Photographs

With thanks to Simon Ellis for photographing us :D (and a little editing on my behalf!)I inverted some of the photographs and I love how these turned out!! Imagine what could be created if this could be achieved in real life!

Rehearsals

Rehearsals.
Finding time. Finding space. Finding ideas.

After having come up with an original phrase, we began manipulating it and developing it into new phrases.

Performance.

Tonight was the final performance of this last piece. We invited in an outside audience to watch so it was not just the class. Being an exam, it was filmed and the added bonus of an 'unsafe' audience, who would really watch closely and judge what they saw without any forward idea or justification, my nerves were very erratic and the other students could really tell in the run up.

I'm thankful for the lighting we chose as it did not light the faces of the audience so I could not pinpoint anyone I knew. This meant that I could really concentrate on the movement I had to show.

Performing is one of my favourite things to do. It is not something I do often anymore, but I love it. I guess its because I like the (hopefully positive) attention that comes with being 'on stage'.

I felt it went well, but I feel our piece really demonstrated our experiences of the course. I adore the fact that all six pieces are different and it was amazing to see the final products since I hadn't seen any of the works in progress. Every piece had one movement that reminded me of something in our own piece.

Well done everyone,
Thanks Simon, Mike and Rhianne.

CSI: Roehampton

White body outines = crimescene. That is the reference anyone reading this blog would most likely conclude.

We chose this as a starting point and began playing around with movements that would site us against these bodies with only parts of our body being free and able to move.

We recorded the material and this is what we came up with.



After deciding we didn't want to have the connotation of a crimescene, we began looking into other ways of using 'semi-paralysed' bodies in other spaces.

Assessent Study 2 Feedback

Tutor
16
Fine attention to detail, and I enjoyed the sense of you 'zooming' in and out on the body with very small to quite large physical actions. I thought the use of sound in the darkness was well considered, and your use of light was excellent (great blackout at end - in execution and effect). This created a strong atmosphere – of disquiet? – that was exaggerated by the sense of distance between the performer and the audience.

I felt, however, that your movement could have had more attention to detail - making it more complex, and difficult to perform? There were some quite 'recognisable' Limone-type actions, and I am definitely curious about the split leap as well!

PS I watched two versions of the work - one without an audience and one with. It seemed like you used the light in a more asynchronous way in the first version ... and it made for some quite distinct (and unusual) uses of the space (in relation to the light). This was less evident in the 'corrected' version.

Peer
17
A carefully considered use of sound and light, they linked perfectly. when the light was absent a use of fast and loud breathing could be heard and visa versa for when rigmor was visible. the use of quirky and shaking limb was a great exploration of movement that resonated through out the piece and the rest of the body. the peice was full of contrasts which gave the audience a sense of a journey that never got boring and kept me fixated from beginning to end. it was strong performance that showed a clear and direct approach from both performer and lighter.

However, the split leap into the light was disappionting because to me, personally it showed little correlation to the idiosyncratic and seemed a little too contrived. It was not as interesting as the small quirks and stillness that could be seen through out. Maybe some of the movement that we could hear but not see could have been interesting here instead ?

Self
17
We really feel like we experimented with the movement a lot and developed it well into something neither of us would have come up with if we hadn't had this task. However, we could have thought about audience experience a little bit more. We were very focused on movement and really considered lighting and how it would all work together in the space, but forgot about how the audience would perceive this.

Watching the tech run

Watching the tech run has really opened my eyes. Because I have been so engrossed and consumed by our final task, I had no expectations of the other groups' pieces. I loved watching them and being able to see what they had created too.

I was asked to watch one of the pieces with full concentration to offer my opinions about the lighting and how it affected the piece. This made me fully aware of what I was to see tomorrow. It just so happens that I will be peer assessing this work and I can't wait to get their criterion so I am able to receive the work in a new dimension, and hopefully it will bring about an alternative perspective to my thoughts.

Looking forward to the assessment :)
Good luck everyone, break a leg!!

Week 5 - Assessment Study 2 (Complex Movement)

Task: In assigned groups of two or three, develop a 2-4 minute solo study that prioritises the development of complex and idiosuncratic movement. The work will have a single (fixed) light with no more than three cues (including beginning and ending). You are required to operate the lights.
The emphasis is on an imaginate engagement with the possibilities and (once again) complexity of physical action/dace and time, as well as a creative and well-considered approach to 'choreographing' the audience's experience of the work.

Working with Rigmor had been a little bit of a challenge. It was not difficult choreographing together, but it became troublesome finding space when we were both available. With the time constraints of a week, it felt easy to get down to business and just bash out something to begin with.

The best way I find to create movement, other than having a relatively specific topic or subject, is to use a dance-by-chance method. Rigmor and I both chose different parts of the body and dynamics. These were then paired to create a movement using those ideas, such as 'left foot' and 'slow'.

We each found individual movements and then strung them together, creating the phrase. It was difficult having only a couple of hours and not being able to decide on how the lighting would be. It was interesting having to imagine the lighting and how an audience would view the piece, especially since we could not choreograph in the space it was to be performed in.

2 isolate

The exploration of body parts and the surroundings in a confined space using light to enhance and emphasize isolation.

Things needed to be done.

Before performing, we must set the space ready to receive the audience in a state that can be performed in.

~ Make sure theatre is blacked out (cyclorama and sides)
~ Set up mic and XLR cable.
~ Set up two fresnel lanterns with extension cables to the Alpha pack.
~ Plug in Alpha pack to the socket on the wall, via an extension cord.
~ Adjust wing curtains.
~ Set chair.

Our Tech Run

Problem: The box can't see into the wings, where our piece is set.

Problem: Cables everywhere!!

Problem: Too much surrounding "furniture".

Solution: Do the piece anyway and hope for the best. Keep going, even if there is no light. Avoid very dark and cluttered spaces. Have fun and hopefully the audience will enjoy the piece too.

Untitled

Names. Things to label something.

What do we call our piece?

Isolation
Hermits
Two Houses

Do we have to name it?

[nothing]

Rambert Dance Company ~ featuring The Comedy of Change

Rambert Dance Company performed a bill of three works at Sadler's Wells, London. I was lucky enough to get tickets for their performance on Wednesday 4th November 2009.

Tread Softly
Choreography ~ Henri Oguike
Music ~ Franz Schubert
Costume Design ~ Asalia Khadje
Lighting Design ~ Yaron Abulafia

I feel Abulafia had done an amazing job with the lighting. It was brilliant! It really helped to enhance the piece and special placing created dancing shadows. There were squares made with profiles and then changed to angular lines in a row, lights facing downstage from near the cyclorama in an arched shape, and side lighting to light the volume of the space.

Carnival of the Animals
Choreography ~ Siobhan Davies
Music ~ Charles Camille Saint-Saens
Set Design ~ David Buckland
Costume Design ~ Antony McDonald
Lighting Design ~ Peter Mumford

This is the piece I liked the most. It was full of comical movement, recognisable music and fascinating lighting!! They wore white suits with coloured clothing (each dancer wore a different colour) underneath, so only the sleeve cuffs and socks were seen.

Here is a mini compilation of the different sections that made up this wonderful piece:


Davies used influences from many different genres of dance and even other movement such as diving into a pool and swimming.

The set had a beautiful picture of a jungle with a tiger in it. At one point, this was extended with a profile light with a green gel and what seemed to be a bespoke gobo.

The Comedy of Change
Choreography ~ Mark Baldwin
Music ~ Julian Anderson
Production Design ~ Kader Attia
Costume Design and chrysalises ~ Georg Meyer-Wiel
Lighting Design ~ Michael Mannion

This piece was so creative. It began with the dancers inside these pods (or chrysalises) that looked like white wired eggs. The performers wore white or black or half white and black clothes. The work incorporates courtship dances, display and nature's use of camoflage, as if the dancers were animals themselves. I found it very weird, but exciting and very different to anything I had seen before.


One downside to taking a module in lighting is that I often get carried away watching how the lights change and which lights are being used, rather than watching the dance. But lights can dance too.

All three pieces really inspired me but I feel disheartened by the fact that all I really remember about them just one month later is the lighting. It just shows how powerful it can be!

Codex (1987) - Philippe Decouflé

Codex was a work I saw during my lecture on Post-Modernism. The use of lighting is really interesting with the use of silhouettes and then the squares of light aswell. Above is part 1 (I think), with the Egyptian-like silhouette figures. The shapes are very two-dimensional even though you can see the movements as three-dimensional. It will be interesting to see if I can recreate this during next week's session when we play with movements.

Week 3 - Assessment Study 1 (Choreographing Light)

This assessment was the next progressional step after the two weeks we've had so far.

For part of this session, we all had to perform and another part we had to assess. I enjoyed doing both but I feel that assessing is very difficult. Especially because you have to assess your peers and we've all been together for two years and know each other well. You have to put that aside from your mind and look at the dance as something seperate to the friendships you've created and think about all the criteria and how the dance fulfills it. Perhaps splitting the emotional attachment you have with the people and to evaluate the developing resourceful choreographers instead is the most difficult part. It would be much easier to mark a "random" person's dance.

Assessment Criteria:

1. Evidence of creativity, imagination and experimentation in choreographing time, light, stillness, sound/ambience (and movement*)

2. Evidence of considering the entire experience of the audience, and degree to which to which this contributed to the form-content of the work

* How is this movement appropriate and sensitive to the work’s form-content?

Mark out of 20.

I enjoyed all the pieces I saw and much prefered just being able to take the works for what they were and really appreciate them rather than having to critique them.

One of the criticisms that we felt was fair was the fact that the studio were we had placed our piece wasn't pitch black and there was still a slight amount of light, enough to make out a few shadows. Also, how do you signify and ending when a piece's main focus is use of light?? Its very difficult to distinguish and the only way I can think of now would be to run over to the light switch and turn on the worker (fluorescent) lights.

Previous works with light!

Reading Lee's blog, I remembered working with Rashpal Singh Bansal (who sadly passed away August 2009 at the age of 29) when I was in Surrey Youth Dance Company (SYDC). The piece was performed with other works by him at Woking Dance Festival. It wasn't the piece that I was in that I so very clearly remember the lighting, but it was another of his pieces we were able to watch during the tech rehearsal (I don't recall the name). It was a dark stage with only one dancer, lit by an oval bubble of bright purple light. The light was being projected up and back from the wings of the stage and I remember watching and thinking of how magical it looked, especially when the dancer moved. He had to change it though as the dancer couldn't see the floor and felt like she would fall over as the light was being projected into her eyes. So unfortunately, the paying public saw the purple light through the cyclorama from the flood lights instead. It really was something that truely inspired me and I was in awe of this "new" lighting! I had never seen it being used this way before.

(The Lightbox Art Gallery)

Another work I recall was one I performed in myself. Working in a community dance project with Carol Brown, I volunteered to take part in a site-specific piece - Glow (2007). The site was an empty, newly built art gallery (named "The Lightbox") and the experience of the audience was a tour of the gallery, visiting 4 different rooms with 4 different works. The work I want to focus on was called "Soul Candles". We experimented with small battery operated lights that would switch on and off everytime you depress the lens. They were placed onto still bodies, almost as if to sculpt, shape and define the positions they were already in, as the picture shows below. This is another way of using light to focus attention onto certain points on the body, as that is where the light is emitting from.

Light Manipulation

Light is an source of energy that we as humans find very useful. Without light, we would not be able to see as light is actually the only thing our eyes can "see". Those tiny holes in our eyes are used to take in light reflected off objects. Colours that we see is the colour of the light reflected from that object.

We are currently exploring light as resource and how we can manipulate it and incorporate it into a dance piece. I am working in a group with two other people and we are creating a study using stillness and light. Only one movement can be seen, ie we are only allowed to move within total darkness.

The easiest source of light we were able to use and manipulate is a normal desk lamp. We also examined the use of sounds that the lamp created when being switched on, bent etc.


As you can see, the desk lamp has quite a wide circuferance of visibility, depending on how far the bulb is from whatever is being lit. We chose to use closeness and focus on points of a body and use the light to investigate the shapes we can make using just one light source and a still person.

A question that Simon asked ~ Do you feel this is a dance piece?
My answer ~ No. I think, knowing that I like those classic, traditional works that this is of course completely different to what we are doing at the moment. I like working with the lights, however, and I feel this is a good stimulus for a dance piece. Doing this task has widened my mind about the uses of light and reminded me to think about all possibilities, not just the obvious ones.

* First Class *

Hello everyone who may have found this blog!

I am a student at Roehampton University in London, UK. I am currently working towards my BA(Hons) degree in Dance Studies and I am in my third and (hopefully) final year. One of the modules I chose is entitled "The Resourceful Choreographer" (DAN020X321A) and for this, I have to keep a running journal-type blog of my progress etc.

Today was the first class. Simon (our tutor) gave us the task of introducing each other via favourite film and dance piece. Mine were Mary Poppins and Swan Lake. From this, I was almost forced into reminding myself that I prefer the classic and iconic side to things. I'm not one for much abstract works and often wonder how things like a pile of bricks can be labelled as an art work.

Working in pairs, we questioned the use of stillness and the way you can perceive an object. You can zoom in and focus on the tinist fingernail or even zoom out so far, the object appears to be the size of a fingernail. In this case, our eyes were the "camera" in the sense that you can turn it on and off (by blinking) and blur the lens (by squinting). This helped to open up possibilities of where the audience can be situated and how you can change and control the way in which the object is seen.

Simon introduced a few different sources of light and the new task of experimentation with the light was given. We created a short study using a fresnel light closely focusing on the upper body. You were not able to see the body from the ribs down. In this case, you are more susceptible to notice the smaller movements of the hair and breath (as you can control these to be still on command, within reason).

For my own reference: Simon's Blog