choreography 25/11/13

Choreography logbook

25th of November 2014

In today's lesson we got the chance to see our video of the beginning of our dance phrase from last week. Both me and my partner were able to see the parts that were good, where needs improvement and what is generally not working. For example the force pushing movement looked to overdone and over-exaggerated. Therefore we decided to add pauses (one dancer would take a pose while the other performs a short solo phrase) this is so it didn't look overwhelming. And in fact the pauses gave the idea of the dancer having a chance to portray their thought process, the effect of the bomb going off, once again this refers backs to the stimulus- the idea of trying to be free but remaining trapped (choice of where to go). We still need to create our short solo phrases and this will be done for next week. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZNn8DYAtZg (this is our video of our choreography dance)

Our word for today was motif development which is when you take a phrase and develop it further technically (its a choreographic device),so by adding different levels, tempos, dynamics etc. As we already started this last week without realising we decided to carry on with what we had. So referring back to the idea of close and distance we decided to use the motif development of adding a pause or counterpoint. This worked well, especially because I have an injured foot, so when my partner may be doing turns or a leap, I would be still and then create a movement which was both interesting but still ok for me to do. Overall I feel like we got a lot of work done in this class and really started to develop the movements further. An example can be the first movement of our dance, the pushing against each other, as we are now comfortable we started to use each other more to feel the force, also we decided to really extend the legs when pushing out.

What progress did you make?

I feel like both me and my partner made good progress in regards to developing the movements further. We really wanted to take the movements and analyse the purpose, did they make sense to the journey we were trying to portray (the choice of staying trapped or running to freedom). We took note on what wasn't working well, including the mystic hand gestures, we now have changed them to sharp movements to signify the shock of what's happening or the cry for help. So in regards to progress, we defiantly moved on from last week, however I still feel like we could of managed our time better, although it has improved from last week we still get distracted a little. 

What worked well and what didn't?

I feel like me and my partner worked well together this week, we were more focus, especially at the beginning and near the end of class. We did have a moment where we got distracted however we were able to recover from this. I believe if both me and my partner work well, so will the piece so the fact we are both comfortable with one another and starting to trust each other allows us to develop the piece even further (an example is when my partner leans her whole body weight back into me, she has to trust me because I'm her support.). After watching the video and noticing that the spacing sometimes didn't work we also started to develop where we focused the movements- where they were seen for the audience. This is important because you want the audience to see the best possible view, especially when doing duets because spacing is essential. 

What do we need to do next?

• Focus even more on the work, although this still worked well
• Work on a short solo phrase to add in at the force movement
• To now start to focus on the technical aspects of the dance- posture, turnout when needed, feet/ankles pointed, extended legs and arms when needed etc.

Target for next week

to have a solo phrase completed and ready to fit into the routine- ensuring it works well and connects with the journey (refers back to the stimulus.)