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.