well as these bodies I have been given to work with.  “Embodiment is thus the ground for all experienced values, for both intimacy and alienation, freedom and limitation” (Fraleigh 17).  The intimacy and alienation from my body-mind unit is being used in the process of creating while I have more freedom and less limitation in one sense.  This is the sense of capabilities within my dancers that are not found within my body, yet I have to work on communicating the movement that is intimate because of my individual alienation.  I do not worry, however, that my creations will not come across as unique and true to my choreographic style because “all works of art bear the stamp of individual creation” (Fraleigh 22).  Throughout working with others in this composition class, I notice that some choreographers create movement that is similar to others.  Sometimes it’s a simple gesture that one takes from another or even an act of repeating a shape or skill, but I’ve noticed that this use of other’s movement or movement ideas is unintentional.  I used to fear that I would find myself doing this at some point, but Fraleigh’s statement above reminded me that even if something is repeated by someone, the creation of the art is always going  to be individualized by the specific choreographer to make it their own.

                After assessing the material I had given all together since day one on Wednesday I realized that I did not have a lot of continual movement other than that of the solo performer.  I hadn’t read the second chapter of this book yet, and now I want to try to embody the idea that “when I become my dance, it becomes consonant with my consciousness.  The difference between the dance and myself disappears” (Fraleigh 40).  I feel like I should try to embody my intent with movement rather than depending on costumes that I have in mind.  Now I’m wondering whether or not to make my intent so obvious through the medium of costumes rather than my movement.   I would rather the phenomenon of my dance be noted by its “discernible structures and qualitative characteristics” through the movement (Fraleigh 35).

                I learned some valuable information from the first two chapters of Dance and the Lived Body that I didn’t connect with myself until reading it over for a second time.  The philosophical nature of the intent was hard to decipher, but once understood it was easy to relate to the process of my choreography as well as performing.

Inspirational pictures to my piece:

Carnival Evening by Henri Rousseau

by Greg Simkins

by James Ensor

by Toyen Paravent

Whirlwind of lovers by William Blake

Reality?

                Throughout each study within this class I have used different stimuli to create my movement.  With this study I decided to create movement for movement’s sake.  The only stimulus that I had was my imagination.  “The conscious recall of suitable movements for communication of liveliness occurs within the imagination of the composer” (Smith 213).  With only the four movement qualities of light, heavy, direct, and indirect to give me compositional motivation, I found it surprisingly easy to create the phrases.  It wasn’t until trying to fit them together that it became difficult, especially with using the element of chance. 

                When I began creating the movement for the four phrases to be used in this piece, I had an idea of using one movement idea throughout each phrase.  “The composer, with this in mind, then begins to manipulate material to fit these conscious images, and thus start composing” (Smith 213).  Instead of having a lot of material, I wanted to simplify the movement.  After hearing the feedback from my class, I realized that this didn’t work choreographically throughout the entire dance.  Ellie made the comment that the direct section was very clearly movement that was made from my vocabulary, but that the other sections just looked as if I gave them improvisational words pertaining to the Laban dynamics I was attempting to portray.  This was true for the transitions between each section as well as the use of structure improvisation for the indirect section. The problem with this was that the transitions lasted longer that I had planned them to.  Instead of being invisible, the transitions took over.  The indirect section was also structured improvisation that was meant to use the indirect quality of focus.  I originally wanted the dancers to use only their focus to portray the indirect quality as they simply walked around the space and each other.  While this plan worked within my head, I hadn’t planned for the dancer’s to interpret the structure differently on the day of the performance.  This was a risk I hadn’t taken into consideration. 

                I decided to ask one of my roommates to randomly draw the numbers out of a hat to figure out what order my phrases would be put into.  My roommate said, “three, one, four, two” without drawing any numbers.  I then asked him again to please draw the numbers then read them to me.  As he drew the numbers out of the hat, it was the same order as he had said.  I would have thought that he somehow cheated and saw the numbers before drawing them, but I had written out the numbers on the paper myself and made sure that they couldn’t be identified by looking at them.  This was a weird experience that just added to the “chance dance” madness.  These numbers put my dance in the order of heavy, direct, light, and indirect. After randomly selecting my props to be put into my movement phrases I had a hard time making sense of them and connecting them without being cliché.  

                I felt like my group members who performed in this piece performed the opening section pretty well.  They had a “clear use of focus to communicate the dance idea” (Smith 180).  I wanted the floor crawlers to have their focus on the objects in their hands so that the audience would be interested in what the objects were.  After the performance, Professor Ellie made a note that when objects are small, the audience can’t see them unless they are introduced properly.  I know that she had made a similar comment the day before in reference to how well the introduction of a paper clip was, but I wasn’t thinking about my objects still being in the smaller sized category with this reference.  Due to limited time in rehearsal, I hadn’t seen Christina using the brush to brush Jake off of Amy to the back instead of where the audience could see the action.  Since this didn’t show up as a problem in rehearsal, I never thought to specify the placement of the action.  I would seriously take these ideas and notes into consideration if I ever decided to rework this piece.  The other two props within this section were a candle and a pair of glasses.  As the three surrounding the duet in the middle were making their way toward the middle I had them use their props to make noise.  The only problem with this was that while Christina and Isis were able to make noise, Yuki wasn’t able to with the eyeglasses.  I hadn’t thought that this would be a problem, but during the feedback someone had mentioned that it didn’t make sense for two to make noise when Yuki hadn’t been able to.  I also used Yuki putting the glasses on the back of Jake’s head as a way to remove the props from the phrase, but since one of my dancers didn’t give the remaining third prop to Jake, this didn’t make sense either.  If I could change this in the future, I would highlight Jake’s transition to give this idea more clarity.

                The direct, light, and indirect sections were all easy adaptations to the use of my props within the phrases.  During the direct section, I had selected my favorite sweater and Sudoku book.  Instead of having the props spread across the space, I decided to have Yuki use both of them so that the audience wouldn’t have a hard time processing what the props were.  I had decided to have Yuki put the sweater on her legs instead of just having her wear it as it would traditionally be worn.  I also played with facings and groupings with the other four dancers put into pairs with one pair facing toward one another and the other facing away from one another.  With the class feedback in mind, the audience felt that this section worked.  In the light section, the sweat pants were used as a barrier for three dancers while Jake performed the movement with the heating pad wrapped around his neck.  Because the cord was so long Jake was able to play with the use of his new attachment while dancing.  Lastly, the tennis ball, body spray, and socks were quizzical at first, but simple explanations led to the final section’s success.  For one, I know that Jake loves to slide around in his socks. Secondly, I know that he wouldn’t want to smell like a girl all day.  Lastly, I needed a counter balance for the audience due to the chaotic motion in the background.  The strongest feedback for this section was that the audience wanted it to last longer.

Fighting the End

                I found it difficult to develop an intent when starting this assignment.  Thinking so much about the requirements for the project took away from my artistic thought.  In order to get some inspiration for an intent I began listening to several different musical choices in an exploration for what I truly wanted.  The first piece of music I came across that gave me the inspiration to choreograph was Agnus Dei by Samuel Barber.  Upon listening to this piece of music I felt a sense of Angelic presence with the encapsulating vocals.  The only problem I had with this beautiful music was that I didn’t know how to use such a popular piece.  I also did not want to produce cliché works in class since this music brought about the idea of angels swooping in and out of our lives on earth.  When I found Hindemith’s “Viola De Arco” I could hear that the music was slightly less dramatic than Agnus Dei, but it still held dramatic qualities and depth.  Even though this musical choice is beautiful, I didn’t want to develop beautiful movement.  I was really hoping to develop a different way of moving with an awkward yet satisfying manner.

                The picture, “Physical Disorientation,” by Ashley Dcrouse gave me the idea of thinking that the body is broken into separate fragments that can be manipulated with those different kinds of body initiations we were supposed to be working with.  With the visualization of my body being in that situation I began to use improvisation as a tool to find movement motifs that could be used throughout the piece.  As I improvised I came across the development of a walk initiated by the pelvis, a hand initiated turn leading to an odd shape, and a running back and forth initiated by the head.  Knowing that I wanted to stay away from movement that is obviously pretty in nature, I continued to search for inspiration leading to a unique intent.  When looking into my musical choice I found that the composer had lived and created within a world of Hitler and the Nazi regime.   I read somewhere that the composer wrote the viola de Arco as a funeral piece.  This gave me the idea to work with the idea of the fear of death.

                The use of mixed meter was one of the hardest tools I’ve used in choreography since this class started.  The complexity of having to use different quantities of measure than that of the music was hard to grasp.  A clear example of this difficulty was the part in my dance in which Christina and I were on the floor in front of Isis.  The hand motion of swooping to the left, right, down, and up in a cannon was supposed to have different lengths for each person.  I was meant to do this in a four, Christina in a seven, and Isis in a nine.  After watching the video of my piece I realized that this wasn’t clear because my group and I were having trouble counting the music.  This was found throughout the piece.  I would have set counts for the movement, yet they wouldn’t be clearly presented because of the lack of being able to count against the music.

                As the class gave their feedback I was pleased to hear so much positive feedback and ideas for making the piece better.  One outlook on my work that I was happy to hear of was Katy’s story to what my dance was about.  She felt like Isis and I were making the shapes of individual vultures throughout the entirety of the work.   To bring this idea into more depth Ellie elaborated by stating that Isis developed a character with immediate audience response as she breathed heavily, and with a fearful gaze.   Being that vultures are creatures that eat animals or carcasses that are already dead, this gave the intense feeling that Isis was going to “die.”

                I wanted to have a logical development of my piece, and I felt like I was successful in doing so.  “Logical development becomes apparent by virtue of repetition, climax, transition, contrast and variety in the dance (Smith-Autard 78).  I feel as if the main focus I would have if reworking my piece would be on variety.  “Without variation and contrast, repetition of the motifs would be dull if presented ad lib in their original form” (Smith-Autard 73).  Although I didn’t always repeat the motifs with their complete original form, I felt like I could have developed more variety after watching my showing from the class.  Between the lack of time and my slow start to finding an intent I lost the means of developing a strong variety in and among the dancers.  Hearing the feedback from others in the class I was able to hear that the contrast between the dancers from a two dancer to one perspective was clear.

                When I was working with unity in my piece I found that I didn’t want to use this tool too much simply because I was working with the contrast between Isis and Christina and I.  However, “the final shape that emerges when the dance is over is realized through unity” (Smith-Autard 79).  One idea that Ellie had was to use unity as the three of us creating shapes within each other yet being separated in a way by that difference in shape.  Looking back I had done this a few times within my piece, but I definitely could have done this more as a way of developing that relationship of the two dancers against one in a different, less obvious way.

                All in all I felt like I learned a lot from this assignment.  Even learning two other people’s choreography and seeing their style of development was very enlightening.  I was impressed with my group’s variety within the group, meaning that each of our pieces were completely different.   We all three had different interpretations of what the assignment was looking for, and found different ways of showing that throughout our own pieces.

Samuel Barber: Agnus Dei (Adagio for strings)

Physical Disorientation by Ashley Dcrouse
http://ashleydcrouse.deviantart.com/art/Physical-Disorientation-87081935

Inevitable Connections

Jake Bone and Jessica Holt

                Once again, I found myself over thinking the process for this assignment.  It wasn’t helpful that my partner and I shared the same avenue of intellect.  Both he and I were trying our hardest to create simple transitions, but what we forgot to consider was whether the transitions were effective.  This led to our piece being bland with simplicity everywhere but the transitions.  It wasn’t until our professor pointed this out that we realized our problems to overcome.  At first it was disappointing to hear the corrective criticism in that I felt like we should have known better, but then I realized that having a third person perspective with much more experience was part of the learning process. 

                At beginning of this process, Jake and I had the idea that our relationship toward one another within the piece would be a gravitational pull that caused us to orbit one another.  Instead of using any kind stimuli to develop this idea, we pretty much just came up with a concept.  This was a bad start for us.  After hearing the advice from Ellie we decided to take a break from the movement in order to listen to different music to find some inspiration.  “The music not only dictates the kind of dance, but also its mood, style, length, phrasing, intensities and overall form” (Smith-Autard 29).  Before even changing the movement we tried our movement to Sinfonia Concertante, Allegro maestro by Mozart.  After trying this just once, we were able to see so many ideas for change. 

                As we began to alter the dance we started to develop a relationship within the movement.  The idea of sibling rivalry and the path to contentment in that relationship came to be our new intent.  This opened up new ways to connect with one another and made it easier to work on creating shapes that were more intertwined and exciting.  As I was looking for more inspiration to help develop my character I came across this quote, “I don't believe an accident of birth makes people sisters or brothers.  It makes them siblings, gives them mutuality of parentage.  Sisterhood and brotherhood is a condition people have to work at,” by Maya Angelou.  I couldn’t help but picture all of the irritating moments and frustration I had with my siblings while growing up.  On the other end of the spectrum, there were also so many moments of love and companionship.  Sometimes being around my siblings would be comfortable and natural while other times it would be forced.  This concept turned our piece around completely.

                At the very beginning of our piece Jake and I decided to contrast each other.  While I stood in stillness creating a striking image of face-on vulnerability toward the audience Jake walked hastily around the open space in an asymmetric floor pathway.  “To make an asymmetric floor pattern the composer would not repeat particular lines or curves” (Smith-Autard 53).  Within this pattern there were many curves accompanied by lines of forward and backward motion.   

                Between the upbeat intensity of our music with its rising and falling quality, our facial expressions, and general movement with one another, Jake and I had created somewhat of a comical dance.  “Essentially original or unusual ways of moving and relating to the environment and other people can be comic” (Smith-Autard 35).  Even though I had read about comic dance before working on this piece, I didn’t realize that we were actually creating one.  Many times when I get into a character I don’t even notice when I intensify my facial expressions.  I feel like this had a lot to do with how the piece was perceived by the audience. 

                The form of our dance took shape as the common binary form.  “The first section A is contrasted by a new section B, but the two have a common thread which binds one to the other” (Smith-Autard 70).  With section A we played with strictly making shapes with minimal, simple transitions.  As Ellie said in class, “transitions should be invisible.”  For section B we decided to spice up the piece with more movement, and in doing so our section B became the climax.  Within the climax of our piece Jake and I decided to play with symmetrical and asymmetrical shapes moving through the space.  As we danced in unison, “the dance movement takes place at the same time in the group,” we played with mirroring our moving shapes in a rapid pace and playing with separation into the foreground and background space (Smith-Autard 56).  With the reaction of the audience I would say this was an effective climax.  During this climax, I felt like the speed created a haphazard mood that was followed by stillness held in awkward shapes.  This only added to the idea of this piece becoming a comic dance.

                I was excited to see how the other half of class was going to do with their assignment of creating a dance piece from a haiku or piece of poetry.  There was one group that really stood out with this assignment.  They used their musical elements, eye focus, and movement to set an emotional mood.  I couldn’t even really describe the way it made me feel with words.  I was happy and sad with the bitter sweet message being sent.  The use of cannon, unison with contrasting movement, and gestures in which they supported one another created a movement phrase with much intensity.  The two would go back and forth between who was the support and who was taking the support so that no gender specificity took hold.  One of the most intriguing parts of this piece took place toward the beginning when the duet took their eye focus from one another in close proximity to both looking at a diagonal corner in the distance.  This was one of the simplest transitions I had seen all day, yet it was the most effective. 

                After learning so much from creating a solo movement during the first assignment, I wasn’t sure that there was much more to learn.  On the contrary, not only have I gained even more useful knowledge I also have the future assignments to look forward to learning even more.

Notes and Realizations Week Four

Feelings/Shapes:

Symmetrical                                        Asymmetrical

• Content                                   Apprehensive
• Order                                      Unevenness
• Calm                                       Grieving
• Balanced                                 Anger
• Relaxed                                   Chaos
• Equal                                      Hostility
• Unity                                      Unstable
• Wholeness                              Uneasy
• Ease                                        Broken
• Circle                                      Unbalanced
• Square                                    Rhombus
• Equilateral Triangle                Scalene Triangle

Body:

Symmetrical                                   Asymmetrical

• Bones                                    Organs
• Muscles                                 Muscles
• Skin

Choreography wise (but not always) modern art/dance tends to be more asymmetrical, and ballet tends to be more symmetrical.

Three kinds of shapes:  Curved (both), twisted (easiest asymmetrical), straight (easiest symmetrical)

Strange space design- subverting etiquette 

How to make a blank stage into strange space?

For assignment 2

• Foreground and background
• Depth and width
• Simple transitions (they should be invisible)