choreography year 1

I have mainly referred to medical websites for information as they have the most details on this mental disorder. I believe that research is so crucial for the piece I want to create as I am aiming to make an effective dance; there are many emotions and ideas I wish to portray so I need to have accurate information to inspire my movements. This is especially important as I have a stimulus with strong scientific influences. After conducting some research about schizophrenia I have found that people who suffer from this illness usually experience: - long-lasting sadness/ irritability - mood swings - excessive fear, worry and anxiety - drastic changes in eating and sleeping - delusions and hallucinations - hostility and suspiciousness (nhs.uk, 2019) It is defined as a condition where your experience does not match up with reality as other people see it, a symptom called psychosis. In schizophrenia, you may have developed 'psychotic' symptoms. For example, you might se...

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/lju0oiiffam5rut/AABKDV5jnaU_xNFLVve7DttGa?dl=0&preview=Pite+1+-+Flight+Pattern.MP4.m4v Flight pattern conveys the refugee crisis through themes of desperation and separation. Pite's piece starts off with a solo, there's a woman on stage sitting holding a bundle which represents a baby. The spotlight draws attention to her and further highlights her movements in contrast to the dark stage. She is hunched over the bundle in a defensive way that shows she is very protective and this exemplifies a mothers love for her child. This initial display of affection contextualises the narrative for later on in the piece and shows how devastating it is to be separated from your child. The lighting choice makes the dancer seems so much smaller in comparison to the large dark space around her which could signify how many hardships and struggles that refugees face and how they have to experience the unknown. When the woman dropped the bundle, I as a spectator...

References En.wikipedia.org. (2019).  Crystal Pite . [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_Pite [Accessed 23 Oct. 2019]. Evening Standard. (2019).  Crystal Pite: 'Art is meant to open channels to the humane' . [online] Available at: https://www.standard.co.uk/go/london/arts/crystal-pite-on-responding-to-the-refugee-crisis-working-at-the-royal-ballet-and-the-purpose-of-art-a3477506.html [Accessed 23 Oct. 2019]. Ft.com. (2019).  Crystal Pite premiere, Paris Opera Ballet — review | Financial Times . [online] Available at: https://www.ft.com/content/637bc5be-8499-11e6-8897-2359a58ac7a5 [Accessed 23 Oct. 2019]. Lea-Saxton, C. (2019).  EMERGENCE Performances in Seattle - PNB . [online] Pacific Northwest Ballet. Available at: https://www.pnb.org/season/17-18/emergence/ [Accessed 23 Oct. 2019]. Winship, L. (2019).  Royal Ballet: Within the Golden Hour / Medusa / Flight Pattern review – monsters and melancholy . [online] the ...

Since my last blog I have further developed my ideas for my piece. I felt drawn to the image with the "cog head" as the idea that everything we do in our day to day lives being controlled by one organ is fascinating to me. The human brain is so complex that one small change can have such a widespread effect on how we live our lives. Something that can really affect someone's livelihood is a mental illness that affects 1 in 4 people and 50% of these people go untreated. These statistics shocked me and made me realise how ignorant people can be about mental health.  I hope that my choreography will elicit a strong feeling of empathy from the audience which can leave a long lasting impression on them and bring awareness to mental disorders. I know that I sometimes have difficulty with choreographing with a specific stimulus in mind. This is why research is vital; to formulate a creative piece I need more knowledge on a particular disease- I have chosen schizophrenia as...

In today's lesson we discussed ideas about the different stimuli that we can use for our solos: Our first stimulus was Pollution. The picture we were given clearly shows an image of an industrialised area with an alarming amount of smoke surrounding it. This stimulus was interesting as pollution is a current international affair that has recently been gaining lots of media attention. Pollution has extreme effects not only on the environment but also on the human body; it can cause diseases or permanent issues like cardiovascular or respiratory illnesses. Some ideas for the dance would be heavy movements with resistance as the air has become more dense due to pollution. Another idea was to start with normal-paced movements and slowly progress to bigger and slower paced movements to show the deterioration of the human body after being exposed to the toxic fumes the addition of a narrative like this would help to emphasise the stimulus further. Another stimulus we looked at wa...

In today’s lesson we performed our zodiac and shape phrases in front of the class. Everyone had interpreted the task differently which was interesting to watch, because our groups were based on who had the same zodiac sign, I noticed that people with similar signs focused on different aspects of their personality. For example, some people really  honed in  on their negative traits and some people only integrated their positive traits in their choreography. In a previous blog I mentioned how I enjoyed this task due to the fact it was so personal, if you observe how everyone has approached the task -in a positive light or a negative one- it may even give a deeper insight into someone’s personality therefore making the choreography more unique and significant.   In this lesson we also learned about choreographers and their creative processes, we first looked at Crystal  Pite  who choreographed a piece called flight pattern. She said that her pieces were h...

Today our task was to create a piece based on shapes that we drew. This was very interesting because it could have been interpreted in a range of different ways, for example one of the shapes is a triangle- we could have made a triangle shape with our arms, with our whole body, or we could have dance around an invisible triangle. This was an effective stimulus because there were  various different  shapes that were available to be incorporated within the piece.   I feel that the use of choreographic devices in a piece are so important to improve upon simple ideas, however I struggled with this slightly as I found my movements and development processes becoming repetitive. To overcome  this  I had a look at our sheet with the definitions of choreographic devices and also discussed my choreography with some classmates. This was very helpful as it can be difficult to critique your own work and is interesting to see from a different perspective of how pe...