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.