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.
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