Gestures and Planning Structure
week 5
In the first part of this week’s session, we began to discuss the structure of our piece and where we want each section. We decided that we wanted our piece to have an episodic structure with an overarching theme of conformity- this would then allow us to choreograph different sections separately and then piece them together later on. Rather than a fixed plan, we have more of a loose structure that we can move around if we need to as we feel this is the most effective way of planning our piece.
On page 158 of ‘choreography: creating and developing dance for performance’ Kate Flatt mentioned that it’s really important to consider what kind of atmosphere you want to create for your audience. With this in mind, we really focused on our entrance; we want this to be intriguing and powerful because it’s the first thing the audience will see and it has to have a lasting impression. We also want to repeat this section at the end to exit the stage but instead of copying each other like we did the first time, we would alter it slightly for each of us to show our individuality. This cyclical structure would present a sort of character development, adding a narrative element to our otherwise abstract piece.
After discussing this we then went on to split up and again, using the method we used last lesson we thought of 6 words associated with our stimulus which were; restraint, judgement, pressure, nonchalance, uncertainty and influence. Each of us was assigned a word and had to come up with a simple gesture that could be developed to use later on in the dance to help emphasise our stimulus. Here are our gestures and how they have been developed into a bigger/more complex movement: https://youtu.be/S8vS2c2QR6I
Flatt, K., 2019. Choreography : Creating And Developing Dance For Performance. 1st ed. The Crowood Press, p.158.
I enjoyed reading your blog caitlin! What do you think is good about the gesture technique and why is it useful when creating choreography?
ReplyDeleteThanks Erin! I think that having a gesture that directly relates to our stimulus is very helpful/ effective; it conveys our theme well and it can be developed and repeated multiple times throughout the piece.
DeleteThis is great blog Caitlyn! I like your idea of using an episodic structure as that will make it easier to choreograph in sections! Also from the video, you can really see how the gestures match the words that your group chose. Would you use the task of gestures again?
ReplyDeleteThanks Caitlin! I would definitely use this task again as it made choreographing a lot easier and meaningful than just randomly coming up with gestures.
DeleteIt seems that you have thought carefully about your choreographic choices. This can strengthen your piece very much, enriching it with meaning. Is this why you chose to base both your gestures and your motifs on words that are relevant to your theme? Perhaps you could try a different task as you move forward with your choreography.
ReplyDeleteThank you! Yes, I feel as that the more relation there is to the stimulus, the more clearer it comes out in the choreography. That's a very good idea! using different tasks would definitely make the creative process more interesting.
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