Week 3-key practitioner lesson 1 Justin Peck's 'In Countenance of Kings'

Justin Peck’s ‘In the Countenance of Kings’

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yMTv_Y0Zrl4

When I first watched the piece my thoughts towards it were very mixed as it was a lovely dance with aspects which lead me to confusion towards the story line.  At the beginning of the piece I felt like it was misleading but in a positive way as it made me excited and intrigued to watch the whole piece. My interpretation is that it’s based around the idea of freedom due to the varied aspects of the dance including the fact the girl has her hair down and all the dancers are wearing trainers. It is well choreographed with many intricate formations and is based around ballet/classical movements. The patterns and the constant flow of people add to the dynamics of the piece. the patterns are also based around geometric shapes which adds to the unique concept of Justin’s choreography. No set movement and patterns highlight the idea of freedom due to varied aspects of the dance and links to the idea of order and chaos. It gives the audience the impression that this sense of freedom is to break away from stereotypes of ballet dancers as it’s not the traditional ballet style and highlights the difference in normality.

The beginning of the piece is set in a dance studio and the use of a dog being there comes away from the normality of a dance studio as it is very random. The girl looks into the mirror almost as if in daydream then the dance changes to a huge hall almost like a ballroom type with a lot more dancers and then at the end of the dance it goes back to the one girl in the studio. Before the dance begins one girl leaves the studio which the other girl is oblivious to which links to the fact, she could be daydreaming. The piece is almost under your own interpretation as there is no solid story line; however, this allows the audience to create their own ideas to what they want the dance to base on.  The choreography within the dancers includes a variety of duets/ partner work along with some solos and then core. Also, the dancers involved within the piece are very technical which comes across to the audience and it allows the piece to look well presented. Additionally, the music adds to the dynamics as its also is varied and the camera angles link to the intensity and dynamics. The music adds to my feelings towards the piece as it dynamically confuses you but also makes you curious as to what will happen next almost like a feeling of suspense.

The choreographic devices included in the piece are: Unison, Canon, Repetition, Inversion, Accumulation, Contrast, Highlight, Retrograde, Argumentation and Climax.
The technique of this critique links to Edmund.

Choreographic Process

Justin’s choreographic process: Is he listens to the music first to form ideas; his ideas are personalized and are linked to him. He uses are large cat as there are more possibilities and has no soloists as this gives an opportunity for all. Also, he uses his own body as an instrument to create certain motifs and works with the dancers so that they have some slight input. Additionally, to create his formations and patterns he sketches geometric shapes to give him the best inputs. His last process is adding the additional parts such as lightning, costume and set design.

To conclude, watching and researching about Justin Peck and his choreography allows us to be able to use his process in order to help with our own process. It also helps us with knowing what choreographic process works best for our own choreography.

Week 2 - choreographic devices

Choreographic devices 

In todays lesson we did two main tasks.

The first task we did was working in partners to piece together one of each improvisation tasks that we completed in last lesson to create a mid length choreographic element. My partner Rachel used her number piece and I used my name. Once we combined them, we then added different choreographic devices the aim of this task was to add diverse movements and to make the piece look more complicated in stylistic way. The devices we included were: unison, contrast, retrograde, embellishment, repetition and climax. These were out of seventeen given choreographic devices. I felt like we both contributed equally to creating the piece and was an enjoyable task to work together on.

The second task we did was independently using our zodiac signs to create a short piece, this was based on a list of words both strengths and weaknesses given to each zodiac sign which are used to describe the person of that sign. My zodiac sign is Libra and the words that given as strengths were: idealistic, just, strong social skills, aesthetic, charming, artistic, beautiful and kind-hearted. Then the words given as weaknesses were: hesitant, narcissistic, lazy and freewheeling.

The aim of the task was to create movement based on the words given. In my piece I used some of the words from both weaknesses and strengths to add more variety, such as: artistic, beautiful, kind-hearted, lazy and hesitant. To adapt this piece further I added in some of the different choreographic devices to make the piece more diverse and eye catching. The devices I used in my piece were: repetition, contrast, retrograde, embellishment and improvisation around a theme. I chose these devices as I was able to emphasize the change in the piece from the original to the adapted one.

This video shows the adapted piece in partners.

This video shows my original zodiac choreography.

This video shows my adapted zodiac choreography.

Below is a list of the choreographic devices and the definitions for them:

Week 1- introduction to choreography

September 11th

In today's lesson we did three improvisation tasks including several different choreographic devices.

During first task we had different pieces of music playing and we had to improvise to the music.We started this on the floor with low energy movement then gradually progressed to high energy movements in stages such as rolls,floor work,slides, stretches, kicks, turns and jumps.

The second task was inspired by using our finger to write our name, which we then changed it by using different body parts to write our name including our elbow, hips, legs and feet. This was to maximise the movements and increase the intensity of the small basic movement from using our finger. We then used an adjective to adapt the movement, this was to allow us to add feeling towards a few movements that were originally basic into something creative. To improve this task you could develop the movement such as retrograding, levels, elevation and embellishment.

The third task we did was using numbers which had set movement to create a small piece of choreography that had different elements. 

0- shunt 

1-stillness

2-jump

3-turn

4-off balance

5-roll

6-swing

7-kick

8-change direction

9-any 

We made up or used our phone numbers to create diverse choreography using the movements and allowing them to flow into one another.This gave us the inspiration of how basic movement can be altered in order to become more complex, improving the overall effectiveness of the choreography.We also added movement qualities including: impulse, impact and release. This allowed us to adapt our choreography so that we could include different variations of dynamics into our movements.To improve this you can add music to allow the movements to flow and intertwine with one another  and you could also adapt the movement using motif development or changing the movements. 

The number I used was 07411237664 and the name Abi. I will be able to adapt these movements futher to create them to more abstract and different