"This is me today" was the name of my first task I was given for my choreography class. At the beginning I thought about it and tried to see myself this day in comparison with other days. So this day I was feeling quiet and not so much talking to others, close to myself. So as I was starting to create my movements were small and not to fast. I did had sometimes when the phrase was changing to something bigger but then again it came back to the quiet moves and closer to my centre.
When I saw the video with me performing this task I could tell that the thoughts I had to my mind I tried to put them on my piece as I could. It was an interesting way of creating a movement sequence just from the feelings I had this specific day.
The second lesson was about try to remember our phrase from last time but not exactly what we did. As my body memory was coming up from last time then the task was to find a word as we continued to move around the space. So for me the first thing that came to my mind was "pain". My body was sore from training and I could not move my body as much as I wanted. So as this word came to me I could see that also my movements were small, as if I has a limit which I could not pass.
So when the second task was given I had to explain my word to one of my classmates but without saying the word. So I figure that I will say what I was feeling, to have a limit and that you cannot pass it. Meanwhile I had to do the same thing to, one of my classmates gave me another situation where I had to put it to the phrase I had already create. The situation was to feel my body as if I was honey. So I thought about the movement I had to do when I was thinking honey and it was about softness and organic movement. That was a challenge for me since my body could not do pretty much anything without feeling the pain but I tried to make it work and apply it to my phrase. Then there was the time to share our work and gain feedback. So my classmate who I gave the task did something I didn't expect. He actually put limits in the space like they were actually there and he could not pass them. He didn't thought of movement limit but space limit, something very interesting for me. On the other hand, when I did my piece my feedback was that people could see the movement soft and organic as I thought I had to do but without loosing my personal style of movement.
Another task I was given in one of the classes was to continue work on the phrase I had create in those two days by using two different ideas together. My personal idea that I had about not to pass my movements limits and the idea of my other classmate who he actually put limit in the space and not in movement. So by this task my phrase had limits in all levels, space and movement which was something challenging since I had to show that through my phrase. When I showed it to one of my classmates she understood that I was a "window" which it was trying to open but it couldn't because I was in a room full of water. It was interesting how my phrase made her feel this and I think it was what my task was about. Another feedback that she gave me also was that I should try to think less and abstract less my moves and just try to actually do the movements without thinking.
6th and 8th of October
These two days we share our pieces to the class so we could have feedback and prepare better for the midterm. In our lab time the past week we had to work on the piece we had but mostly on the word we had chosen. We had also to search an artistic perspective of this word through the Internet and find something that inspire us and use it as source for our phrase. Since my word is "pain" I found a many art pieces connecting to it but for me it wasn't something I could use. So I decide to choose a lyric from a song which says "dance your pain away". When I shared my piece I actually didn't use what I had already create from my previous classes so it was more or less and improvisation. I tried to use movements which actually showed pain and using my face expression a lot and then moments were I "danced" the pain away and I wasn't really feeling it. My feedback from my class was that I could more less dramatic, to try to express the pain with different ways and not using movements that I am comfort with but explore more.
2th and 4th of November
Since I was sick I didn't have the chance to work on my piece a lot and this week I tried to remember and also make my piece better. So in the class we talked about some words that they could actually improve the quality of our piece. I did not know exactly what to choose but I tried to understand what points of my choreography were weak. So I decided to choose three words: background, additive and repetition. At the beginning I work on this three words by creating new phrases from scratch and see if I can add them to my piece. After I did that then I start to add these words to my original choreography. I chose these three words because my movement most of the times it is fluid has no pauses and also big movements. So by working on small things, adding different movements that i would not usually do then they would give my piece a "new" me. To show that I tried to work with the small parts of my body and use more my hands than just my legs and try to repeat some movements.
13 and 16 of November
So this is the last week to finish my solo. Since the last week I was trying to put new elements to my piece, to think out of my comfort zone I realise something. "Sometimes I forget I have arms" but why this is happening. Actually circus people, like me, get to use their arms only for support or to hang from somewhere so we get to think that the lower body has to sheem nice to the audience and not the upper body. When I get to dance I can see the difference of my two parts of my body the one has grace the other has not. So I decide that my piece is gonna focus on my upper body more and especially on my arms and that is something hard for me which leads me back to my first word and idea of "pain"
COLLABORATION STUDY
So me and my partner Catie choose to do our study in two spaces that have some connection to one another. Since Catie had the idea of using a lecture class I decided to use a hallway from my campus.
this is the space i will use
this is the song
At the beginning I had in mind to use some dance movements from my piece but throughout the process I realise that the space I had chosen was not about my dance movement but to actually use the space as the reason I move. Another challenge for me was that the space I was using was a public one and there were many people who were walking throughout my piece. So, I decided to make them be part of my routine which actually worked really nice. About the electronically challenges we faced was more about the ending and the beginning of our videos. Since our video has the concept of the the same person in two different spaces.
If we had more time I definitely believe it would developed even more, we would have more material to give and centernly we would be able to work more with our partners.
Overall, this experience gave me a new perspective of how a body can change a space and make it look poetic. Or even more how you can show a choreography piece without actually dancing but moving through space. The highlights from my piece is how the use of light can be a major factor and the different colours in space.
