collegeblog2012-blog

[collegeblog2012-blog]

Rehearsal Evaluation.

The rehearsal process for FMP Trojan women has been very challenging and exciting. Through out the weeks we have come together to create pieces of dance that support and have a narrative structure of the script. We have had to learn to move our bodies in abstract ways and find lines and actions we had never executed before. Most of the choreography was done by our dance tutor but some of us also created a section or phrase of our own and taught it to the rest of the class. 

I am really proud of my commitment, contribution and effort I have put in to the rehearsal process and have found I have benefit from this as I know all the choreography and can perform it accurately. I think I have worked really hard in all the lessons and classes and taken time to practice routines out of lessons which has also helped! Fortunately I can pick choreography up quickly and remember them well; this gave me an up hand as instead of going over routines again and again I could move onto the next one, or think of my own choreography. This also helped when it came to more complex routines as I could help other peers if they were struggling. 

The classes got frustrating when we were at the end of all the routines and moved onto polishing them and making them perfect as we had repeat small sections over and over until we were right, even though this meant repeating something over 10 times in some cases. But we knew that we needed to fix the small defects to make a great overall performance, we all knew how important this was and got on with it. I found remembering routines easiest of the tasks.  

Choreography Evaluation.

I think the most important thing I did was my choreography, my own contribute to the FMP. When constructing this piece I kept referring back to fragments of the script. It was a challenge coming up with the moves to back the script but it worked in the end, I based it on the themes of: 

  emotionally tired 

ruined

praying 

begging 

torture 

My inspiration for this piece came from Martha Grahams work; I loved how her dancers moved across the stage in different transitions and how the male and females were separated for the majority of the piece. I wanted my choreography to be hard hitting, and I wanted the audience to be able to understand what the dancers were trying to communicate. 

I decided I wanted to keep the girls quite feminine without being balletic, and keep the boys very loud and big. I told the group before I started teaching the routines that I didn’t want them to feel normal and comfortable when they were dancing, I told them if they felt like a movement was normal, you are doing it wrong as I wanted it to look like a struggle and I wanted to the audience to feel uncomfortable for them when they were watching it. I also told the class I didn’t want to see any pointed toes or nice hands/fingers. 

Martha Graham uses a lot of pelvic/stomach contraction, I really liked how this looked so I used this in my piece. 

In-between the phrases I added in what I called a 'FREAK', this meant that each person had to come up with an individual shape or line that was so abstract and weird that no one would ever be able to tell it was a human, this was for the theme of torture. Even though I had everyone dancing at the same time, boys a different routine to girls, the FREAK would be at the same time and would be a 3 count pause. This was so effective I couldn't have been happier with how everyone in the group reacted to my work. 

In the routine for the girls there was a lot of 'praying', lifting up with hope, there was also a floor section which was quite sad and desperate. It was nice as the dynamics between the girls and boys worked really well together. I kept the boys routine as soldier like as possible, very strong, big and loud, most movement went into the ground. At the very end of the piece the boys picked the girls up off the floor and took them off. 

This really fitted in with the place in the performance it has been put in also and is quite hard hitting. This was my most important part of the process as it was my own interpretation of the Trojan Women and its going to be seen by an audience. I also love choreographing for people and setting routines so it was a great experience for me. I was a little nervous of my class as I was the only first year that has choreographed for FMP and I was on my own as my partner was unwell. However I feel I communicated really well with everyone and I feel I had total control over the class. Everyone listened to me and did as I said. If I could do this again I would of made up more choreography before I went into the class as It was shorter then I would of liked. However I got really incredible feedback off everyone in the class and they all really enjoyed it!

The parts from rehearsals that really stick in my mind are how everyone worked together to create the best pieces of work we could. As this is my first FMP it was really nice and positive to see a big group of people working together to perfect pieces and making new material. I loved the respect everyone had for one another. 

When putting the piece together, learning que's has been difficult for me as I am used to performing in dance shoes and not a mixture of both, so learning when to go off an actors line is a new experience for me, and I have sometimes had to ask which dance went where and when we were on in the full rehearsals. However after doing full rehearsals a few times now I have effectively improved on this and have learnt to listen behind stage for what lines I need. 

Another of my weaknesses was 'the walk'. This is a very demanding movement which was very hard to get at the start, but after practicing it in and out of class times I have finally mastered it and am now confident when performing it. This was important to get as it is used as a transition between many sections. It also looks really good when it’s done properly. 

Overall I am really pleased with how I have worked through out this process and am really excited to see it all come together at the gatehouse for the final performance. 

[collegeblog2012-blog]

George Balanchine.

George Balanchine, born in St. Petersburg on Jan 22, 1904.

 At the early age of nine, Balanchine enrolled in the Imperial Ballet School. He then graduated with honors, then enrolled in the Petrograd Conservatory. Balanchine then became a principal dancer and choreographer of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. He moved to the US in 1933 and became director of ballet for the Metropolitan Opera House. In 1946, he cofounded the New York City Ballet and became its artistic director and principal choreographer.

In 1924, George and three other dancer left for a tour of "Soviet State Dancers" in Western Europe. However they did not return back home and traveled performing, when they found themselves in London the joined the Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. He soon became ballet master (principal choreographer) of the company. He created several ballets, but also suffered a serious knee injury that ended his performance career. He then got divorced from his dancer wife and shortly after he left the company. After leaving Ballets Russes, George decided to form his own company, he named - Les Ballets. He developed six new ballets during the short time the company was up and running but then moved again to the U.S and opened a company called American Ballet. 

In 1938, George moved his company to Hollywood touring North and South America. That company also fell through but yet again George swiftly formed yet another dance company called The Ballet Society.  After several successful performances, the company became the resident company at the New York City Center for Music and Drama. In 1948, Ballet Society became the New York City Ballet. George Balanchine received the Kennedy Center Honors Award in 1978. In 1983, he died of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, after several years of illness however his work is very much still remembered to this day. Here is a video of some of his work, this piece called JEWELS;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VCDfThwTaY&feature=related

Unlike the other practinoners I chose to watch and study this one is more ballet, However this video shows his excellent staging and formations with performers and has really inspired me with the choreography I have in mind. George Balanchine's work is admired all over the world and his rising success. 

[collegeblog2012-blog]

Martha Graham.

Martha Graham, born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania on May 11, 1894.

Her father, George Graham, was a doctor of nervous disorders. Being doctors of high status the children had a high standered of living and expectations, with the children under the supervision of a live-in maid. As Martha grew in age and in love for dance she was strongley discoruged to persure a carear in performing arts or dance but her bond was to strong. 

When Martha was 16, she finally won over her dads permision to see a dance performance which took place in Los Angeles, he went to acompany her. Her father presented a bouquet of flowers to her outside of the theater, as told by Martha in her autobiography. The performance inspired her soo much that night that she decided to devot the rest of her life to dance, much to the dismay of her parents. However many times she was told a carear in performing arts would not to be suited to a daughter of a  prominent Presbyterian physician she carried on with her dreams which later on lead to the Martha Graham Dance Company, which today is the oldest and most celebrated dance company in the world.

Martha enrolled at Denishawn School At age 22. This was a very late age for an aspiring dancer but Martha had found her destiny. However her body wasnt able to move like the other dancers in the troupe as she had started too late in their eyes, But Martha persevered, proving to be a quick learner. She worked very hard, paying much attention to detail, to train her body. She did this for 7 years and then moved to New York when she launched her own company, 1929. Her mission- ''to chart the graph of the heart'' through movement. 

Martha's early choreogrpahy wasn't taken in too well by audiences as they were just not sure on what they were seeing on stage as it was so powerful and modern and were often based on strong pelvic contractions. She wanted to portray emotional and spiritual themes through her work. Martha was establishing a new language of dance, one that would change everything that came after it.

Still dancing in the late 1960s, Martha often turned to alcohol to cope with her despair at her declining body. She decided to use more theater movements then dancing and used the dancers around her to do the work and even though to critics said she was way past her prime Martha refused to leave the stage as her love was far to strong. However eventually the critics won and she officially retired from the stage but this did not stop her teaching and dancing through out the 60s, and she carried on teaching until she passed away at the age of 96 in 1991. 

Martha's passion, determination and pure love for dance is something to inspire everyone. Here is a video of some of her work called ''Rite of spring'' (1990) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jl33jF57iDQ&feature=fvst

Here are some notes I took while watching the video; 

Repatative movements, contractions, abstract lines, movements of despair, repatative cannons, basic line formations, flexed feet throughout the dance, obvious stage controll, very basic staging, balletic movements, modern actions, not alot of contact untill the end, effective transitions/lifts. 

[collegeblog2012-blog]

Alvin Ailey.

Alvin Ailey, born in Texas in 1931. His mother at the age of 17 was forced to care for him on her own as his father abandoned the family at a very early stage, she struggled greatly to find employment as a single mother during the great depression, and this effected Alvin’s life from an early age. Like many African Americans, she migrated with her son to California. Alvin Ailey first discovered his love for dance when he was enrolled in the Hollywood studio of Lester Horton which was historically the first multi racial dance school in the United States. This influenced him a great deal providing him with both artistic technique and a solid dance foundation.

Alvin Ailey is African-American dancer and choreographer. His gospel background, along with his desire to lift up and entertain, formed the techniques of his unique choreography. He is remembered by many as a modern dance genius. In his performances with groups and various companies he transforms modern dance styles from traditional traits from his life and upbringing. 

The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, founded in 1958, has performed before millions of people throughout the world. The company's first performance took place at New York's 92nd Street Young Men's Hebrew Association. 

 Alvin Ailey unfortunately died in 1989 at the age of 58. However In 1992, he was inducted into the National Museum of Dance and Hall of Fame. And even today, audiences continue to study and to be entertained by Ailey's exceptional talent and versatility, through his famous works including Revelations and Cry, two of his most famous pieces of work. Not only did Alvin Ailey help to enhance the audience and popularize modern dance, he also made and put out a multiracial dance troupe which at the time was unheard of as most modern dancers were white. He focused and based his dances on topics like spirituality and despair, this influenced his choreography dearly and you can see these emotions beaming through in much of his work. In all, Ailey created and published 79 ballets during his lifetime.

The video below is called 'Wade in the Water' from 'Revelations' 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9uEq9Sjefg

In this piece you can defiantly see the despair and pain that influenced the movements. The lyrics in the song are to do with going down to the water to wash the clothes. It is very grasping and the staging is beautiful, especially the part with the blue material being waved from the wings of the stage to create a water/ocean effect on the stage while the dancers performed. You can pick out the gospel like traits in this piece as they are more low key movements like walking with hips swaying etc. 

The actions in Wade in the Water are very repetitive and almost predictable, the duet. However I love the abstract lines and flowing movement of the whole piece, the transitions were also extremely smooth, I think we can take this into some of our work and use well. I think Alvin Ailey is a very inspirational man with some stunning work which we can all take from and learn. 

[collegeblog2012-blog]

Final Evaluation for Acting.

Look Back in Anger - John Osborn - Alison.

I thought the build up to this went really well, I learnt all my lines realitively quickly so was able to concerntrate on my acting for the majority of the time. Playing and learning the character Alison went well as John Osborn based his plays on reality and so this was pretty easy to pick up. I tried to use natural reactions to things that partner said as it was a duolog. I tried to allow myself to be as natural with my voice and manorisms as i could. Me and partner for this worked really well and cracked on with everything when she could come into college but unfortunatly she was unwell alot and we weren't able to perform on the assesment day.

However working in rehersals went well and I thought we had a really strong piece. We has staged the piece so we werent just sat still which is what other peers used in the same dialog. We moved around the space and used the furnature that was there, we tried to really portray the emotions that the characters carried in the script. I used the emotion recall method to do this. I think the rehersals went really well for this piece and wasn't best pleased my partner didnt show for assesment day as I was really ready and gunning as I felt this was my strongest piece so far. I felt if we could do this again I would of done a little more research into the character to really empathise with her and use this in my acting.

The Resistable Rise of Artoro Oi - Stanovslaski - The Ghost of Ernesto Roma

I found this character really interesting and loved exploring it. Unlike John Osborn, Stanovslaski leaves alot of his script open to enterpratation so I could really go to town on this character. To start with I was a little laid back with it as I couldn't really get into the script however I chose to physicalise this piece which made me a lot more comfertable with this. I pretty much choreogrpahed the script with movement and actions which also helped me remember lines as they were a little out of the ordinary which also made this piece harder.

I was really happy with how this monolouge went as I really worked hard with it as I found it harder then Look Back in Anger, but was happy with the end result. I also chose to increase the intensity with this by adding in an Oi character. If i had time to make improvments I would of learnt my lines quicker so I could concerntrate on choreographing this and working on the staging as I was a little late with doing this. On the other hand I felt I worked really hard on this piece and it paid off.

[collegeblog2012-blog]

Final Evaluation for Dance.

For this dance project we used various methods of choreography. The first was called chance method. I was very open minded when entering the task and therefore got the hang of quite quickly, this was more difficult for others and I felt this gave me a head start. We were given lists of things that we had included into our piece. We used chance structure to find our music and one of our phrases.

Chance structure, Solo - text-, 3 minutes long.

What are chorographic devices?

The furniture of the house, the structure is the bricks and foundations. Using lots of devices but only one structure.

We used a lot of choreographic devices including...

Unison: All working together at the same time doing the same thing.

Canon: Round of repetitive movement used in different ways.

Highlights: Most remember able thing from a dance/performance.

Climax: Reaching the peak of the dance.

Transition: Linking phrases or movements from to the other.

Motif development and variation: A chorus of dance.

Narrative structure: telling a story through dance movements.

I felt like the task was slightly restricting on our choreography as we were limited to the methods and movements. For example one of our phrases used by chance could only include these movements -

1running 2jumping 3leaping 4walking 5turning 6stillness

We also had to include these -

Cannons- loose cannon, simultaneous cannon, accumulative cannon. Motif- run,jump,leap,still,leap,still,jump,leap,jumps,walk,jump,still Choreographed by the chance roll of the dice, numbered randomly also by chance of the dice.

Highlight Augmentation-make something bigger Retrograde-rewinding something Embellishment

We choreographed our piece phrase at a time; on averages I used one lesson to create one phrase. In total there were 6 phrases so I also had a to use some time at home and rehearsal space to make the phrases. This was the easy part.

Embellishing, highlighting, augmenting and retrograding were tricky. I found this hard as I had already got a good idea of what my piece was going to be about and how it was going to flow, then adding these devices in made it whole new dance. I found retrograding the hardest as I did this on my gestural phrase, I took a lot of practice but I got there in the end. I used Augmentation on my travelling phrase as I really elevated and extending a lot of my jumps more then I would have done without this. We also had to make up a phrase to teach someone else and learn someone else’s phrase, this went really well as I was paired with someone who picked things up quite quickly.

I chose to use some text that inspired me, so that my dance would mean something and that would get through to the audience. As many of my peers know, Justin Bieber has a huge impact on my life and inspires me greatly, and my favourite film is Forrest Gump so I also took a huge chunk of text from the film and mixed it together to use for my piece. Fortunately it went really well to my choreography and I was really happy with the end product.

I was really proud of my piece and how it went, compared to most of my peers who worked slowly and as a consequence had unfinished work to show on the performance day. I really enjoyed this task and felt I worked really well with most of the demands. I felt that sometimes I would become very closed minded into my own style and needed to refresh myself and by doing this I would find some inspiration from somewhere and I would be right back on track again. I would have liked to have worked a little faster as I was very close to not being happy with the end of my piece but it worked out great in the end. If I was to improve something I would be more focused on the task and be more open-minded in some areas, next time I will do this by practicing more and being more engaged with the lesson. Other than this I was really pleased with my end product and I thought I worked really well in lessons.

[collegeblog2012-blog]

Final Evaluation for Physical Theatre.

Over the weeks we have worked really hard to produce an inspirational piece of physical theatre. After researching different practionars we decided that our favourite was Jasmine Vardinmon for gestural and Antonin Artaud for his abstract ideas. We pretty much had free reign over most of the piece and our group, all being creative, took off straight away and came back to class with too many ideas. If we had enough time we would of loved to have used all our ideas to create a show or what not, but unfortunately we were only aloud to create a five minute piece.

We were told to base our piece on something that inspired us and something that inspired me was the ocean, so we took this as our theme and started out with the idea of becoming fish. To do this we went out to a local garden centre called Holly bush, we observed the way fish moved and the relationships they had with each other. We took this and worked with it. We tried to make the movements we did look like we were in water, almost like dancing through treacle, this was hard in a group but did look really effective in the end.

When creating the piece, we realised that we didn't have a lot of time for all of us to choreograph a whole piece together, but we didn't want one person to take lead and choreograph the whole thing so each of us went and created a section which lasted for two counts of eight. Then we came together and taught each other all the phrases we had made and used them as the different sections. All of these would be done in unison.

We liked the idea of fish moving together in school, however we noticed whilst observing the fish that some fish tend to break away for a little while but all end up back in the school at the end, we liked this and choreographed this into the piece. After each section one of the dancers would break away and do the same section but on a different level or the opposite way etc, this portrayed that the fish had broken away. We moved in a dice formation as there were five of us and when all the fish had broken away we repeated the section where we broke off in cannon, and came all together back in unison to do the very last section all together, still in our spread dice formation. The all of the performers came back together at the end to repeat the first section in a tight dice. This then ended the piece.

We performed this to an abstract piece of music called noises of the ocean. And in our favour the music fit our piece really well! We were all really proud of the end product and performed it really well; this was then put into the dance show. If we could have improved anything I would have chosen to work on the transitions more as they were really quickly put together and slightly predictable. I would have made them more creative if we had time as I think this let the piece down slightly. Over all I think I worked really well in this project and really helped the group with ideas and suggestions.

[collegeblog2012-blog]

Practice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlNOOdNcrEA&feature=youtu.be

This video is from a rehersal session when we were experimenting with our practical work so far. I think I work well in rehersal sessions because I have a good idea of what I would like from the end result, therefore I work quickly with working towards that. There is still alot of developing to do as yet but it is coming along really nice. I struggled with the foot phrase as isolating one section of my body was hard for me as I'm used to using everything, but its effective and works really nice. I need to research some more foot phrases for inspiration.

[collegeblog2012-blog]

Dramatic Movement.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2h3c3saHjc

Here is a video of our final presentation of the work we created in the workshop. 

When creating this we had warmed up and started with some contact improviasion and transititions. We then moved onto using our character from the acting auditions yesterday and making a sequence of 8 counts using the emotion and what they stand for. We paired up and taught each other our sequences, and then paired up with another pair and taught it all together and put it into the final performance. 

Doing this made us think about our characters a little more and really exploring their emotions. This will help through out the rest of the workshops. 

[collegeblog2012-blog]

Installations.

In this workshop we worked on different ways of moving and carrying other peoples weight. We then moved onto using sand to build a set, this would be carried in tshirts and held by people moving into the space. We used two sholder lifts and one chair lift to carry the sand onto the space which was really effective and looked really good. This workshop was important as we are using installations in the Final Major Performance. 

[collegeblog2012-blog]

Devising with Themes.

In this session we started with focus tecniques, this included walking with our eyes closed from one side of the room to the other and counting to ten in groups without communicating. 

For the main part of the lesson we were put into groups and given a theme, our theme was 'war related violence'. We decided to get into pairs and walk on like we were soldiers in combat but in slow motion, each pair created a sequence of fighting again in slow motion and then stuck in a freeze frame. then we went into fast fighting this time with noises. This went really well and was at the end shared infront of the whole group. 

[collegeblog2012-blog]

War Room.

In this lesson we were asked to bring army styled clothing. We were told when we walked into the theater, which was now a war room, that we had to be totally open minded and improvise. When we got into the middle of the room we had to pick up a card which told us what role we were playing. I was a soldier. We followed commands off generals and gods however became rebelious and decided to work on Hadeas side for the last part as he offered us immortality. Instructions from Glynn were thrown at us whilst in the middle of it to make us react. 

I found improvising the war room really good, as we learnt how to react naturally to things. In script and plays we are given there is already a plot and we have already learnt how to feel and react to something but this gave us a chance to just throw it all out become really natural, which also makes it totally believable. 

[collegeblog2012-blog]

Acting Auditions.

When we were given the script, we were asked to read through it and pick a short Monoluge, around a minutes worth, to perform to everyone when we got back. We were also told that we could totally physicalise a piece of text so that it was narrative and told the script. This is what I chose to do as i wanted to concentrate on dance for FMP. My character was Hecuba as she was very emotional. I wanted the audience to see the sadness and emotion in the piece, I included the line 'Take him' at the very end of my dance just to let the audience feel the sorrow. 

[collegeblog2012-blog]

Bausch Workshop.

In this workshop we were given handouts with 2 short stories on. We read through them in our group and picked some key themes and wrote them down. We then used emotion recall to think back to a time where we felt something similar to the theme we picked, Mine was powerfull. we then had to describe what it was that made us feel this way and do all the actions that we would of done. We then had to get into two's in our group and show our partner and watch theres. we then had to swap dialog but keep the movements of our own, this was really difficult! We then came up with gestures to fit the key themes, and then linked them all together into a short piece of physical theater. Lastly we used blankets to build a safe place for everyone to be, and then made someone, in the safe place, take power of the group, this was also linked into our final piece which we shared with the group. 

[collegeblog2012-blog]

Robert Wilson Workshop.

At the begining of this workshop, we got put into group and did a little quizz to refresh/educate each other on the script. We then worked on meditation and breathing techniques as this is a key skill for Robert Wilsons actors. We started this on the floor relaxed and moved to standing position this got everyone in the room really focused and relaxed. We then moved around the space in a character that we could portray through just walking, for most people this was just an arm gesture. 

After this we made costumes out of white tape and paper, this was really fun and we had some really creative costumes. we then paraded and used different dynamics and  speeds to make a piece. 

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Developing.

Over the weeks we have used different techniques and inspiration from practitioners to come up with our very own piece of physical theatre. Our main inspiration came from Antonin Artuad as he had a very surreal style, and we liked the thought of being something in-human.

we decided to use a narrative structure and used many devices such as, retro grade, repetition, canon.

[collegeblog2012-blog]

The Constituent Features of Dance.

Dancers:

Gender

Physical Apperance

Skills

Number of

Aural Setting:

Composed music

Sounds of dancers breathing etc

Natural sounds, birds, waves etc 

Human voice

Movement:  

Space

Action

Time

Dynamics

Six Dance Actions :

Locomotor

Elevation

Turning

Gesture

Stillness

Falling

Group Relationships:

In space

In group work

Contact

Role

Character 

Physical setting:  

Staging/performance space

Props

Costumes

Lighting

Devices:

Canon

Contrast

Highlights

Climax

Balance

Transition

Logical sequence and proportion

Unity

Motif development and variation 

Devices and Structures:

Sequential choreographic structures. 

Binary

Ternary

Rondo

Contrapuntal Structures.

Ground Bass

Round (or canon)

Fugue

Episodic Structures.

Narrative

Other structures.

Natural structures i.e) life cycle

Collage

Chance