Week 7-Stimulus research and develop

Developed ideas 

Following on from chosen stimulus my aim of my choreography is to show the importance of mental health and how there’s different elements. 

Mental health is a widely spread illness in young people and older people and can affect people very differently and comes in different forms. The mental illness my piece is going to focus on is depression and the way it can affect someone. The definition of depression is  when people experience low moods which are more severe than just feeling unhappy. ( link 1 below in referencing)

The reasons for having depression has various factors such as genetics, personal experiences, psychological factors or social factors.There is many ways depression can affect people, the symptoms of depression are:

depressed mood  including feelings of sadness or emptiness,loss of pleasure in previously enjoyed activities,too little or too much sleep most days,changes in appetite including unintended weight loss or gain,feelings of sluggishness,low energy or fatigue, feeling worthless or guilty,trouble concentrating or making decisions and intrusive thoughts of death or suicide. Symptoms of depression can be temporary or long term, which is why not everyone who has depression has the same symptoms as it is varied.

( link 2 below in referencing )

The reason behind my piece is wanting to make more awareness to mental health and enabling it to not become such an unknown topic. The stimulus I’ve chosen was able to give me that complexity of creating a piece which links towards mental health. I also know people who have had depression and a way of escaping the bad feelings they have by dancing. Therefore I believe that it’s a strong way to use this idea in a dance piece as for some who suffer use dance as a mechanism of coping. I believe if you dance when you have a mental health problem it gives you something to be positive towards and gives a new perspective of life and allows you to explore ways in which will help.

I’m using the idea of the blank space to create the symptom of emptiness which coincides with loneliness. Also, I’m going to incorporate the feeling of low energy and this will be portrayed in the beginning of my piece. Half of my piece I’d going to represent this and the dynamics will be slow and soft. Where as,gradually  the movements are going to become more dynamic and upbeat. Therefore by the end of the piece the dynamics will be at their highest point which is contrasting to the beginning. By the end of the piece I’m wanting to show the fight against the feelings and how they are wanting to escape the feeling. Overall, my aim of my choreography is to explore depression in greater detail and give people a insight of the way depression is common and needs to be more known to people. The observations I have made will have an impact on my piece because it will give my choreography more of a building block and a background to the piece. Also, the research I have undertaken will enhance my creative work as I will know what to look for within my piece. 

Ive attached several links which I have watched to get a wider understanding on Mental Health and Depression itself:

M.youtube.com. (2019). YouTube. [online] Available at: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=z-IR48Mb3W0 [Accessed 6 Dec. 2019].

This video links to depression 

M.youtube.com. (2019). YouTube. [online] Available at: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=z-IR48Mb3W0 [Accessed 6 Dec. 2019].

This video defines what mental health is 

References: 

Medical News Today. (2019). The effects of depression on the body and physical health. [online] Available at: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/322395.php [Accessed 6 Dec. 2019] 

Mental Health Foundation. (2019). Depression. [online] Available at: https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/a-to-z/d/depression [Accessed 6 Dec. 2019].

Week 6-Critique and review Wayne McGregor's piece INFRA

Critique and Review

Following on from my vlog on my chosen choreographer, Wayne McGregor, I’m going to explore one of his pieces in further detail.

The piece in which I’m exploring is “Infra” and the section within the piece is the duet. The piece is performed by The Royal Ballet and is overall 28 minutes long, but the duet I will be exploring in more depth is only 3 minutes. Infra is a piece about life beneath the surface and human interactions; however, Wayne McGregor leaves his pieces up to the audiences own interpretation towards how they would view it. The piece is mainly about inferences and it infers particular types of relationships and therefore the emotional content implies itself.

The duet is neoclassical so a blend of contemporary and ballet, the female dancer is in pointe shoes which gives the piece more dimension as she isn’t always on pointe which gives to varied effects and shows the two styles. The costumes are very plain and basic. The male is wearing a grey long sleeve top with black shorts and the female is wearing a nude top with a black half leotard and her hair is a low ponytail and makeup is natural. I believe that having a basic look to the dancers is a really good idea as it allows the audience to not get distract away from the choreography and the movements. It also links within the intention of the piece and making it as realistic so the dancers can portray this.

Additionally, within the movement both dancers start side by side showing no contact, then throughout the piece the dancers are showing contact work. This shows the audience the relationship between the two dancers and the idea of them constantly working together which I really like as it demonstrates the strengths of the movements by the way he has choreographed the section. The duet has sections where it is very static but others where there is travelling, which adds to the momentum of the piece. The movements are slow, detailed, smooth, precise, clean and complex. These elements all link to the dynamics of the duet which connect with the music used in this section, the music is a violin instrumental. The movements all coincide with the music which shows how clean his choreography is which I really like as it makes him look like a strong choreographer. One element of the duet which I dislike is the over use of high leg extensions, I feel as though its repeated to much; however, this doesn’t make me dislike the whole piece as there are other variety of movement including some abstract movements and gestures which is what makes the piece as a whole unique. There are motifs within this section where the male is leading the female in the movements, this is only in some parts. This just adds a different outlook on the piece. The piece shows a lot of emotions through the movement although both dancers use no forced facial expressions which shows the real intimacy of the dance. As their emotions are being portrayed from within which is highlighted to the audience. The music also allows you to interpret the idea of the piece as it allows you to connect the movement and the music together along with the way the dancers are performing the movement. I personally think the idea of having the emotions of the dance link to the music is strong as it allows the audience to have a clearer idea of what the piece is portraying. When watching the piece, I infer the emotions as pain and struggle as there is no elements in which I think that’s a happy section as the dancer’s faces are showing down and low emotions.

Overall, I believe that Wayne McGregor’s choreography shows many strengths which is one of the reasons he’s my chosen choreographer as he is a strong choreographer and his pieces are all clean and well-rehearsed making them more interesting to watch from the audience’s perspective. Especially from first watching the piece, the majority of the sections of the duet were easily drawn to me and I found it able to identify notes about these parts and i was able to identify the intention of the piece and what was wanting to be shown through the movement, which is what i believe is really important from an audiences perspective.

Video link of the section within the piece- final duet  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bjERnGQiJfg

Link to his ideas behind creating Infra https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4xb5fMJrVKs

Week 6 -chosen practitioner Half Term

Wayne McGregor 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EMuSSaO65mQ

https://waynemcgregor.com/

Week 6 -final idea

Final stimulus ideas

Developing my ideas from my last blog, the stimulus I have chosen to do is this one:

(canvas with blank mind)

I have several reasons for choosing this specific stimulus; however, the main reason was the way the picture is portrayed and the fact you can explore it in your own interpretation meaning there are several ways in which you can put this image into your choreography. My interpretation on the piece is linking with mental health and how in today’s society mental health is a wide concern and a worldwide problem which needs more awareness towards. The way the artist has drawn this image is by purposely leaving a blank space in the head as well as painted over eyes, this expresses to me the emptiness of how people suffering with mental illnesses feel inside.

In my choreography piece I’m wanting my piece to link to my thoughts and feelings towards mental health and my own emotions to make it more personal to me. My main idea to portray the feelings people with mental health have and how the feeling of loneliness affects them. There are many different mental illness people suffer with such as depression, anxiety, eating disorders, schizophrenia and so many more. My piece is going to concentrate on Depression and I want to show the idea of emptiness and isolation as I believe these are two big main factors. I also want to show how the positivity hides the negativity like putting up a front to others and hiding the way you feel towards others but yourself. My aim is to incorporate the feeling of positivity and negativity with the movements I will use and how I portray the dynamics of each section. My theories are to have two sections of the piece. The positive section will be my start and the dynamics will be fast and upbeat linking to the positivity that is hiding the negativity as its over powering, the negative section which dynamics are slow and draining are showing the real feelings. I will ty include several of the choreographic devices to add more depth to the piece.

The research I did to create this idea was link what I originally thought to more of a stronger idea. Which then led me to research the factors of mental health and how I could interpret these factors into a piece which also connects to my stimulus. The music I will choose will either have lyrics based around my idea or be an instrumental that has two parts to it coinciding to my idea of having two sections. I’m wanting it to have a link to my choreography as it will then have a stronger impact to the audience and meaning

My choreographic process links with the choreographer Crystal Pike as she uses her emotions towards situations in the world and expresses this in her choreography.

Link to my music -https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jfz-XDWPt-M

Week 5 -Stimuli

Choreography development-Stimuli ideas

In today’s lesson we looked at the different given stimuli and develop ideas for our own choreography. We were given eight different stimuli to look into in further detail to help develop our own ideas and give us a starting base to interpret on our own choreography.

One of the stimulus photos that captured my eyes is the one of a young girl holding a gun. This photo had many ways in which you could interpret. Firstly, it shows how conflict effects even the youngest of people and also emphasis how big an impact conflict has on today's society. I think it’s a very unusual photo due it being a young girl and its not typical as it shows a switch of gender roles. A way in which you could show your ideas through the choreography is to highlight your emotions of conflict and to show the fear of how society is turning out.  Another way which you could look at it would be the idea that childhood games have changed to become reality.

A second stimulus I thought was interesting was the photo of DNA and this one photo has loads of different elements you could interpret into movement and different motifs. Firstly, one way I thought about is the building blocks are how we made and how you get 50% of characteristics of your mum and 50% of your dad. Linking to this DNA is the building blocks to our personalities and traits which we grow up to have. I feel as though a way you could interpret the 50% way is having two different motifs which are completely opposite to each other to show how the different characteristics are and then how they are blended together. Also, the picture has many intriqet shapes which you could adapt in your movement and the different patterns link to different characteristics. You can also interpret this stimulus in many different variations which allows more aspects to your choreography.

A third stimulus which really caught my eye was the canvas painting of a boy with the top part of his head is a blank space. One of the reasons I was drawn to this picture was you could link it to being whitewashed and having no mind linking to being cleaned of memories and having nothing to recall on. It can also link more towards a serious topic in todays society of Mental Health and the emptiness it makes you feel and the feeling of loneliness. Another way in which you can interpret this is the fact a vision he has seen may f been so damaging that he can no longer see it or have any memory towards it- which can also link to people who are blind and the difficulty they face. The interpretation of this stimulus can be varied which is why it appeals to me so much.

The other stimuli we looked at are below:

Week 4-Key practitioner lesson 2

Exploring choreographers and creative tasks 

 In today’s lesson we explored two different choreographers and completed one task that explored one of the choreographers processes.The choreographers we explored with Crystal Pike and Wayne McGregor.As a class we watched several videos of some of their of choreography. One of the videos we watched were Crystal Pike’s choreography of ‘Flight patterns’. From watching this we were able to explore her choreographic processes. Some of her processes are using her emotions towards situations based on a real world events as a way of expressing how she feels and is her a way of coping with the issue.  Also she uses conflict as a tool towards the subjects she is exploring and for the movements from the body. Another unusual way of choreographing is that she uses her family involvement within the choreography piece making her pieces have a lot more of a personal feeling .

 Where as Wayne McGregor uses very different processes in comparison to Crystal the two videos we watched of when McGregors choreography were ‘Genus’ and ‘Infra’.His choreographic processes for ‘Genus’ we are having inspiration such as annotations, illustrations and visualisations.This was including Charles Darwin which links science into his pieces such as equilibrium. Also, his piece ‘Infra’ he did a lot of research based task and then created his movement then found the music.

 The task we did linked to our research of one the choreographers,it was based on Wayne McGregors research and visualisation process.  We watched a video of rain and carefully explored how we could share this using movement that’s flowing and highlights to the audience the aim of the movement .
 My movement started as a single raindrop and was dynamically slow and was small,but then I increased the movement size as well as the dynamics to create more of a driblet of rain.  We started on our own and did individual movements then joined with others in our class to form more of a puddle formed by raindrops we then reverted this process (retrograding) and went from a puddle to a single raindrop these movements were all based on the one video of rain explored.

Another one of our creative tasks was incorporating our zodiac signs which had lists of words for strengths and weaknesses. We then used these words to adapt movement in order for the audience to link it to the words. My zodiac sign is Libra and a few of my words were: lazy, kind hearted, hesitant and  beautiful. The aim of my choreography for this piece was to allow the words to be expressed through my movement. To adapt this further I would add some choreographic devices to add more aspects to the movement and to create more complicated movement from simple movement.
These are my words for the zodiac:

Week 3-key practitioner Justin Peck's Process and SHAPES

Creating choreography using one of Justin peck’s processes

After researching and evaluating Justin Peck’s choreography the task we were given was to use sketching out formations and patterns, one his choreographic process to create our own choreographic elements. This will later help with our own choreography piece. As a class we all drew one shape or pattern on a piece of paper, these were random and had no real thought towards them. Some of the patterns included; straight lines, zig zag lines, circles, squares, rectangles and random swirls. We then worked on our own to evaluate how we could adapt these basics shapes and patterns into movement which would flow together to create a small piece of choreography.

To do this we thought about the different adaptions we could make: for example one of the shapes was a basic 2D square and to adapt this shape we had options such as drawing the shape with a body part, creating the shape , using the shape as an object or moving in the form of the shape. The aim was to see how something so basic could be created into movement that looks more complicated and complex towards the audience. I used my whole body to create a 2D square as an element in my piece of chorography.  Additionally, another way I adapted a pattern was a zig zag line, I imagine how I could use different body parts to allow me to create this without it looking like a zig zag line, this took a lot of thought process. However, once I created movement to each shape and pattern, I then fixed them together in order for them to flow and look like a complicated piece of choreography.

To adapt this movement further you could link other elements of choreographic processes to this one to create more complex movement with a further meaning in the piece. Adding music to these elements will also allow the audience to interpret a narrative based on the movement you’ve included in the piece.