Task 1: To pick a painting from the resources I have
provided and use it as a stimulus to the create two counts of eight of dance
choreography. Afterwards you will chose a poem, it can relate or not that is
your choice. we will be reading the poem out while you dance, this will explore
the relationships between dance, and art poetry and whether they can create
connections and layer meaning.
The poem that was used was: I caught a train that passed the town where you lived, from the book:
Patten, B, Collected love poems,(2007), London p.119
'I caught a train that passed the town where you lived.
on the journey I thought of you
One evening when the park was soaking
you hid beneath trees, and all around you dimmed itself
as if the earth were lit by gaslights
we had faith that love would last forever
I caught a train that passed the town where you lived.'
The paintings that were used as a stimulus to choreograph from can be found at this reference.
Lanyon, p. (1992) Air land a sea; exhibition: Camden Art centre, London, South bank centre.
pp.. 33,19,29
The three paintings that were chosen are as follows:
What did you use from the paintings initially to create
movement?
Response: Circles, shapes, colour, contrast, how bold the
lines were, shading, mood, how it made me feel, emotions. Everyone's different
so its good to see different interpretations.
Today aim and objective: to explore creating choreography by collaborating with art and poetry.
Task 1: To use the material from Cunningham chance workshop that was created last session to develop the choreography by using ideas from the Banksy painting.
Task 2: To look at the 'Girl with balloon' painting and create movement from it.
The main choreographic ideas that came from this Graffiti Art:
Reaching for something like the balloon.
Meeting and parting
Light and shade, tonal effects, to create dynamics
Balloon characteristics such as floating, swaying, weightlessness.
Light and shade task:
After analysing the art we discussed the balloons colour but we also talked about the tonal effect. The black and white and how it ranges from light to dark. Using this light and dark tonal scale we used it to influence dynamics.
Do you think that this task of using the tonal effect in the image to create a change in dynamic was easy ?
Response: It worked nicely you could see the contrast in movement between the three of us. There could have been a moment of stillness in the movement though I feel because then there would be moments where the audience could stop and relate the movement to the image.
Chelsea and Sam created a duet. Chelsea represented the little girl in the image and Sam represented the balloon.
Chelsea's instructions were that she wasn't allowed o take her eyes off Sam, and that she wanted to get close to the balloon to catch it.
Sam instructions were to take on the dynamics of the balloon, the weightlessness, floating and air feeling.
End session discussion,
Did you think using the image as a stimulus to create choreography reinforced the performance?
Response: I had no idea who Banksy was until today and it was good to have the chance method to help stimulate choreography and to expand my ideas.
What did you learn from exploring art as stimulus for choreography?
Response: That the picture had a connection to the dance choreography made. Whatever art form it is they all have a connection to one another on the progress of how they are made.
Did this experiment with art make you re assess the way in which you usually choreograph?
Response: yes cause I don't normally use paintings or poetry to create movement. I might use a word, a sentence or a theme. I found that the picture helped me to create more interesting un predictable movement that I wouldn't have thought to do before.
What did you find challenging about today?
Response: Reading out the poem, I lack confidence when reading out loud so I found it challenging to begin with. However after some practice and once I have learnt the words I will know what I'm doing and feel more comfortable.
Do you think performing a poem and performing a dance are the same?
Response: No because I don't have to speak. I don't like drama so to shout a sentence or call someone's name is easy but to read a full sentence I get muddled. in dance you can improvise and the audience wont notice however in English language there is a pressure to use the correct grammar.
Do you think that the poetry added anything to the choreography?
Response: Yes, it created a storyline. The movement had no connection to the poem but when you heard the poem spoken out whilst you watched the movement I was able to make connections to he words and what I was seeing.
This Idea came from researching the experience an audience gets when walking around an Art gallery. A typical experience of an art gallery viewing is often taken over by large crowds. This business creates tension and often you can just find yourself walking round without pausing or stopping to look at the material. My experience of going to Art gallery's such as the Tate Modern is that I find it a very vast and a large building to contend with therefore I already feel daunted before I even start. Also I find it hard to connect to the art straight away because all it says is the name of the artist and when it was created. In some ways this is an interesting way to develop own opinions and creativity. However this research created an idea for a collaboration between art and poetry. This has enabled a meaning because I can imagine its like layers words over the painting. Whilst the audience is viewing the painting they are making connections between the words and the painting. they are being stimulated to be engaged with the performance.
This research has enabled me to see the importance of other art form collaborations and from this I plan to do a dance and poetry session with the dancers today.
This 'Combined Arts' Web page from the Arts Council England is an example of a platform that combines Art forms, artists, companies, and producers to work towards a performance outcome for example festivals. The Liberty Festival (2009) is an example of a way to bring society into dance and get them involved within the arts. Combined Arts writes about their aims and goals, one being that they wanted to 'bringing the creation, commissioning and programming of art into new contexts, offering audiences new experiences'. This aim suggests the importance of collaborating with the arts to create new work for audiences to get involved in.
During my PaR process I will be paying attention to the audience participation, involvement and engagement towards my process but also my final performance. When I hear the word 'Arts' I think of fun and associate arts in a context of playing, creating and having that moment of exploring into the unknown. I also make connections between childhood memories of playing within the Arts, whether it be an Art class, or combining drama and music. This self expression and creativity is what I am proposing is so important to the development within the Contemporary dance choreography today. And this source has shown that they believe their is research to be done within this area.
Combined arts encompasses a range of organisations that work across multiple artforms to achieve their aims, including festivals, carnival, arts centres and presenting venues, rural touring circuits and agencies. It also includes artists, producers and companies that create multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary work, carnival, celebratory and participatory arts. Combined arts practice increasingly reflects the way many artists want to work and audiences want to engage. Our aim is to support high-quality work and organisations that truly connect with people. Combined arts will contribute to our Great art and culture for everyone goals and priorities by:
pushing artistic and cultural boundaries across all artforms, for example Manchester International Festival, the Royal Opera House, the Lowry, Artsadmin
bringing the creation, commissioning and programming of art into new contexts, offering audiences new experiences, for example Artichoke, Fierce Festival, the November Club
building on the artistic and infrastructural legacy of London 2012, which has provided a springboard for some exceptional combined arts activity, such as Imagineer's Godiva Awakes and Kinetika's Imagination our Nation and other projects supported through Artists taking the lead and Unlimited
developing high quality, ambitious art in a variety of outdoor spaces, carnivals and festivals, such as Stockton International Riverside Festival, Thames Festival and St Paul's Carnival, ensuring that a wide range of artists are given opportunities to create work for these environments
playing a stronger, more influential role within touring in England through organisations such as the National Rural Touring Forum, Farnham Maltings and Crying out Loud, supporting, developing and co-commissioning a wider range of work to tour, reaching more and different places and people
developing a flexible and creative approach to working with people in places that have low arts provision, finding new places and ways to programme art, for example Corby Cube, Hall for Cornwall, the Lawrence Batley Theatre in Huddersfield
working in depth with communities that are less engaged in the arts. We want to see organisations such as TiPP (working within the community justice system), Heart n' Soul, Artlink and People United given a higher profile both within and beyond the arts sector
making a strong contribution to the creative economy, for example the Southbank Centre, the Brewery Arts Centre in Kendal, the Inside Out Festival in Dorset. We want to see organisations develop stronger, deeper collaborations with partners both within and outside the arts so that their work is supported and valued by a much wider range of stakeholders
offering more entry points into the arts for people from a wide range of backgrounds, with a route through to wider education and work opportunities, for example the UK Centre for Carnival Arts, Gem Arts, Milap Festival Trust
giving more young people platforms to create and show their own work and developing the artists and arts participants of the future, for example Norfolk & Norwich Festival, the Roundhouse, Brouhaha, SPARK Children's Arts Festival in Leicester
Today's session I was researching the following areas.
- Explore Cunningham's chance method of creating choreography.
- How music can influence the dancer to create choreography.
- How chance can expand the creativity of the choreographer.
- Analyse and highlight the benefits and reasons for why choreographers should collaborate with a range of art forms and create new ways of creating movement.
Task: use chance as a method to attach music accordingly to the movement. The dancers have to create 4 counts of 8 of movement on their own.
Use music on shuffle to create unpredictability.
First I got the group to decide the track they wanted to dance to. Sia big girl cry. This is a new song out that is well known. I found that when I left them to talk about it that they were discussing what track they could choose so that it would fit with the movement that they felt comfortable with, they were pre planning their choreography without even realising. The movement that they used became predictable.
Whilst watching I saw.. That the music and movement directly went, the music is very repetitive in rhythm and the dance movement that was created , became similar. Because of this there wasn't any moments of light and shade and dynamic climax.
I also wondered if they choose this song and movement style because of their knowledge of previous dance history.
All three dancers began to create movement directly to the songs rhythms, when the song finished i waited to see if they would put the music back on and they did, this shows that they were creating movements directly to the music and they were relying upon it.
Now I gave them the task of creating movement with Merce Cunningham's chance method. I can see that the chance method began to layer and develop the movement to become more interesting to watch.
We rolled the dice to see what constructions would be used to develop the movement.
Here are the choreographic devices for the numbers on the dice.
1- use a different body part
2- add a movement
3- create a moment of contact with another dancer
4- hold a position in stillness throughout the piece
5- speed up or slow down the phrase
6- travel your movement to enter or exit the stage space.
The first time round was, fast and slow, fast and slow, and hold stillness
The second time it was, use another body part, moment of contact, travel your piece.
The third time it was, add a movement in, speed up or slow down, contact.
Afterwards I asked them to roll the dice to determine which dance phase would be used then I shuffled my music playlist to see which song they would perform it to. Which created the element of unpredictability.
Discussion on today's exercise.
Which dance choreography and random music from shuffle worked the best?
Feedback,
3rd, halo music shuffle worked well as a group the ending and the start.
2nd one, meditation music felt awkward when I had movement that was fast
Do you think that if you were to improvise with music that you would get a different out come?
Feedback, Your more likely to dance to the style and genre of music because you haven't got any choreography before hand. There's no one telling you what to do, it's just you. If you have created the piece before you already have a style so you tend to stay to that style, whether you are used to it or not.You can also begin to rely on what the autopilot is telling you what to do.
This shows that creating movement prior to adding music will create a more interesting outcome. You have a clear head and haven't got any influences to begin with. I think that it is still important to have a theme for a starting point in some cases.
Do you think it's important that there are benefits for choreographers?
Feedback,
You get more out of your creativity, you crate to the music.
It adds more dept to the dance
I feel that this workshop expressed the importance of combining art forms, and using music to enhance movement and not to just add onto it. This experiment showed how choreographers can become more creative and unique.
Merce Cunningham's approach to adding music to dance after the choreography has been made.
The question arises Do you think this is a good way to choreograph?
How do you choreograph a dance? Would you choose music first when having to choreograph?
Feedback,
Tessa would start creating movement with different music and try out different types of movement because she finds and adapts different movement once found a track?
Sam- pick a song , mess around and see what's best.
Chelsea- picks a song, the song is a starting stimulus and then the movement creates from there.
Depends on the situation
If there are accents in the music you will have to adapt it to the music if you haven't already rehearsed with the music.
Music comes then you can create the choreography
Whereas musical theatre you will have to listen to the music before hand, and there is always a storyline in musical theatre to represent.
How did you feel whilst doing the task today?
Feedback,
Some areas were difficult when someone had to make contact with another dancer.
Whereas as a group we thought it was an easy enough challenge to rearrange our choreography
The website Contemporary dance history, available at URL: http://www.contemporary-dance.org/contemporary-dance-history.html (Accessed on 26/04/15) pin points influential moments within dance history and shows the importance of the practitioners ideas, style and choreographic works on our society.
'We could say that both ballet and modern dance are ancestors of contemporary dance. Ballet creates the general concert dance frame work and technical knowledge used or refused by contemporary dance. Modern dance is at the same time its ‘anti-reference’ and kind of ‘mother in law’.
So, there’s a contemporary dance history before the 1950s: that one of ballet and modern dance, which somehow serves society to make emerge contemporary dance.'
Directly quoted from the website.
This website talked about Merce Cunningham. Cunningham used chance as a method of creating choreography and he always uses music that has no direct relationship to the movement. Therefore I am interested in creating a session around Cunningham's ideas of creating movement separate to the music. Afterwards I will analyse it and compare it to structure ballet choreography and repertoire.
Available at URL: http://corp.lastlookapp.com/posts/legendary-collaboration-merce-cunningham-rei-kawakubo/ (Accessed on 26/04/15)
Merce Cunningham and John Cage talking about chance as a method of choreography, found on Youtube, 26/04/15
'Cunningham developed “choreography by chance,” a technique in which selected isolated movements are assigned sequence by such random methods as tossing a coin.'
Available at URL: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/146610/Merce-Cunningham (Accessed on 26/0415)
It is important to know what other research is being done into my area of Practice, so that I can specifically relate my research to the broader contemporary dance contexts.
For example:
London Studio Centre is holding a a practice as research open discussion
round table event into music and dance tomorrow. The roundtable event has invited
speakers Raymond Chai, Ashleigh Berry, Rhimes Lecointe. The all range from dancers,
choreographers and performers from musical theatre television,
ballet and dance company backgrounds. This round table event hopes to open up the
conventions. Here are the questions that are proposed to begin the discussions/debates.
You may see how they are similar to my research questions.
In which ways are choreographers
inspired to work with music? What are the relationships between choreographic
and musical structure in the 21st century? How do choreographers work with
music to add complex layers of meaning to their work? How do music and dance
highlight different and similar aspects of culture, and what does it mean for
those to come together in a single performance work? What are the challenges
and opportunities arising from mediatisation of both music and dance?
My Practice as research questions (These are just proposed questions they may change)
·Has our society and culture
influenced the way we use music within contemporary dance today?
Does an audience engage more within
a dance performance with music or without music?
·What are the relationships between
music and dance during performance?
·Is a musical score like dance
choreography?
·Should practitioners combine
different art forms to create performance?
·How does music enhance and influence
movement?
It is essential for my research process to know who is doing similar research because without knowing what has gone before or what is happening currently how can I propose what is the right idea for the future?
After the Questionnaire today we discussed what direction we could take the choreographic Lab in. We discussed the question 'What's more important dance or music?', and as a result of this discussion we decided that Music and Dance have equal importance within dance performance.
During this discussion we also talked about society and culture and how we have been brought up to connect different sounds and genres of music with certain styles of dance. I plan to take this question further and develop this into my next session.
I feel that the Questionnaire was a good idea to gather initial thoughts from the group and it helped me to focus and plan the direction I will be taking my research next week.
After the discussion we looked at Table Music again to refresh ourselves with the idea of creating music through rhythms. We talked about the sound on the video and how they layered different rhythms on top of one another. We made connections to Tribal dance music, there was a feeling that the same rhythm could be played for a while and it wouldn't get boring. The music could just consist of three or four rhythms that are just repeated.
Following on from this video I showed the group some other dance choreographies and music groups that fused music and percussion in unusual ways. We look at the following:
- Stomp, where they use the body to create music and objects such as plastic, or brooms to create sound.
- Naturally 7, are a group that use the voice to create a band. They create the sounds of a drum, guitar and bass etc. just by the use of their voice.
After looking at these two videos we begun to talk about our ideas and thoughts. The group Stomp influenced us to think about creating a theme of recycling and using only recyclable materials to make sound. This could then create a society/ environmental theme of Global warming or the rubbish problem in landfill sites. Stomp also gave us the idea for a narrative, we discussed how the everyday objects used to create music could begin to represent rubbish and then the dancers could take on characterisations of the homeless.
The Cup Task
After this we began experimenting with some plastic cups, to see what soundscapes we could make. We each had two cups, we improvised creating a rhythmic score by tapping, banging, crushing, sweeping and flicking the cups on the floor.
We also thought about what styles of dance that we could incorporate within this research on Dance and Music. The dance style Tap was discussed as it uses the feet to create sound but also allows the rest of the body to move. We thought that the collaboration between music and dance should happen throughout so during this research I will conduct tasks were I divide the group up into people that create the music and then dancers that perform in relation to that music.
We also thought after we have worked on some rhythms that we could record them within the studio to allow us to have the performance semi live.
This would allow the dancers to leave the group one by one whilst their rhythm still plays on.
Practice as Research: First Session, Questionnaire and Discussion
Task 1, As a group complete this questionnaire, you are allowed to discuss through your opinions and answers because this is an informal questionnaire. The aim is just to grasp an idea of what you think about Dance and Music within Performance. So therefore this is a semi structured feedback that will allow me to analyse your views and opinions on the relationships between Music and Dance within Performance.
Question 1, within performance which is more important to you, Your performance, Music or Dance?
If so Why?
Answer: We feel that without a strong performance from the dancer the music and choreography is irrelevant.
Question 2, Do you feel that combining art forms in choreography is a good development within contemporary dance today?
Answer: Yes, this is because the performance becomes more interesting to new audience members.
Question 3, Do you get that feeling to want to dance when you hear music, similar to hearing a song and then singing along?
If so Why?
Answer: Yes, Music influences how you feel.
Question 4, Do you think that different music genres can influence you to move in different ways?
If so Why?
Answer: This is because different styles of dance automatically have a style of music connected to it.
Question 5, Do you think that a musical score is like a dance choreography?
If so How?
Answer: They both complete a piece of work by following the instructions.
Question Six, Do you prefer Dances that are choreographed to music or not?
Answer: Yes
Question 7, Does and audience engage more within a Dance performance with or without music?
Before today's session I am going to research how to formulate a Questionnaire, so I can prepare some questions for the group to answer together about their views and opinions on Music, Dance and Performance. To help me structure a successful Questionnaire I have looked at this Website Wikihow, Available at URL: http://www.wikihow.com/Develop-a-Questionnaire-for-Research (Accessed on 23/04/2015).
Figure out what information you are trying to gather from this survey
Write an introduction for your questionnaire.
Use closed questions for questionnaires.
Order your questions in a way that is meaningful and easy to follow.
Put the more important questions at the beginning of your questionnaire.
Add a little variety to your questions
Decide what methods you will use to reach your target audience.
All of the statements above are taken directly from the website.
Module Choreography 2 Module Leader, Kirsty Russell and Noyale Colin Vanessa Sleightholme (S161176)
Here is my initial Choreographic Lab proposal that I pitched to my dancers this week.
Choreographic Lab Proposal on
Composer and Filmmaker Thierry De Mey and Choreographer Teresa de Keersmaeker
My
practise as research will be a collaboration between composer Thierry De Mey
and Choreographer Teresa de Keersmaeker. I want to research these two artists
because they both have an interest in the relationships between music and dance
as I do. I know we were supposed to choose one choreographer however, after
researching and finding out that Thierry de Mey and Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker
have collaborated before I thought it would be interesting to fuse both the
choreographic themes and the compositional ideas together in order to influence
my own work.
Influences from research
Table
Music’ by Thierry de Mey consists of three performers creating sound on wood.
This work really inspired me to want to create my own music from objects other
than instruments instead of using a sound accompaniment backing track.
Anne
Teresa de Keersmaeker’s work focuses on the importance of music and how it can
influence the human body to move. During my research I watched a video of her
work ‘Performance 13: On Line (2011)’ and the use of sand showed a sense of
specific arrangement, planning and architecture. There was a very geometric,
mathematical approach to this work however I liked the simplistic movement material
and performance attitude. Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker work has inspired me to
want to create a musical score to start off with, so that it will allow for my
dancers to feel a connection between body and rhythm.
What I propose to do
I
propose that I would use two of my dancers within an experimental workshop to create
sound on objects such as metal, wood, plastic, paper and tins. With an idea of
then beginning to create a musical score that would accompany my movement.
Keersmaeker’s
works involve an element of performance Art, so I also would like to experiment
with my dancers creating something visual. I would like the blank stage space
to transform, so the audience can actually see their presence when they are not
there anymore.
Theoretical Source
1 –
Conversation between Massimiliano Schiavoni and Thierry de Mey. They discuss
where and when his interest in dance begun, his first work and his company and
his collaborations with choreographers.
Available
at URL: http://www.digicult.it/digimag/issue-036/theirry-de-mey-music-movement/
(Accessed on 21/04/15)
Video Clips
1-Table music by Thierry de Mey,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J91emaxq0iY
During a four week period I will be
leading a Choreographic Lab with three dance students investigating the
relationships between Dance and Music.The choreographers that I will
be using as influences are Dancer and Choreographer Teresa de Keersmaeker and
Composer Thierry De Mey.
