Choreographic influences

Crystal Pite’s “Solo Echo” is described as “a journey from adolescence to maturity” (Mackrell, 2018)- this sort of ‘character development’ is an aspect that we included in our piece as it ties in well with our stimulus. We want to show the journey from conforming to society to our end goal of being able to show individuality in the face of peer pressure. 

Even the simplest of Pite’s gestures that are “functional” for support or balance (Mackrell, 2018) can evoke the strongest of emotions from the audience. Again, we too want to be able to create these strong emotions for our audience- our six gestures (based on our six words) from the beginning are quite simple,  however, every time we have used them in our piece we were able to develop them into really interesting movements. The fact that we were able to incorporate these gestures into our piece multiple times, and that they are based on words we generated from our stimulus, further emphasises our theme and ideas. This aspect again reflecting how Pite’s choreography relates very strongly to her themes. 

Pite’s creative process includes improvisational techniques to generate movement or initiate ideas of movement; when we struggled with coming up with choreography we resorted to this technique to sort of ‘get the ball rolling’- from this we would then choose individual movements we liked and elaborate upon them. We found that this was a very effective way to think of choreography when we were in a creative slump and it was interesting to allow and observe how our bodies naturally wanted to move. 

 

Another work that we drew inspiration from was Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Akram Khans’ ‘zero degrees’ with “pairings and encounters” as its theme. The piece is described as continuing at “intermittent intervals” this reflects the idea of our piece having an episodic structure and also our creative process of having choreographed different sections separately. ‘Zero Degrees’ is very gestural heavy, this being the main aspect of the piece and we were attracted to the idea of having simple gestures being able to convey such a strong message. Both dancers moved “in unison and mirror(ed) each other’s gestures” (Roy, 2005) and you can see how this has influenced our waltz section where we all do the same movements in unison, however we are weaving in and out of a circle. In our floor section there are three gestures that we repeat, and I feel that the gestures themselves are quite powerful: one of them is pushing our heads which is a clear sign of distress, and another example is brushing our hands and wrist- this gesture particularly showcases vulnerability and anguish. Similarly to Pite’s work, Zero Degrees has such a strong emotional aspect to it that has such a big impact on the audience. In our piece we are aiming to also have this same effect on the audience and inspire their own individuality.

 

 

 

 

 

-        Mackrell, J., 2018. Ballet British Columbia Review – Party Beats And Spinning Solos. [online] the Guardian. Available at: <https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2018/mar/07/ballet-british-columbia-review-crystal-pite-emily-molnar-sharon-eyal-dance> [Accessed 20 November 2020].

-       Roy, S., 2005. Zero Degrees: Nothing Is Singular •. [online] Sanjoy Roy. Available at: <https://sanjoyroy.net/2005/09/sidi-larbi-cherkaoui-akram-khan-zero-degres/> [Accessed 26 November 2020].