Resourceful Stampy

Choreography Blog
 

Final Reflection

So... it is all over.

Taking everything in to account... all my previous posts, everything we have had to think about/plan for our final piece I think things went pretty well actually.

I am not going to lie, the weather at the beginning of the week began to worry me. It was so very very cold. How were the audience going to react? Were they going to be miserable and non responsive? Hence our decision to provide hot drinks and blankets. This was also due to one of the criterions stating that we should think carefully about our 'sensitivity to audience'. We had a bit of trouble the week before when we discovered that what the piece looked like in our heads, was not what it looked like in reality. Therefore we had to carefully rethink what was valueable and what wasn't. However it made me think carefully about the value of having people give advice and their views. I have always been someone who thinks that I can do everything alone, that I don't want to burden people but sometimes you just need people to help you realise something you may not want to.

While the audience may have been chilly and perhaps they may have seen the piece as a little 'out there', I believe that they reacted well to it. I believe that we kept their attention throughout and managed to create an atmosphere (rather inadvertently) much like a horror film. This simply happened in a heat of the moment kind of manner. Our own performance attitudes mixed with the mood of the evening and the overall feel of the piece meant that the audience were a little 'freaked' and that the flow and content of the piece was somewhat mysterious.

Our initial problem/question concerning a barrier between the audience and the performer was challenging but engaging and we experimented much with possible communication between both parties. I think this worked well and was original, it provided us with an idea we could always return to, if we ever became stuck or struggled. Being out of our comfort zones meant that this sometimes happened. However, we were able to overcome this but it was hard work and took a lot of concentration. We experimented with light and the possible uses of it. We found an original light source in touch-lights and experimented fully with the different ways of switching them on/off, their location in space, what parts of the body can been highlighted. Due to our location we needed a brighter light source and therefore decided upon the desk lamp. We tried to think 'outside of the box' during rehearsals when thinking of movement and all contributed to the think tank of movement ideas. We also tried to pay close attention to the length of time taken for each part of our piece. We tried to play extremes of time - the longest and the shortest, and the reaction of the audience to this. We also focussed on stillness and whether this can alter the shape of a piece, if watching the audience changes who the performer is.
When thinking about our audience we thought long and hard about the comfort of the audience, as they were outside. The weather was becoming incredibly cold so we decided to provide blankets and cups of tea. I believe this helped to comfort the audience and made them more engaged to the piece and willing to watch. I believe that the piece clearly displayed how we had thought carefully about, experimented with and considered; location, content, lighting, time, theme, meaning and implications.

Overall I have found this course challenging, frustrating, stressful and time-consuming but also engaging, interesting, eye-opening and fun. I have always thought that university is potentially the only time you can have to experiment and try what you wish choreography-wise without restrictions, permission needed and paying for it. And I am glad that I actually tried (albeit kind of had to ;)) something different and pushed myself out of my comfort zone. As much as I hate doing so, I am grateful for the experience as I think it has enriched my work as a choreographer and enhanced my thoughts as a dancer.

And many thanks to my wonderful choreographer collegues and Mike, and Rhianne and Simon! Oh and thanks also to whoever has read this!

So thats it... with 3 minutes to spare ;)

OVER AND OUT.

Posted December 21, 2009
 

"Come on, Mikey, the costume isnt that humiliating"

"an innovative, three-dimensional art form, [which] has probed and broken all limits of imagination"

- http://www.costuming.org/history.html


What is a 'costume'?
Is it... an outfit, a distraction, a form of meaning, a mode for suggestion, an expressive means; representative, important, vital, integral, disposable or an after thought? Or is it simply 'clothing'?

Should a costume be as important as the music or movement?
Can a costume simply be something you wear?
Does is have to mean something? Or should it?
Can costume choice be a subconscious decision? And if it is, does that limit its value within the piece?
Is it its own artform?
Should we 'choreograph' it?
Should we see it as a new method with which to experiment and play?


As a group we have been discussing ideas for costumes. In the back of our minds we have always had a possible 'meaning' for our piece, due to its location, of mannequins. This came up again when discussing costumes. While we haven't been literal with this idea through movement etc and though we haven't allowed it to dictate our work, we liked the general idea for costumes. This is very loosely linked however. I have also been thinking about how costumes can be such a big deal in a work, but what would happen if you just wore clothes. Dancing is something you can do whenever the moment takes you, usually regardless of what you are wearing. Why does it have to be different simply because it is a 'performance'?

However, with this we introduce new issues; will the audience be distracted by these (perhaps) unconventional outfits? Will people read too much into our choice? Will it dramatically alter the shape of the piece?

Whatever happens this is the choice we made, consciously. But not to make a statement or a new meaning or to suggest anything or to distract but simply as a choreographic decision.

Posted December 16, 2009
 

"Peer into the life of others, slip between cracks of the law"

Here is a pre-performance review and post-performance review of David Rosenberg's Contains Violence performed "at" The Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith during April/May last year. A fascinating set up for a dark and potentially disturbing piece, experiementing with the idea of peeping into people's lives.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2008/mar/16/theatre1

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/stage/theat...

Comparisons made with Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window...

Posted December 2, 2009
 

Time...

"Time is always changing. Time never stands still. Time is continuous, and not stationary. Time changes our perceptions, and our perceptions of time change continuously. Time is infinite; change is essential to time."

http://www.angelfire.com/md2/timewarp/time.html

Time is a difficult thing. While we try to measure it, it slips through our fingers and ever grows. Time can 'run away'. We can 'lose track of it'.
Finding time to do things is also hard. Time management is a skill not a given. You have to want to do it and understand what it entails. How you manage your time is another thing. Trying to manage your own time is effort enough but when you have to merge your time with other peoples... it becomes, sometimes, a chore. 'Find time to do it'... is easily said but not so easily done. Everyone has things to do, people to see, work due in, bills to pay etc. All these involve a specific element of time. They all take it.

Priorities... what are they? What should they be? Can we have different categories of priorities? Internal, External, wider, specific ones? Who decides what they are? Do other people have the right to judge them? Should you have to justify them? Do you have to know a specific 'situation' to understand one's priorities? Can you simply respect them even if you believe they are wrong?

Illusions... a tricking of the mind, or of the senses or of the self..?

Posted December 2, 2009
 

Audience: Performer

How do you keep your audience 'entertained'?
Do you have to please everyone watching?
How far is too far for offence?
Does tradition have to mean safety?
Who decides that the audience are the audience?
Can the performers watch the intriguing reactions of the audience?
Can the audience therefor be the performers?
What happens if you add external distractions? Will the audience become distracted or remain focussed?
How can you create a barrier between the performer and the audience and what happens if you do?
Do things like drastic temperature change and alternative seating/standing arrangements change their attention spans?

Posted December 2, 2009
 

Reflection on AS2

Whilst thinking about our current choreography assignment I began reflecting on the last one and realised I hadn't done a post-performance blog. So here it is.

Looking back at the performance I pleased with the timing and organisation of the audience. I feel that the structured yet different place (per audience member) worked well giving varying perspectives to work alongside the moving, surprising location of the performer. Also, while the timings of the pause and the beginning were difficult but after some experimenting we managed to work them out and I think we did well. The time in the dark, I hope, enhanced the audience's experience in some way. Their eyesight would have had to adjust and their other senses (mixed with the sound of Catherine moving in front of them) would have been heightened, therefore keeping them alert and connected to the piece but perhaps uncomfortable and vulnerable. I believe that having the dancer ready, present in the space had a clear effect on the audience's entrance. It gave the piece an air of formality from the outset and 'forced' the audience to be alert and give their attention to the situation before them immediately.

With hindsight I may have to agree that perhaps we did not reach the dancer's full capacity of idiosyncratic movement but I think this confirms my suggestions in my previous blog about the audience and markers not being aware about the extent of experimentation of level of 'weird' (something that I believe most think that we need to be in order to be indiosyncratic) movement the dancer has previously performed. Also, as much of our attention was focussed on the content and the details of this our ending, like many (as Simon has highlighted to us), was not great. This is something I will certainly be trying to rectify in the next assessment but it is definitely a difficult one to 'choreograph'. How can you inform the audience professionally, in-keeping with the feel of the piece and certainly of the ending? Hmm... will take a lot more thought.

One thing I felt during the choreographic process for AS2 and am beginning to feel for AS3 is how difficult it is to discover, realise or in some cases assign roles within the piece. There may be a clash of preferred roles, something may happen to make you realise one needs to step out off the performance space and take on a more directoral role, but who? How do you come to this decision and is it wrong to suggest things?

However, with all this said I believe that we created a different and unique piece in content, structure and form. Back to AS3 then...

Posted December 1, 2009
 

Final Assessment

(download)

Posted November 27, 2009
 

Conversations on Choreography

Siobhan Davies has just completed a fascinating series of interviews posted on her website of her in conversation with various art makers on the subject of choreography. They are a wonderful insights into how other artists look at or respond to the word choreography... its not all about dance choreography. 

"The word ‘random’ is a really important word. A great excitement for me is to have no control over how people respond, not to attempt to fix them in their response, but to maintain a certain randomness in the nature of what we are presenting in the knowledge that there is lots of good meaning to be got from this. I don’t want to narrow it down because there might be something that I’ve completely forgotten or haven’t noticed and that’s for you as an audience to pick up on. If you do pick up on it then that’s great, but it won’t be because I have consciously directed you to pick up on it."

Tim Crouch, Playwright/Performer

I loved this quote as I believe it adds to one of my previous posts about intention and how you convey this to an audience and what can be missed.

" It is also a sense of playfulness as well, I think that’s the most important thing and what has been interesting is to have been taken up by universities and by semioticians and theoreticians and yet that my work has play at the root of it. At the root of this is a child coming in and taking something and imbuing it with the life of something else."

Tim Crouch, Playwright/Performer

Simon keeps encouraging to be playful, but I struggle with this as in so many other areas of life or within our course we are told to think maturely and sensibly and seriously about things. While I believe that you have to have a mature approach to your playfulness otherwise it will turn into chaos, it is a hard place to put yourself if you are not used to it. Sometimes when I try to be playful with my choreography I feel that I lose a certain amount of control as playing isn't really something you can control it is just something that you do. We are introduced to/discover playing when very very young and at that age we don't consider how we are playing or why... it just happens. So I believe this quote is a note of encouragement for all those who struggle. Other artists use playfulness in their work, there is nothing wrong with it. So once you find it, keep it, there is something beautiful about watching work being performed with the simplicity of a child's attitude to play.

More to come I am sure.

http://www.siobhandavies.com/conversations/




Posted November 20, 2009
 

This is Hard

I always thought that 'oh yeah, making dance moves up - easy peasy'. But give me something out of my comfort zone and that's it, BAM, stuck. It isn't that I do not understand the task and it is not that I cannot move, but its that my mind over body barrier does not want to give in. My mind knows what I like to perform or what I want to suggest, things that I know that work, but I have to force my mind to calm down and pipe down. This, with my mind, is extremely difficult.

Idiosyncratic, what does it even mean? ... "personal peculiarity of mind, habit or behaviour"

and...

Complex ... "made up of parts; complicated. whole made up of parts; group of unconcious feelings that influence behaviour"

Collins English Dictionary (2006), Harpers Collins Publishers

That's odd, I thought those two words were not related at all, but were two separate entities. Apparently not. They are apparently intrinsically linked.

I personally believe that there is (and I say this with caution) 'nothing wrong' with movement that you are known for performing. Everyday, in every class, my body discovers something new that becomes owned by it. The body learns without the mind knowing it.

However, for this task, I had to try and put that aside and focus on what was new and fresh and interesting. Being the 'non-dancer' gave me an interesting look at the struggle the dancer has to find new movement in a body that is programmed to regurgitate the same material week after week. But we started with a few little tasks, some new body part connections etc. Once my partner got into the swing of things and over the initial uncomfortable moments, she began to find a new way of moving (not a new selection of movements) and we began producing some really aesthetically pleasing (to avoid the word interesting...) work. I tried to give her rules that went against how she would normal move, to avoid something familiar coming up, rules such as, 'you always follow your moving body part with your focus so your focus is now only allowed to be at a 90degree angle to your spine'.

So, I may still be completely against creating movement that is out of my comfort and familiarity zone (as I see nothing to be wrong with this) but, I suppose, I don't mind jumping out of my comfort zone for a few hours every now and again...

Posted October 30, 2009