Week 5
Creating Ideas
To begin we looked at our sections for the dance and decided what we wanted to create atmospherically for the audience in the opening section and ending of the piece. We decided that the beginning needed to show a robotic feeling of strength to symbolise a mass of trained soldiers. The ending will be very opposing to this as it will demonstrate how war ends in destruction and death and that no matter the reason for war, there will never be a positive outcome. We have also considered the idea of leaving the ending to a cliff-hanger where we drop to one knee with a look of fear to portray that something more is to come.
Gestures
The first part of this task was for each member of the group to create a gesture individually based on any sections of the dance. I did mine based on the coming together section and mimed the use of a sling shot to demonstrate play fighting of the boys before they left for war.
We chose three gestures to develop further, Louisa's shows a playful nudge at first then the bigger version is of her making a friend aware of something coming and the final development is of saving a friend. Then we worked from Lucy's which was a sideways lean with the hand up as to protect yourself. We developed this by making it bigger and more intense each time. And finally we developed Erin's gesture which a slow rotation of the hand in front of the face whilst the eyes follow. We developed this to then have a shake in the hand and in the final development to grab the wrist with the opposite hand.
Here is a video of this task.
We then developed further Erin's gesture into a short phrase using canon for added effect.
Your initial structure ideas are very interesting and the idea of ending on a cliff-hanger would be very effective. The gestures you have created as a group are really good and I can see how they link to the stimulus! How did find this task? Did you enjoy it?
ReplyDeleteThank you Mhairi for your comment. I found this a useful task as we now have more tools to use when creating. We have already gone back to these gestures whilst creating and have spoken as a group about how we will use the developed versions throughout the piece.
DeleteI really like how you’ve decided to start the piece off with such a powerful feeling of the soldiers marching! I think this will have a great impact on the audience, especially when you break off into the coming together section which will show more personality in the characters. Was the task of gestures helpful and would you use them in your choreography?
ReplyDeleteThank you for your kind response. We have since then started to include them into our piece and are discussing how we will use the developed versions later on in the work.
DeleteI really like how you have considered the emotions you want the audience to feel, this sort of development sounds really interesting and I am really looking forward to seeing this in your piece. If you had to pick one more gesture for your choreography what would you pick and how would you develop it?
ReplyDeleteThank you Caitlyn for your comment. I would consider using a more human gesture such as head bow, symbolising prayer, or a wave maybe to symbolise the soldiers leaving on trains or boats and waving goodbye to their loved ones.
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