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.
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