Body Stories by Lauren 2/10/12

During the process of making the solo Lauren told us that she had investigated child memories and the emotions from these events and questioned what these emotions were. She also demonstrated during the talk at the end of her piece how she used the phases from her childhood to influence the movement, which I found fascinating to watch and learn about it is similar to what I am interested in for my own choreography. I noticed throughout the piece that I was making metal notes on my dislikes and likes about the piece but not only about the piece its self, the way she has choreographically structured her piece. Repetition is something that I have seen in a couple of different works and found really strong and is something I would like to investigate further. As I am constantly thinking about how different pieces influence my own practice I find it hard to follow the piece for itself therefore I lose the interested to know what the piece is about. Although I think this is a good thing as before I always thought you had to know what the piece was about straight away for the piece to work, however I now enjoy the piece regardless.  

Treatment 8/3/12

I had Craniosacral Therapy to see if it will help my foot injury. Going into the treatment I had no idea of what the treatment was like or how it works however, after about half an hour of the treatment I started to understand as I had a strange relaxation feeling. Marina said that she can feel that my right foot is all congested and the treatment has helped to create space within my foot. Form this treatment I have realised that my foot injury has affected the whole of my body not just the other side of my foot where I have tendinitis, I noticed this because Marina kept having to move to different parts of my body to create the space and she said she can feel the congestion throughout my body that is all connected to my foot. My left side was particularly congested as it has had to compensate for my right injured side. The treatment was a very strange feeling and every so often my body wouldtwitch and then felt more relaxed even though I didn’t think it could get any more relaxed. After the treatment my whole body felt longer and airier and when I started to walk I felt quite empty of bones and muscles but full of air, a very strange feeling. When I am moving I need to be aware of this and try and get a sense of that feeling when I am moving, I also need to be careful when moving that I done over do it and undo all the work that I have just had.

Feildwork by Joana Tischkau 6/3/12

This piece was interesting to watch after Julia’s piece as it seemed to follow the identity idea. The use of her belongings and how she organised them told me that she is constantly trying to work out something either to do with herself or things going on around her, from rearranging the objects many times made me think that she is confused as to what category it goes in but it doesn’t necessarily symbolize that particular object that she is confused about, it was giving me a wider look on what the object could represent.

Behind the mask by Julia McCaughley 6/3/12

This piece gave a very clear message to me that by using things like make-up we hide our real identity because we are insecure in ourselves, but in actual fact sometimes it can become your identity. Julia used make-up to the extreme which suggested for me that using make-up can make you think and become more confident in you self however, it can look to others fake and less attractive to hide your true self.

Stages by Oana Rotariu 6/3/12

In this performance I saw the materials to be objects that kept changing depending on what ‘Stage’ she was at, a different material was used at a different stage which I thought made it clear for me and the idea of stages working well.  Another thing I noticed is that the stages were backwards to what would normal happen, for example she was holding the material as if it was a baby then she put it under her top to symbolize being pregnant which should normally be the opposite way around. My overall interpretation of the piece is that she was showing the stages of life but backwards.

The traces left behind by Fiona Jackson 6/3/12

The exploration and work that Fiona had done related a lot to mine and Hannah’s duet, it was totally different but somehow there are aspects that relate to our ideas that we both picked up on. ‘The traces remain’ was a quote used in the program notes which stood out to me and made me think about this in relation to space. It gave me a sense of movements being left in space and creates a remaining image in the space, which Hannah and I have been working on in our duet. This can also link to if you move over the space it leaves another trace layering the images up. Making us think of layers being heavy and light, as the idea of heavy and light is also what we are exploring within our duet. Different kinds of movements leave different traces and layers which creates originality to each image that is left in the space. This performance allowed us to think about other ways we could explore our ideas that could be useful in our future progress.

Duet rehearsal 5/3/2012

In today’s rehearsal we worked on more unison based material to see if that works, as we haven’t got much of that in our duet. We felt it worked but I was good to get an outside opinion, so we asked Beth to watch our whole piece and give us some feedback from it. Some of the points she and some others made were:

·        It wasn’t what I expected your duet to be like which was good and I also found it quite quirky and interesting

·         Needed more dynamics in the piece, it all seems to be at one level

·         Play with light and heavy throughout the piece, maybe using more parts of your body and on our body

·         Playfulness what really evident

·         Images moving out into space idea wasn’t clear but I don’t know if that matters

·         More time at the beginning and in other improvisation times to really allow us to explore

·         The piece is ambiguous, its open all interpretations and works just as well

·         Nice to have some unison In it to see you come together   

These are all good points that we can work with in our rehearsal tomorrow.

Video of duet after feedback 4/3/12

This is the video of our duet working on all the feedback we got from work in progress. Will you all watch the first video of our duet then read the feedback then watch this clip and see if you can see the improvements and leave a comment of your thoughts, ideas, improvements, things that worked, things that didn’t anything. Also any dance and theatre lot it would be really helpful to get your feedback as you haven’t been in any of the lessons and you don’t really know what we are doing so if you could do that it will be great THANK YOU : )

29/2/12

It's a 1000 piece puzzle.....

Dancing with Disability 29/2/12

Over a couple of sessions we have been focusing on dancing with disability, I have found this interesting as I haven’t looked at this or had any discussions on it before. In today’s improvisation class the lesson was about Karen and Fiona and how their individual disabilities affect them and their moving which I found beneficial especially with Fiona as I have always been afraid of asking and sometimes working with Fiona because I was unsure if she was comfortable talking about her disability, whereas now I feel like it is not a taboo subject.

When we started moving and looking at the way Karen adapts her moving it really made me think about the actual movement and how we go about doing that movement not just the outcome of the move (We explored this with looking at a handstand). In the exercise where we were experimenting with the use of the left side I found it strange at first only  using the left side and I noticed as time went on I started to forget and use my other side.

Overall this lesson was an eye opener and I would like to explore more with restrictions and also what different bodies can do.

Rocking

These are just a few thoughts I had after the lesson:

·         It took me a while to get into and used to the rocking, but when I did I preferred more rocking rather than soft and slow

·         When I was moving with my eyes closed it felt totally different than usual

·         The firmer the touch the better

·         Working in a trio was different as we have been working a lot in duets

·         Felt a lot more confident with giving my weight and letting go

·         Within the moving at the end I felt a real connection between Hannah, John and myself

·         I love the hands on exercises

Duet Rehearsal

In our rehearsal we started by recapping the material we already have, changing a few bits from the feedback we got last week. We both found it easy to adapt the material so that it included or discarded bits of material, whist doing this task we came up with other ideas and it all seemed to fit together. From the choreography lesson we wanted to take what we were doing which was playing around with simple movements with eye contact and develop this further by using levels, however we decided not to do too much of it all at once it would work better if we broke it up and used different movements. I found in this lesson we got carried away with what we were doing we forgot about our exploration of idea’s, but then again we were not really creating any new material we were just adapting and playing around with what we have already got. Since the last session was on sound we listened to some tracks I had on my iPod and decided which ones we feel would go best and ones that we didn’t like so that in our next rehearsal can use some of the tracks and move to them to see if they work or not.

One main thing that I have took from the rehearsal is that improvisation works really well with us but we also want to include set work to.  

Duet progress

In today's class Hannah and I wanted to work on one of the feedback points we were given which was to work on the connection between us when we are far away or not in contact. We also looked at keeping eye contact as we were told this worked well in the working progress a couple of weeks ago. Whist playing around with this Katye was putting different pieces of music on to see what worked and what didn't, as I was moving I only noticed one piece playing which was the third track that was a playful piece and made me laugh at the way we were moving fitted to this piece. This lesson helped a lot having the time to play around with sound as we haven't done much with sound yet in our rehersals. From this lesson I think that we will look at sound more and have a play around with more tracks as I believe if we find the right sound it will work well. The exercise that we were doing I believe worked well and would fit in nicely with the rest of our work, however I think it could be further developed and also more specific with the score.

Devolpment

Looking back to when I started this course to now I feel like I have changed the way move and look at dance, before I just saw dance as a technique and something that I learnt whereas, now I see dance as my experience and I have learnt how your body is involved rather than just moving. When I come to think about all of this I find it very hard to explain and the only way I can really explain is by say that a massive door has been opened that has many rooms inside that all connect to each other.

3 points of conact on the foot

This is a picture out of my artist journal from an experiential anatomy lesson. In this lesson we were looking at the feet and how we walk using the different points of contact, I noticed from walking around that I tend to have most of my weight on the outside of my food not using all 3 points of contact and I also noticed that I could spread my toes out more. This was a good lesson for me as I am focusing on my foot for my body story and also these kinds of exercises are bring my attention to my posture and alignment which will help my injury and also they will help with my practise as I rarely think about this sort of thing.

The bits of yellow on the picture represent where I could feel most of the pressure by the end of the lesson, if I had done this at the start and at the end I’m sure they would have been two different pictures as throughout the lesson I concentrated on putting weight onto the point to contact below my big toe instead of just down the outside.

Eyes Closed

In Experiential Anatomy lesson we were doing a moving task that involved us closing our eyes for a section and then having our eyes open for a section. In this lesson it was very clear to me that I worked so much better and enjoyed it more working with my eyes closed. When I came to write about the task I drew about is which is odd for me because I usually write. I related my drawing back to when I was watching a class once and I has said that the more going on the less I see and the less that is going on the more I see. Therefore if I have my eyes closed then I see less and more happens, whereas if my eyes are open and see everything around me than the less that happens for me. This is my drawing below of how I interoperated this.  

Echoing

In the studio Harriet and I did the task we were set for improvisation, one thing really stood out to me and what I was thinking about at the end of the task was echoing and copying. I found it hard in the task to distinguish the two.

What is the difference?

Echoing means you don’t have to do that same thing you just take little bits that are the same and create them into your own thing.

Copying means that you repeat what the other person is doing in the same way.

Pilates

I have been doing Pilates as one of my wake ups and I noticed yesterday that I have really improved and it has helped me with my posture of my body a lot. Previously I have been having trouble with my lower back being really tense and giving me pain and since working in pilates with my core I have seen a big difference.

Foot

During lessons I have been trying to pay more attention to my foot making sure that adapt or stop when  my foot gives me pain, I have particularly found this difficult as I am used to just working through it. In Katye's lesson on Tuesday we were concentrating on working through the feet, and I believe giving my feet some attention before the lesson helps me to be aware of the correct alignment of my foot, which helps with the pain. From the start of the course to now I believe nothing has changed with my injury however I have learnt a lot about the alignment of my foot and also how to adapt things to prevent the pain, although I still feel I have a way to go with it all.

Feedback on duet working progress

From showing our duet we received feedback from our piers and Kayte. I found this really useful as Hannah and I felt that we needed some feedback to make our next step in the process. We had our 3 ideas which are Images moving out into space, Heavy and light and playfulness that we used to create our section of choreography and wanted to received feedback on how these ideas worked individually or together. The feedback was spilt up into 3 sections,

Images evoked by the duet

• Playfulness between each other and how each others body work
• Heavy and lightness worked well together but what do they mean?, and it could go further
• Hearing the breathing adds to the piece
• Body surfing works well push for more because it works for us together

Strong aspects of the duet

• Awareness in the space- Pathways
• Moving around each other was very strong but when we were apart it wasnt as strong
• Showed that we had been in the space together and moved well
• Moving fliud around the space
• Eye contact on the roling was good- explore more with that and dont be afraid to play with distance between us

Further development to the duet

• Softness with movements
• Eye contact needs more
• Spatial proximity was very simple rollog with eye contact find more and greater exploration with that
• Stillness, allow space between movement
• Breathing
• Contact skills are a move showing a set exercise from class
• What is moving out onto space?
• Play with it more
• Heavy and light can go further
• Stay away from class 'moves'
• Seeing and not seeing- Deep exploration

Andrea Alson's body story was a book that we were advised to look up as it could help us with our understanding of our ideas.

These were the feedback points that Hannah and I are going to look at and work on.
I feel that we have somewhere to go and work to do on with the duet which has given me motivation to keep working and produce a good duet.
The feedback lesson has been very useful and I could benefit with another one before the assessment.

Improv lesson with objects

In this lesson we were working with objects and how we could rearrange them. For the first task of picking the objects I was interested in different things that we dont normally handle, my objects were an empty glass, cushion and post it notes. I was partially interested in the glass which I think was down to the element of it being delicate and breakable that made me most interested in using this object. I found the  initial placing objects in extreme places exciting, however this changed into becoming creative and experimental in a serious way rather than I playful way. I noticed that this again changed once the task changed to the whole group using all the objects because the excitement element came back and we all began to play like children. Over all the tasks these different feelings came in and out and I only really noticed them when I sat back and thought about the lesson and how I felt.

Here are some pictures taken whilst we were in the process

We then went to see some other dance students doing a similar thing in the gallery, first of all they were arranging the objects then we were invited to join in. I went straight to bottle caps on the floor and started to pick out the pink ones and write my name out with them. I don’t really know why I did this it was just the playfulness mind that I was in from the lesson before. This was really nice to watch and to also got involved in as it was something totally new to me and It really let our my creative side.

Here are some pictures of the event

Performance practice

In today lesson we focused on our performance, we looked at getting used to looking people in the eyes, which I found difficult at first and I would only look at people that I was more comfortable with however, when I was the one walking around I felt more in control and less awkward to look anyone in the eyes. As the tasks went on I became more and more confident, and began to enjoy the tasks. In one of the tasks I felt that I was going slow but, Kayte said I needed to slow down, this made me think that they way I thought I was doing the task was different to what people watching thought and I often find this problem when I perform.
I found closing my eyes and standing there with people looking was alot less challenging than moving or doing something as I felt I couldn't really be judged on what I was doing.
I noticed that I have different level of confidence when I am dancing or in the studio space to when I am in social situations, I feel more confident when I am dancing as I believe I am able to show myself more.
I believe doing these sort of tasks will really help me with my confidence and performance.

Reflection on blog task

I found the blogging lesson very useful as we got set tasks to do rather than it being free choice what we put on our blog. Interviewing our peers and having them on camera was helpful as my blog so far has just been my opinion and individual things, so it’s good to have others view and also ideas and things to improve on. I also found that having everyone in the room and a time to focus on the blog is something that I don’t do often enough; as videoing in groups is time consuming and I forget to make time for it. For next time maybe we could sort out some slots so that the filming is not disturbed but anyone in the background and maybe to do the tasks in a circuit. Overall the lesson was useful and I have come away with new ideas or tasks for my blog.

Mine and Hannah’s Date

Mine and Hannah’s Date

Hannah and I booked some space the day after the Charlie Morrisey workshop to work with some of the ideas from the workshop and also some other that we have come up with and are interested in.

We started by carrying on from what we were doing in the workshop to see where that took us and then started to talk and move to some ideas. I found it hard for some of them, but I guess this is what this process is for to find out what works and what doesn’t. The idea of images moving out onto space that came from the art work I saw in the galley is an idea that I am interested in, I tried to use this when I was moving to imagine myself as an image moving onto to space and I believe it started to work and with more playing around it could be an idea that we use. From the improvisation we stopped when we found a move we liked and played around with that for a while, this is how we produced a section of choreography which we filmed and I have added to this post below.

Please watch it and comment on sections that work and don’t work, Ideas you get from it, where we could go from here or any other comments you have. Thank you :)

Charlie Morrisey workshop

Today we had a choreography workshop with Charlie Morrisey; we looked at contact work including lifts. When I found out that we would be lifting I got worried and uptight because I hate being lifted. I get conscious of my weight so I have always been the lifter therefore; I am used to being in control and I find it hard to let go. My partner Hannah made it a lot easier for me to work with being lifted as I could trust her with my weight and she was very willing to give everything a go. Some of the lifts just didn’t work but we told each other not to get annoyed about it, because some things work and others don’t. As the lesson went on I became more confident in being lifted and ended up working really well with Hannah. I particularly enjoyed the last part of the workshop where we were moving with our partner changing between having our eyes open or closed and a few other rules. I noticed that I am more focused with my eyes closed, however when I really got into it I found I shut out everyone else in the room with my eyes open and just concentrated on moving with Hannah. From the way Hannah and I were moving I noticed that we both tended to play with resistance and pressure, which I enjoy doing and maybe this will be something that we continue to play with for our duet. I believe today’s lesson was really useful to work with my partner as I haven’t really done much moving with Hannah before and I feel now that we have somewhere to go and more to explore. I also noticed in today’s workshop that I move differently with a partner to when I move on my own which, I find interesting and I have only really noticed it today.

Something that Charlie said got me thinking and made me understand why we do what we do, he said: “dance is not about the movements is about the making of the movements.” 

Does anyone have any ideas about working with resistance and pressure that Hannah and I could play around with?

Body Story so far

This is just a short update to where I am in regards to my Body Story

I have done a mind map of my ideas and chosen the question and areas that I will be using for my body story, however I feel lost with it and I think from hearing about everyone else's progress we could all benefit from a meeting with one of the lecturers to go through and clarify what we have to do.

I have selected question 2 for section 1 and within this question I am going to look postural alignment and how I have approached developing/maintaining/strengthening this ability during this module and how it relates to my dancing. For section 2 of the body story I have decided to concentrate on my injury to my foot and aspects relating to this, which I believe will tie in well section 1.

In lessons I have been thinking about the correct alignment and weight distribution in my feet. One thing that has helped me with this is from a chat I had with Marina who is an osteopath, she told me how to stand correctly which will help my injury by strengthening the foot.  I am working on spreading out my toes and making sure I have even weight on the three points of contact on my foot. This should hopefully help my overall postural alignment.

Do you think that question 1  relates well with my injury?

Yes-Why  No-Why any other suggestions?

Moving in the warm up

In today’s lesson during the warm up I felt focused and thought about how I was doing every movement, for example the role down and padding out I was looking at relaxing and the correct alignment of my elbows. I noticed that when I'm aware of these things I find them easy to work with, however when I forget about them I can't tell if they are correct or not.

I have to adapt what I do it because of my foot injury; therefore instead of running to get my heart rate up I make the moves like lunges and the role down quicker and more often. I find this varies from every lesson as I find it hard to adapt sometimes and I feel I'm not putting enough effort in however I could be not putting the effort in to look after my foot.

What I have been looking at in lessons (2)

Feet

One other main aspect that I have been looking at is my feet and especially how my injury affects my movement. This video is an exercise that we do coming across the room with some runs in between however, I am particularly focusing on my feet and how I work through my feet. A Question I am constantly asking myself is ‘Does this affect my injury, if so how and what can I do to adapt it?’ This exercise is good to watch back and see myself to watch out for anything that I can use to answer that question. From doing it and watching it I believe that it is very important for me to work through my feet as much as possible as I have found this prevents the pain in my foot if I land correctly. Also I think the feedback the Emma gave me is important to do to see if my injury is affecting anything else in my body as feeling and seeing maybe different.

Please leave a comment on anything you notice about my feet when I am jumping, or anything else you feel will help me :)

Is there anything that you can suggest I do to help work around my injury?

Any other videos that would be usefull to do?

What I have been looking at in lessons

Elbows

Before the videoing of this exercise my group and I were discussing what we have been focusing on or looking at during class’s, one of my aspects of my practise that I have been looking at is my elbows and how I hyper extend them. This video is of an exercise that I believe really allows me to focus on correcting my elbows as you have weight on them at different points. Another aspect that this exercise allows me to work on is fluidity, this is not something I am really focused on however, when I am watching people dance I find that the fluidity highlights the movement and it is something I would really like to improve on to help with my overall movement in class. Videoing and having feedback is an excellent way to improve this, as you can see yourself your own body moving and also getting feedback helps as you don’t always pick up on things yourself.

You can’t really hear what they are saying in the clip so I have typed it out below

Katie- “nice fluidity in your movement and good use of the arms”

Abbie-“If you slow down a little bit more then I think you will have time to focus on the elbows”

If you have any feedback on this please feel free to comment I would love to hear from you all :)

Siobhan Davies- Rushes

Rushes

Rushes-1982

The title came from various things, the music the pressure she felt to produce the piece and also the score. The piece started by Siobhan plotting a graph in her head working with planes and placing dots on the graph, these ideas then turned into the dancers being the dots on the graph and if they were to meet when they were getting to their place on stage (graph) then something may happen between the two or more dancers. This eventually gets faster and the dancers no longer have time to make the dot on the graph and it all becomes out of hand not being able to control the space or the speed.

In the piece I saw three main duets happen:

1^st Duet- The dancers in this duet were in close proximity traveling across the stage diagonally.

2^nd Duet- The set changed, the dancers didn’t stay in close proximity for the whole of the duet like the 1^st one, more complex moves and change in tempo.

3^rd Duet- The duet was mostly made up of material from duet 1 and 2.

Overall I enjoyed watching this piece and partially the duets as this is a focus point at the moment, I believe watching different duets is useful as you can get some inspiration and some ideas of the different things you can do in a duet. Rushes has shown me how the use of 2 dancers in close proximity traveling on a diagonal pathway looks so effective and this is something I wish to explore more.

Trip to the Art Gallery

Mine and Hannah's Art Work



IMOOS V- Bryan Wynter



The top picture is a photo of the work Hannah and I made at the gallery, there were many shapes with magnets in them so they were able to stick to the board. We had a play around and liked the shape we made out of many different shapes. I find shapes interesting to work with as I believe I like the freedom of shapes and how there are new shapes to discover through dance as well as on paper.

We were also interested by the second picture and how this had moving shapes with the reverse mirror behind, so we decided to look into the artist and what their work is about. When researching Bryan Wynter I found out that some of his most remarkable works are constructions which he titled IMOOS (Images Moving Out Onto Space). Using a parabolic mirror, he would hang contrasting pairs of painted shapes, which rotated freely. Their reversed reflections enlarged, appearing to move in opposite directions. I like the title and the idea of images moving out onto space and I will be something I will look further into to see if this could be an idea to use for our duet.

A quick chat with Marina

On Wednesday I had a brief chat with an osteopath about my foot, this was an informal chat however I found it very useful and hopefully this sort of treatment may help my injury. I explained about my injury and she said she would look into it to see if it is something that can be helped, she also had a quick look at the way I stood and gave me some advice on how to spread my weight evenly through my feet. I need to concentrate on spreading my toes out and keeping the inside of my foot on the floor with my ankle still in the correct alignment. With this bit of information I have been aware of this when standing in parallel in class and I will continue to work on this, as it could prevent some pain.

I am waiting to hear back of her to see if she thinks this injury could be helped by seeing an osteopath and hopefully I can go from there.

Thoughts on my injury

Since the start of term I have been having problems with my foot as it is still giving me pain when I am dancing. I have had it for so long now I have learnt to put up with the pain and it is hard to adapt things in lesson to prevent pain in my foot as I really want to do everything and I feel I am cheating when I adapt things.

I have decided use my injury for my body story project as I believe it is a big part of my practice at the moment and is something constantly on my mind. I think it will be good to use in my body story because during every lesson I am thinking about my foot and how the rest of my body is affected by it and along the process of this I might find ways to work with my injury which will help me during my practice.

I have noticed that when I do a plié in parallel this where I get the pain, also running in bare feet, jumps, rises, and anything that puts too much weight and stress on it gives me pain. These are all things that happen in most lessons therefore it is hard for me to not take part properly.

Some lessons I get so carried away with the lesson and forget about my foot, it is not till the lesson is over that I notice the pain or when I get home. Ahe pain also varies between lessons and what I have done in that day, the Monday morning run doesn’t seem to hurt it as I think this is because I have shoes on and my foot can keep still in the right alignment. The alignment of my foot and my knees would help my injury as I have found that because of my flat feet my ankles roll in causing more pain on the inside of my foot and it causes stress on my knees and they also roll in.

Sometimes I just ignore the pain as much as I can, there are some points in class where I know I need to stop or adapt but I don’t want to. I think this is because I know the injury won’t go away with rest, so I feel there is no point in helping it.

Thoughts on Improvisation

In our first improvisation class this term we were asked some questions, I found these questions made me think a lot about my work and how my opinion if improv has changed.

These were the questions:

What have I taken from Improvisation in term 1?

·     It’s about your own experience

·     I found out that I liked working in group where I can bounce of others

·     I have learnt how you are able to dance to your own body and breath

·     I have become more confident in the style as when I did improv before coming to Coventry I have found it a challenge to let myself go

·    There is no right or wrong

·    You can think outside the box, however it can work just as well with simple ideas and movements

·    I have learnt how to move with an awareness of a body part or an idea

What are the skills you need for improvisation?

·    To be able to allow yourself to let go and follow what going on whatever that is even if you think it might be wrong

·    The use of imagination

·    Allow your mind to explore

·    Senses are a source

·    Have an open mind and prepared to try anything out

·    To know that it is ok for something not to work

·    To notice and be able to work with something that feels good

 

Inventory by Gabriele Reuter

Last Thursday I went to see a solo performance of ‘Inventory’ by Gabriele Reuter, from reading the program beforehand I was interested in how she would blend text and movement within the piece and also where she talked about invisible doors but a completely empty space. Although I had these interests before the piece I was still clueless to what was going to happen and what the piece was exactly about. I have noticed I have a tendency to try figure out what the piece is about before I have seen it and I sometimes read the program notes and judge whether it will be a good piece or not just going on my understanding of it.

At the start of the performance Gabriele had us all up on our feet moving a little on the spot, this was her way of preparing us for the piece. I was a little surprised however; I believe it allowed connection between Gabriele and the audience which was important for this particular piece to work well.

During the piece I had so many thoughts on the piece and I felt it was a real eye opener for me in the work I am doing at the moment and also for what sort of thing can be done. I particularly enjoyed this piece for the simple ideas she had and how she went about performing these. The use of imagery was a big part of this piece as she was telling us about what was going on in the each part of the space around us using gestures, even though there was an empty room. This for me was what I most enjoyed about the piece and looking back on the notes I wrote during the performance I have made a comment about how one of the spaces she was describing reminded me of a scene from the film ‘Willy Wonker and the Chocolate Factory’, where there are millions of pieces in the air around us but, we can’t see them, which made the performance an experience that I could relate to.

Overall I really enjoyed watching this piece, it has given me a lot to think about in my practise and has given me the awareness of the space around me. The way Gabriele used text in performance was new to me and it has again given me different ideas for me to work with.

Reflection of my solo

What were my strengths?

I consider one of my strengths to be my quality (intermittent), as it was a challenge at the beginning however, I found a way to use it well within my choreography to create an interesting piece. Another strength of mine that was in my feedback was the use of repetition and development, which wasn’t an intension at the start of my process however, during the process It became part of my playing and improvising with the material and ended up becoming used quite a lot.

What could I have improved on?

I believe that I could have worked on my ribs more and concentrated on using then to initiate the moves to improve my solo further as I tended to use my elbows more because I found them easier. This would have enabled me to explore deeper and come out of my comfort zone.

Overall I have learnt a lot from doing this task that will help me in the future and the feedback I received was helpful as it was the first task that we have had that has given me an indication of how I am doing and what I need to work on.

Video of my solo

This is a video of my solo near the end of my process, I had to work on the spacing and travelling around the room before this was videoed as when I created my solo I was in my house with not much space.

I would love to have some feedback, so if you have any thoughts please leave a comment
Thank you

Solo Process

Over the Christmas break I have been working on creating a solo using a score, I have found that using a score has its challenges however I have enjoyed it as it is a new way for me to create material. I have discovered that each part of my score has been difficult at some point along the process, however I consider these challenges to have helped me in creating my solo because I had to change my response to creating the solo by not thinking of the whole score at one time but, separating it out and focusing on one part of the score at a time.

I also found the environment that I was creating my solo in difficult to produce my best in as I didn’t have the space to travel a lot and use my spatial instruction properly.  When I rehearsed my solo in the studio space back when I was back at uni I had to adjust my choreography so that I used the space well and included my spatial instruction.

Visual Score for my Solo

This picture above is my visual score for my solo; I have used Interruption as my working title as I believe it best describes my work and it is also another word for the quality I used, intermittent. The way I have written intermittent on the page was my way of showing the pauses in my solo and also shows my understanding on the word itself. The line that the word is wrote is my interpretation of showing my spatial instruction of linear pathways. My other spatial instruction was to use low medium and high levels throughout and this is shown in my visual by the three stick men and different levels. The two pictures at the top of the page are my chosen body parts for initiating the movements, I decided to have a cartoon picture of them as I wanted them to be clear and simple to understand.