Reflection on Todays Session

My Reflection

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.