#ChoreoNotes

[improvchoreo2019-blog]

Live, Laugh, Love

Augustine Plana

The first step to successfully execute this procedure was to pick the necessary and appropriate songs that go well alongside with the choreographer’s theme, Live, Laugh, Love. The said theme tackled concepts about loving, laughing and living as such, the choreographer decided to pick the songs to be used in the choreographer’s performance: Roxxane by Arizona Zervas, Miss Independent by Ne-Yo and Boyfriend by Big Time Rush. These songs were picked in particular not only because the lyrics of each song fell in line with the choreographer’s theme but also the fact that each song carried upbeat energy, the songs listed were performed in order from start to finish. The choreographer decided that for the first performance, it would be a solo in which the choreographer will incorporate moves that are similar to that of the Reggae dance category. The first song spoke to the choreographer that Roxxane, the character or the name emphasized in the song, is a person that one wishes to be with but deep down, Roxxane is a person that brings toxicity to one’s personal well-being. The choreographer decided to use movements and facial expression that signify that the individual who wishes to be with Roxxane is done trying to chase her and the said individual now wants to move on to another chapter of his story. As for the second performance which used the song of Ne-Yo, the choreographer decided to include another performer since the performance would not make much sense if it is performed solo due to the fact that the song talks about how a gentleman is chasing a miss independent. For this performance, the choreographer discussed with his partner that this performance will mostly depend on improvisation and a sense of acting since there scenes in the performance that the two performers acted a short story where the gentleman keeps chasing the lady but the said lady keeps refusing his advances. In addition, the choreographer decided to use wavy or Reggae moves throughout the entire performance as such, the choreographer decided to maintain big and circular movements throughout the entire performance. As for the final performance, which is Boyfriend, the choreographer decided to use multiple partners for this piece. As such, the choreographer made sure that the movements for the chorus were easy to follow to not give the backup dancers a hard time. As for the rest of the song, the backup dancers were instructed to perform a continuous and monotonous movement while the main dancer, which is the choreographer incorporated segments where improvisation was appropriate. The entirety of the performance-focused on snappy and strict movements where the length of the arms was emphasized, and the elastic movements of the lower body were highlighted. Finally, the choreographer ended the whole performance where the entire team for the said performance goes up near the edge of the stage to give the crowd their signature poses thus concluding the choreographer’s entire piece. (493 words)

[solangeleon]

Distant Dance

'Dance, dance, or else we are lost' PINA BAUSCH

(W. Wenders )

Pina Bausch's work followed the trend, pushing dance into finding and reaching through the common humanity and the traits and narratives that make us be, and feel. Her German expressionist vocabulary added brutal theatrical narratives that made her work more permeable-  audiences could follow stories that they could feel represented and could connect with, emotionally.

Her work also resonates in that she asked her dancers to respond to one of her ideas or thoughts separately, which she then reviewed and worked including into the larger choreographed piece, in thus establishing a collaborative, inclusive form of dance practice.

‘Continuum’ - Own artwork- charcoal and conte carre on card.

Whilst in some ways contemporary dance moved towards a universal form that distanced itself from the place it had been framed into and focused on the traits of our common humanity, it also evolved to a global more abstract language in the work of Merce Cunnigham and John Cage. Their work also experimented and incorporated chance when devising choreography, using coins and dice even, to decide what would happen next.

Even though dance had become means to explore and express new ideas and evolved into a system with its own vast vocabulary in both collective and individual form, it remained exclusive and impermeable- except for street dancing, carnivals, and some social art movements in America that included trivial domestic motion as means to democratize dance.

But dance also remains a mirror of the society and the times too-  there are some many faces to dance-  and not unlike music, it lives in the streets and close to social and racial changes in society-  Jazz comes to mind. 

One could argue that dance was still moving towards an impenetrable art form for most of a population engaging also in search of their own identity, encouraged to break away and be different by neo-capitalist tendencies in the West. 

Have we not gone too far into the individualist tendencies now we dance mostly in sweaty clubs, often even with our eyes closed? It might be that dance is not only means of expression but considering the demands and impositions we now have due to the COVID pandemic, it might offer us some tools to use what has been learned and taught by contemporary dance more widely. But also, reinstate perhaps simple, fun practices of dance which require collaboration, negotiation, listening and moving together with practice and trust. Not without space for individual expression- we are not fish after and do not live in a totalitarian regime (yet). 

Should we all Strictly Come Dancing? Maybe not in that TV, I am not a television person- we decided with my son to give ours away about ten years ago.

(One could argue that other forms of exercise also have that discipline and teach teamwork, and they wouldn't be wrong. But this undecidable is dance.)

This is all theoretical, of course. But while living in my lonely fishbowl thinking and floating around like Isadora, I can re imagine the world a better place if we do, dance.

I approached two performers with my previous piece on 'Distance Dance'. I had at that point not done any of the research for my presentation for my Masters Studio Module- but I intuitively asked the dancers to follow what I now know to be Pina's model. (Someone has always thought what you have thought before you think it. )

The two performers were a classical dancer, and a physical theatre performer trained in Le Coq Style familiar with Laban's principles whom I first saw use choreonotation- I didn't make up the word this time -  at nineteen years old- my younger sister and usual partner in crime.

She firstly inspired this piece by sending filming in fast motion to an arts 'whatsap' group  - whatsap has played a vital role in my research and during COVID-where we all respond to each other's art pieces. The next inspiration was unconscious, and in the shape of the Dancing Clown music box, I wrote a piece about on my online zoom writing session, and a present from my grandfather when I was eight.

And so I asked both dancers to respond to the ideas, gestures and feelings from Covid- 19 in two individual sections. The third section was to be constructed by collaboration by both a synchronized piece made by both their reactions to the other's first part.

It was so much harder than I could have imagined. It made me realize that if this is hard for us, it is ten trillion times worse for people whose work is always collaborative, dancers, actors, musicians- you have my utter respect and understanding of the limitations this inflicts not only in your movements but in your capacity to create work.

Synchrony is a challenge when you cannot hear the other's breath, feel and anticipate they impulses before they move, see what their next movement will be before it is.

The music didn't help. I chose 'Autumn' a remix by Max Richter of Vivaldi's Four seasons as this feels to me as enforced autumn when we all hear the birds singing spring. My incapacity to count as a dyslexic beast didn't help me, nor them- so I had to translate counting into musical phrases that they could hear. The filming and making of the third part was a technological miracle in that I had to negotiate the screens on a computer being horizontal, while the mobile phones filming for the piece were in vertical. Hello Zoom, you are the best next thing we have to share space.

https://open.spotify.com/track/65WvqwvSRc7z1627c5f5nC?si=bjQg7K7wQeS2UTuyrcvDnw

The result was an experiment of expression and collaborative design in movement which is imperfect, but that tested the capacity and will to collaborate even beyond space restrictions.

Not pencil on paper, two boxes still with trapped dancers smiling and scared of one another. It is possible…if you are as stubborn as one has to be to get any art pieces done.

[improvchoreo2019-blog]

Infatuation Turns into Commitments

Keifer Policarpio

Since only a few of my classmates and I decided that we were ok with being silly, it was then down to picking themes. With CJ Bañaga being the only one I really discussed themes with, I knew that he was leaning towards something along the lines of naughty/childish/Magic Mike-esque pieces for his choreography recital. I decided that I’ll also do something similar, but a little toned-down. I thought of the whole process of life and thought I’d focus on adolescence because that period in life has been recalled to be the Golden Ages of life, time and time again. Although I intended to have both my pieces be of the same theme, this is where I came up with my first piece, themed after what I consider to be childish love. In other words, infatuation. Infatuation is the honeymoon phase in a relationship, filled with ‘the chase’, teasing, longing, desire, and lust. After browsing YouTube for a mere few minutes, I decided, what better song to choose for my theme than Livin’ La Vida Loca by Ricky Martin. I listened to it, and thought about how I’d interpret the lyrics or beats into movements that would be cohesive with my theme. I liked what I was imagining, and the song had a few parts repeat, so I thought the song would be fun, whilst not being too daunting. I went with it. On the first day, I was able to come up with about a minute’s worth of choreography for the dance, and already, I was thinking I might’ve bitten much more than I can swallow. Regardless, I told myself I was in too deep to switch to another song. I went ahead and did my best to string together movements that were fun and meaningful towards the lyrics being sung by Ricky Martin. After recruiting Karl Pepanio and CJ Cabral to help me dance my first piece, I shared with them 70% of the dance. I allowed them to tell me what they’d like to dance in the remaining gaps in the song, and together, we came up with little drizzles of Latin dance every now and then. Why we chose to go with bits of Latin dance was because Ricky Martin’s song originally had a Latin background. In addition to this, CJ used to be part of the Ateneo Dancesport Club, while Karl and I both participated in a few Latin Nights in a bar in Mandaluyong. It all made sense to us, and so we spiced the piece up with Latin elements, like the part where CJ and Karl come together to dance in each other’s arms (they froze a bit and forgot to do this in the recital), as well as the end, when they conclude with CJ and Karl in – what they would call – a highlight, where Karl is hanging off with his body slanted, while CJ, being the lead, holds onto Karl preventing him from falling straight to his face.

In completion of my first piece, I realized how alarmingly short I was on time. On top of this, I also found it very difficult to interpret lyrics into movements. I didn’t really like how frustrating the process of choreographing my first piece, so I asked my girlfriend (since she partook in CADS’ RIB competition) how dancers come up with choreographies to songs. Amanda’s initial advice was in line with the assigned reading we had posted in our class’ Facebook Group way back on August 19. What was most helpful was her advice for me to listen to my selected song, and (do my best to) ‘freestyle’ while listening to the song. After doing so, I should note down and remember the moves that I liked from ‘freestyling’ for the bigger chunks of the song, then just fill in the gaps. I followed her advice, but of course, not being a dancer, as well as being new to dancing, the process was prolonged for me. I had to worry about being comfortable in my own skin, learning to ignore cringe-worthy moments in my attempts to dance, as well as scrapping and replacing movements that I thought I liked. Because I realized that there had to be a deeper connection between the song and I, as well as to be able to determine what it is that I want to convey with my choreography, I spent more time looking for a song that resonated with me. I ended up choosing Billie Eilish’s Everything I Wanted, because the lyrics of her song spoke to me and reflected where I myself am standing in my own relationship. With this, I had to bend my theme a bit, from being solely childish to including the maturation of a couple and their love for one another. The process I took for my second piece was a lot smoother than my first, because I found more layers and meaning in the song. The song had nice beats, which I utilized with crisp, abrupt movements, while the rest of the song was my interpretation and translation of the lyrics into movements. Creating these two pieces was quite a journey and a challenge, but I have to admit that I felt better about my second piece as compared to my first piece, only because I felt that I was able to say more about relationships with Everything I Wanted, much more than trying to portray what infatuation looks like with Livin’ La Vida Loca. (920 words)

[improvchoreo2019-blog]

Francis Fernandez

For my piece, I wanted to highlight the simplicity of life then: how we or our family was excited in the very morning of our birthday; how what we consider to be a great day could have been simply going to the mall with our parents; how we sometimes even throw tantrums on our birthdays just because one thing didn’t go our way; and the silver lining, how at the end of it, we still have a great birthday. My piece starts with the daughter (Sofia) and the father (I), sleeping. The alarm goes off and only I wake up. This represented one of the things that we don’t get enough of nowadays as college students: sleep. The daughter, by not waking up, despite the obnoxiously loud alarm and the nagging of her father, represented our carefree days. It represented the time when our focus was not too far ahead when it was more on enjoying the present. The song, “Wake me up before you go-go,” was a good song for me because it sang of anticipation and excitement, something which we, as kids, have so much of. That is why the dance was just something light and interactive (one part of the choreography was actually to interact with the other dancers). The next segment was the father and the daughter talking about their plans for the day with the daughter replying “let’s go to the mall.” The song, which was actually from the show How I Met Your Mother, was the perfect song for it because of two things: 1) its title is literally “Let’s go to the mall,” and it talks about going to the mall, & 2) the lyrics perfectly illustrate a child’s activities in the mall: “everybody come and play, throw every last care away. Let’s go to the mall today.” This represented the kind of fun that we as kids had. It was simple and light: just going to the mall, hanging out, and that was it. It shows how genuine and pure a child’s heart is, so much so that simply getting to spend quality time with their family and/or friends was already a great way to spend the day.  The next segment was the daughter asking if she can do things on the mall, to which the dad not only cut her off but also disproved. In response, the daughter storms off and would not listen to her father. This represented how petty we were as kids. Now, this may not be something to be proud of, but I would argue that without this, the silver lining would not have been evident. Admittedly, I was a petty child. I was not spoiled, but I was petty, as I’m sure a lot of kids are/were. One part of the segment was the father apologizing to the daughter, to which the daughter says that he only has 15 seconds to say everything he needs to say. This was to emphasize how petty we were as kids that we would say we “hate” our parents just because of a minor inconvenience. There really was not much to this segment because I just wanted it to be the segment right before the silver lining. The last segment showed the silver lining of my piece, where the dad says that they will do what the daughter wants to do in the mall. The point of this was to show how children see simple things as magical. Going to the mall is not something most adults would consider to be a great or fun activity, as most of them do this just as a pastime. But to a kid, the mall has many wonders. I for one enjoyed walking around in the enormous, air-conditioned space that played music which is timely for the season. I loved walking around and seeing the displays and smelling the food from the fast-food stalls and restaurants. This was the kind of simple joy that I wanted to highlight in my piece in order to bring back memories of simpler days to my audience. (683 words)

[improvchoreo2019-blog]

Jazmin Reyes

Before I go on to explain each of my dances and later on how they all connect with each other, I wanted to explain how I came about to choosing the songs I used. At the start of the class I wanted to show a story about mental health and relationships. It took me a long time to find the songs that I wanted to use but fortunately, I was able to find “Slow Dancing in the Dark”, “Blue”, and “Around”. All of which I feel like encapsulate some of the different stages of depression and the effects one’s relationships have on it.

For my first piece which was “Slow Dancing in the Dark” by Joji. This song essentially talks about a person not wanting to stay in a confusing relationship which affects how he thinks of everything. I chose to use the 2 and verse up until the end of the song because this part of the song talks about how he still feels trapped in the relationship that he had with this person and no matter how hard he tries to break free, he finds it difficult to. To show the difference between the personas in my dance, I wore a white shirt while my dancer (Summer Crisostomo) wore a black one. Overall for this dance, I choreographed it where we essentially dance the same thing but facing different directions. A lot of the movements at the start were grounded but moving towards the end, they were more of a longing for something that would be explained by the next piece. After this piece, my dancer exits the stage.

The next piece which is “Blue” by Alf Dolina. This piece is a solo. To connect it to the last piece, this delves more on the mental health of the persona (portrayed by me). This shows that the persona is longing for a chance to get better and free from her feelings of depression. The piece starts with the persona feeling quite happy and then goes to sleep. It is important to note that the dance starts and ends with the dancer staying on the ground near the back. The first part of the piece talks about the non-visible side of depression. The fact that it’s not always going to be someone who is sad or suicidal but the side where the persona just loses energy to do anything. There are times when the persona looks to the crowd which acts as her finding herself among everything that is happening which also explains her constantly bringing her hands back to her in the dance. Looking at it, the persona is always gravitated towards moving to the back where the song started and this is because that area essentially acts as a symbolism that that is the heavy feeling of depression that no matter how far she goes to get rid of it, it will always be there unless she finds help.

My last piece is “Around” by NIKI. My other dancer once again comes back to the stage but instead of wearing her black shirt, she instead wears a black one. All of these symbolisms would be explained in the next paragraph. The dance starts off with the other dancer picking me up to act as the caring side of the person. The movements done in this dance were freer as opposed to the previous dances which were all mostly grounded. There were minimal instances where both dancers were on the floor which shows that they have successfully overcome what they were feeling. The piece ends with the other dancer assisting the persona as she wraps her arms around herself. The reason behind it would be explained later on in this paper.

To connect everything together, I wanted to story to follow the persona who was trapped in a bad relationship with herself, her trying to find herself, and later on learning to love herself because she has finally found herself. The positive side being symbolized by the white shirt worn by the persona and the negative one symbolized by the other dancer wearing a black shirt. This is also the reason why both dancers are wearing the same pants is because I wanted to highlight the fact that they were the same person. After the first piece, the negative side of the persona exits and the second piece acts as the persona trying to keep hold of the positive of herself despite her feeling that way that she was feeling. At the end of the second piece, the persona is seated down on the floor. The third piece starts with the other dancer now wearing a white shirt going to aid the persona to stand up. The symbolism of the other dancer wearing the white shirt shows that the negative side of the persona has now gone away and her positive side is helping her find herself and lead her to the way of loving herself. There are numerous instances where the two dancers went separate ways and facing different directions and I wanted that to highlight that the persona is really trying her best to find herself and that she is helping herself. The piece then ends with the other dancer assisting the persona to wrap her arms around herself which symbolizes the fact that she has come to terms of finding herself. I wanted my story to show that there are different stages in depression and that there are numerous factors that contribute to how it all works. (922 words)

[improvchoreo2019-blog]

Ashreal Vidal

Though the title was one of the last things to be settled for the piece, it was rightfully named “Blind“ to indicate its essence. When we're given the theme of anything that happens in Life, I knew to lose a friend was a good and relatable topic but wouldn’t be used or mentioned at all thus I took the chance.  Before I could create the steps, I made sure to establish the outline, the individual emotion, and the general mood of the whole piece. Losing a friend should be heavy and emotional but for the audience to know the impact of what they were seeing, I wanted to let them in on the world the two friends built. I started the piece with establishing how they are now; friends turned strangers, then a flashback to when they were young (hence the song choice), progressing towards the reason they fought, lack of closure, and finally, being blinded by the past to see what you have or learn from it. My piece came right after Jacinta Pascual’s piece which saw the process of one friend leaving the other and as mine started, we see the aftermath of the departure. I wanted to synchronize the first moves to portray that they both had the same thing in mind why did it have to end like this while slowly showing that they are no longer in sync through the use of different moves for each. When things reach their peak before the chorus they reverse back into a time where they were still friends. In this part, the mood lightens and they enjoy each other’s company displayed through complementary movements. I made it playful with the start of the recurring combination to show that it started off fun but in later reiterations, it has different impacts and changes. From the floor, they rise up (as if growing up) and start maturing their steps and parting ways every now and then (as if drifting away from each other). They start dancing facing each other more to portray them bargaining but to no extent and they start moving heavier and heavier with matching emotional heft to build towards their “argument.” The argument part was full-emotion mode. I wanted the audience to see the frustration of the two just to fix everything. I molded their moves as if there were weights on their limbs but they’re still trying to connect. In the end, one gives up and leaves the other.

The one left is then paired up with a new “friend” trying to comfort him. The new friend’s movements are livelier and is trying to reach out more through extensions while the other is more compact and angrier. The synchronization of their movements at certain parts mean that they have the same problem (communication) but towards other people. Before the guy could realize that he was losing another friend, the friend already left. As I said, the whole essence means that friends come and go and it happens more often than not. Sometimes we have the choice to keep them in our lives but when we don’t, we just have to accept it. We need to learn from it and continue because life won’t wait for you. (538 words)

[improvchoreo2019-blog]

CJ Banaga

The initial thought of making my choreography for me was to first choose the songs. In my mind and during the duration of the first semester, I have been listening lately to a lot of songs from the genre called New Jack Swing. While listening to the songs and watching the videos of New Jack Swing artists, I saw that most of their dance moves are similar and repetitive, they have a certain flow of energy which makes their moves seem ecstatic. So I chose the songs The way you love me by Karyn White and I like the way by Hi-five. Initially, I was about to go for another song under the same genre, but creativity for the two songs was difficult, so I went out had to bust out a wild card, and that song was Think of You by Whigfield. After the song choices I have decided to choreograph to, the choreography for the songs began. November 11 I started doing the motions for The way you love me, I finished the choreography for about 5-6 hours on the same day. The things that were going on in my mind during that time was for to be as upbeat as the song was, and to incorporate whatever moves I have in my mind. There isn’t much to consolidate, but eventually I got it by milking myself the whole afternoon ‘til night at the dance studio in Gonzaga. After consultations with ma’am and saying that I was too stationary, I tried to do revisions as much as I could, and it has been a little bit more dynamic than it was initially. Also, I almost forgot that when I heard the song and heard that stutter on the track, I knew that I had to bust out my booty and crank a few ones from out of nowhere.

For the second song, I had a hard time choreographing the song compared to the first one because, in my mentality of trying to choreograph during that time, I did my best to avoid repeating dance moves that I have already used. And during this period in my choreography, I started to experience burn out and frustration in choreography. Basically, the journey to finish this choreography took me around a week to finish the routine for the song, even then I had to just certain moves a couple days prior to the performance. I did my best to incorporate certain movements that I learned in class, thankfully it temporarily eased a bit on my brain. As much as I liked the song itself, I found this song to be the most difficult to choreograph of all three.

In the middle of making the choreography for the second song, I found what my theme was, and that was emotional elation. Emotional elation because during my time dancing in class and in general, I cannot be taken seriously when I have to look sad, in pain, grieving, or any negative emotions or looking serious. So I chose this theme instead since it was natural for me to dance with an elated vibe. While I generally always have this certain fun side whenever I dance, during the process of choreographing my dances I actually felt this fun side of dancing disappear, interestingly enough the fun I get from dancing still lives on to this day.

The last song, while I’m on my very last legs as the past few weeks and days I have had trouble eating, sleeping, and feeling rested from the burnout and frustration of trying to create something for my choreographies. I went to the last song by just milking whatever is left of my creative juices in my brain. At the same time, I also said that I’m going to dance like someone is going to make it rain at the strip club. So how the first part went was just really a combination of me having fun and just trying to move despite all the pressure, frustration, and fatigue that has been built up since November 11. In the final part of the dance I actually had it in mind from the very beginning from the time I thought of making the song my last piece. It was because in my mind I just really wanted to do it and I think it just requires someone crazy enough to actually try to do it, luckily I was crazy enough to say “I want to do that on my performance” and I actually did. Another mentality that I had when I was trying to choreograph this song was that the music reminded me something that you would probably hear at a gay bar, very upbeat, got that European disco vibe, all you need is some able bodies and a whole lot of courage. And finally, this was the choreography that I enjoyed making out of all the three, because I know how bad it actually is, and I said to myself that this will be the most entertaining one if not for the audience, for myself. When it came to my dancers, Initially I had planned it 3 per dance, but since I wanted to be fair since I could not dance for others, I said they do not need to dance in my routine anymore. But I was super thankful for Jesu Nadal for being willing enough to dance with me for 5 minutes straight while he was struggling in his own routine for emergency reasons. And of course, to my 2 dancers at my last dance, Keiffer Policarpio and August Plana for being very nice and open to the shenanigans that I put up for my last dance. When it came to the day itself, I was very nervous. At times I asked myself why I invited my mom and dad to the show. I’m very thankful that they came and they enjoyed. Initially, I thought that I’d be the first performer since I know how my total performance would be, I would always say that “The worst is first” as the reason why I’d like to be the first performer. But when I learned a couple days prior that I’d be the last one… The pressure was on to be really entertaining and make the people leave laughing or happy. Lastly, I’m very thankful for my org mates from Ateneo SPEED and other friends who were nice enough to drop by, especially to my crush who actually attended, I sure hope she was okay after seeing whatever I did.(1108 Words)