Ok so we have done the assessment now and the couple of days before were a bit crazy especially as we were trying to get our audio together. 3 and a half hours later I and Emilie staggered out the media centre but think we done quite a good job. the idea of our audio was to have the metronome continually ticking to re-iterate the continuity and repetition (by never changing and always having the same tempo.) we also wanted it live so it gave a visual reminder of the repetition and continuity, we thought maybe if it was pre-recorded the ticking might just become another sound you hear and blend too much into the background. We used a mixture of random pre-recorded background talking and noises to illuminate the use of silences and encourage the atmosphere of pedestrianised common noises to bring the piece back to a neutral stand. The use of silences were put in to give the piece (a kind of) audio dynamics and to add a slightly more abstract view. Also we thought that during the silences the audience would be drawn into the movement a little bit more.

After our first tech rehearsal we realised we had too many lighting changes and managed to get it from 16 cues to 8, and I’m glad we did as the lighting helped create the images of shadows on the back and each light gave a different view of the shadows. I was glad we kept the cyke (big white back drop) out because when looking back on the video the shadows gave a lot more depth to the piece and made the space have a busier atmosphere when it was needed. (The walking section) however, also during that rehearsal we found some things really didn’t work once we got in the space so had to think quickly about what to do as a replacement. We managed to keep going with the idea of repetition and development and created a new motif based on prior movement and that worked really well, and the whole group was happy with it.

After the performance we all felt we performed our best and I really hope we managed to show our experimentations with our movement and how we had developed movement not just used straight repetition. As I said before the lights picked worked well to emphasise some of things we were looking at, especially at the end with Emilie and Louise. They perform a duet standing up and the downstage right shin was the only light on and caught Louise on the side of her legs but didn’t get Emily at all, then when they sat down Emilie was fully lit and just the front of Louise was.

I have really enjoyed everything about this course and I will take most things with me when I leave as I have found them all very helpful. The only thing I would probably change would be that it ran for a year as I think the module has so much more it could offer students.

Things I have found useful about this module (all my notes come together.):

Three assignments
I have found that the two previous assignments/studies we were given helped build a background for our final third study. What helped most of all, for me, was that having them broken down and focusing on only one or two things made me really consider things I had never thought of and how there are many more factors in a performance than just what is on the stage. For example the first study was focusing on the lights and experimenting on interesting ways they can be used and all the while focusing on how the lighting can amplify movements and atmosphere within a piece but also thinking about and catering for your audience by taking everything into consideration even down to the temperature of the audience space. Some of these things I had never even taken into consideration before when choreographing but have thought about when being in the audience (strange huh!) I felt the main things I got out of the first study were:

1. Choreographing in a group=this was challenging but also fun. Challenging because I was slightly nervous to view my opinions and choreographic choices in case they weren’t taken well but in fact it was the opposite, everyone was in the same boat and kind of felt the same way which made it so much easier...and that was when things became fun.
2. Experimenting with lights and viewpoints= experimenting with the lights was brilliant it offered so many opportunities...one being the different sources of light in the space and then having them be manually used by the performers..It was stuff I had only ever used in drama before and not even considered having as part of a dance piece. Also experimenting with where to have the audience= even though I had used this before in dance I had never previously considered their entire experience when watching a performance e.g. temperature, background noises, other audience members around them etc. I think for our last study the group have definitely taken the audience into consideration and even though we are keeping the audience in their seats we want them to acknowledge the sounds around them and that is why we use silence in our dance at points so this can be emphasized.
For the second study we were told to draw upon our experimentation with audience and lighting however, we were only allowed 3 lighting changes, one of which was to turn the lights of at the end of the piece. Once again being put into another group with people I had not worked with before became easier to do and even more exciting. This was because one of the people I was working with had the same enthusiasm for the piece as I did, and as we were focussing on our own idiosyncratic movement and that of our peers it became really interesting to see how other people moved. What also became quite interesting was to see how two dancers can be very different e.g. when Rebecca performed a movement me and Louise would learn it but couldn’t perform the movement with the same detail that Rebecca had. These challenges were great to try and overcome, and we hopefully did, as in our feedback and peer assessments we were given constructive feedback that either we hadn’t used each other’s idiosyncratic movement or we managed to embody the movement so well that it didn’t show. However, with performing this study we put across a theme/characterisation to our dance which we hadn’t expected so we could have possibly rehearsed further to take that out of the movement. Also our lighting for this piece was from one light sat on the floor and used our audience to block some of the light to hopefully engage them further in the piece, and if they had been directed further in where to stand the dance may have taken on another level further.
For our third study coming up we had been put into another randomly selected group of three to choreograph, direct and perform a piece where we set our own constraints, whilst bearing in mind what we had learnt from our two previous studies.
All three of us brought forward different ideas, some of which are;

· lighting constraints and dealing with only being able to move or use certain movements in and out of the lit areas of the stage;

· physical restraints such as having one hand that has to constantly be connected to a surface and exploring the relationships between dancer to dancer, dancer to floor or dancer to object. This one, through group workshops, proved to be successful and challenging. Challenging because when we attempted to use dancer to dancer personnel boundaries did sometimes get in the way, and when trying dancer to floor the restriction of being stuck to the floor gave you limits, on the other hand this was a challenge I really enjoyed trying to overcome. I found myself performing quite contorted movement and not thinking on how I was moving but just that I had to make sure the hand didn’t lose contact with that surface. This is something I will definitely take with me in the future.

· Other constraints brought forward were also that of mentality of the dancer e.g. exploring disabilities. Even though this was another physical restraint we found ourselves looking into four disabilities in particular: being deaf, blind, loss of a limb, and autism.

· We explored being deaf as a dancer with a workshop which took place in class, the idea came from when Simon performed in front of the microphone and only when you put on the headphones you had an almost personnel relationship with the dancer onstage. We took this idea and thought what it would be like if only the audience could hear the music through headphones and the dancer was performing in silence, then also if the audience could switch between different audio accompaniments and how this would affect their interpretation of the piece. We also attempted experimenting with sign language and the idea of not the entire audience being able to understand what was going on. This idea came about when I was watching one of Pina Bausch’s works Walzer (1982) and in the piece she has her dancers speaking in English and German. I liked the idea of knowing what was happening but not fully understanding as I don’t know German so having that feeling of wanting to concentrate more on the performance to grasp any idea of what was being said.

· When experimenting with blindness we tried performing a dance blindfolded to see how it made the audience feel and how the dancer felt when performing. When watching back our footage on this workshop, as an audience member you feel disconnected from the dancer as there is a physical boundary of them not being able to see the audience but also the audience not seeing the dancer’s eyes. I have always found that when I watch a dance I not only look at the dancer moving but also at their face and eyes and almost get the emotion of the piece from their face, so when this is taken away, for me, it shuts off that connection and leaves the movement as the only form of expression. This idea became too difficult to perform with the time frame we had and also from a safety point of view we would have to of known the movement precisely to make it successful.

· The loss of a limb became quite repetitive through our workshops as we were coming up with the same movement over and over and thought we had stronger ideas so focused our energy more on them rather than this one.

· Our final idea of autism became one that has stuck. We looked into what autism was and how it was described. From this we found our main constraints for our piece. They are; repetitive; routine; mathematical; impaired communication; excessive rigidity; and emotional detachment. Also another description was; a tendency to view life in terms of one's own needs and desires. We found that when focusing on these aspects our material almost made itself.
As a group we have worked well each sharing the roles of choreographer, director, staging and lights and even though we have had ‘artistic differences’ with lighting and movement material we have made it work and compromised. Some differences with movement were performing in a line and how we wanted to show the rigidness of that straight line floor pattern but found that offered a rather plain image so we overcame that by using a walking straight line floor pattern that we all stick to. Also with using contact work, it was something we all wanted to incorporate into our study but found ourselves doing what we normally do in a jam session so becoming quite unoriginal resulting in us pushing ourselves to develop unintentional contact movement, e.g. in one section each of us walk into each other and we explored how we would get around each other with the determination in mind that we needed to get to the other side and to not think just show how we would get through/pass the other person.

ok so its been a while..however, our group is coming along quite well, but i think its just keeping the focus on the task at hand that is getting difficult without going of on tangents..on the other hand the material that has been created an developed has been found, not only by our own choreography, but with our experimentation and workshops.
We started with loads,literally loads of ideas, which when we workshopped we found movement that we hadn't thought of or tried before, and whilst keeping our ideas in mind found a whole new level of constraints with coming from them.
I think its getting to the time now to just relax into the movement and enjoy and play with it to make it interesting to watch and perform.

i think what struck me most about this piece was its use of structure and imagery with the shapes of the body and how they are viewed from a front, back and above perspective.  it definitly enforces the 'made for camera' statement however, it would be interesting to possibly have this as a live performance but being video recorded at the same time and being shown behind maybe so the audience can see all angles, or maybe even have a moving audience.

After attempting to not allow myself to hold back on performing in my technique classes instead of just marking through work, and performing the other week in our choreography lesson for the second assessment, I have found myself feeling at ease with what I had previously found, to an extent, ‘uncomfortable’ when I came back to uni in September. I think what I found difficult was being nervous that I had not taken part in any dance classes or found time to consciously keep up dancing throughout the summer and was unsure of my ability when coming back to uni.
Bearing this in mind and re-reading through the comment Simon had posted on one of my previous posts about comfort; ‘The question of 'comfort' is complex because our culture doesn't really value any experience (or idea) of discomfort.’ Really made me think about conscious and sub-conscious movements when performing and investigating whether there is any relationship between this and the idea of comfort and discomfort. Then also combining this with the thoughts, feelings and general all round experience for the audience. Then to what extent can these ideas be tested.

i have attempted to upload a video from youtube but am finding it difficult for some reson..it is called:

----> architectural dance project "arabesques"

Consider the environment. Please don't print this e-mail unless you really need to.

________________________________

Creating movement
Whilst thinking of movement for the next assignment I found it difficult to instigate movement that I haven’t had put into my body through training in dance classes and old routines etc. So when Louise, Rebecca and myself got together to throw ideas about and develop movement for the next assessment we found ourselves resorting back to, for me, an old technique of creating unpredictable new movement. The technique was chance choreography. We looked back at the class and used the exercise of separating body parts to see how they moved and adapted it to having 6 body parts and 6 movement ‘embellishments/developments.’ We numbered each list 1-6 and pulled numbers out of a hat and paired them up, then explored the movement that could be found from combining the two. This exercise has helped me think less about drawing upon familiar movements and more on allowing the movement to be explored and developed.

I always thought that I found creating and performing dance, whether it just be a small or greater piece, uncomplicated yet not without its challenges. However, relfecting back on the last few sessions I have found myself being pushed beyond a kind of comfort zone and sub-conciously not allowing myself to be taken beyond that. I think that within, not just my choreography, but dancing as a whole I need to allow myself to let go of these ideas that I am 'ok being comfortable' and push myself to be more adventurous and allow change to be a good thing, not make it into a complication.

Questions I found myself asking:
# how important is light in a given space?
# how much information or emotion can be perceived from the placement of a light or simply how/where it hits the body?
# how can light create a desired effect on an audience?

~reflecting on the first session~

In my opinion to dance without the accompaniment of lighting and still achieve the desired effect takes a skilled choreographer..to some extent lighting can be a missing link in a dance that expresses what a choreographer finds to difficult to achieve through movement however, can also be there to strengthen the impact of a simple movement.

so light would therefore be as important as you would desire it to be. Light is obviously needed to see the movement..but can also be there to draw upon something that is hidden in the movement...like reading between the lines of a book.

Akram Khan - Rush
>dependent on structure of lighting ..could it be the same atmoshperic delivery if he didn't use panelled lights etc.

Merce Cunningham
>the unpredictability of not knowing ...(am currently looking at some pieces)