Inspiration and Feedback

A few different pieces have had an impact on the choreography we have created, a show that particularly stuck in my mind is Colossus by Stephanie Lake Company, I saw a small clip of this at the beginning of the process and instantly felt inspired I loved the use of gestures and abstract movements, and the formations instantly had my attention gripped. Something I noticed was very similar in our piece is at the beginning we used a soloist surrounded by ensemble dancers and throughout this show that is a consistent theme when it comes to the numbers on stage. (Collosus 2021)

 I absolutely love the way Stephanie uses movement throughout the piece and the choreographic style is something I would love to try on myself in the future. Furthermore, I really admire the use of sounds, for example screaming and physical slapping of the body/floor. Again interestingly this is something we have tried to implement however I feel that when it comes to performing it we don't put enough emphasis on striking the floor or our thighs so it could be something to further develop. These movements with added sound were significant to further convey the feelings of intimidation in the opening section, and I feel like adding more clarity to those sounds could help enhance the connection to our stimulus, attached in a video link below is a small section in which we do this. (The choreographic potential is dizzying: Stephanie Lake on Colossus 2018) (COLOSSUS by Stephanie Lake Company 2018)

Video Link- Sound Choreography

Another piece we delved into was Orpheus and Eurydike by Pina Bausch, In this piece, they really utilised the manipulation of numbers, with the use of ensemble and solos, and duet work. This is similar to our piece as we have a great range in the number of people we use throughout, this allows for more fascinating and compelling formations.(Orpheus und Eurydike 2008 2019)

From this piece, I could also see the use of small gestures and repeated hand movements may be simple but it certainly is effective and very intriguing as it can feel as if it has much more significance than perhaps just dancing for the sake of dancing, this is something we are really hoping to implement throughout 

(Orpheus and Eurydike 2022)

After showing our teacher and class a small section of our piece some feedback we received was to remember to portray the intention behind the movements, as sometimes it wasn't necessarily clear as to how each phrase was supposed to be performed, so we decided to look into where we could emphasise the emotion in the face as well as the body. One other thing that was noticed was being sure to always link our choreography back to the stimulus, this means obviously not creating a movement for the sake of it and also being able to portray the connections to our theme of Sexual Assault and its effects, the whole way through. I can definitely agree that we need to find more elements of performance and I think hand in hand that will help further convey the connection to the stimulus as I feel how you execute the steps has a large impact on how they are perceived by the audience. We very much hope the audience will be able to sense the intimidation Emma as the soloist is under at the start of the piece as well as perhaps feeling it themselves because of the way we use our bodies and formations to depict that overwhelming feeling. 

Bibliography 

Collosus (2021) Chaillot Theatre national de la danse. Salle Jean Vilar . Available at: https://theatre- chaillot.fr/en/season-2020-2021/colossus (Accessed: November 30, 2022).

Admin (2018) The choreographic potential is dizzying: Stephanie Lake on Colossus, Dance Informa Magazine. Available at: https://dancemagazine.com.au/2018/08/colossus/ (Accessed: November 30, 2022).

Orpheus and Eurydike (2022) Ursula Kaufmann. Available at: https://www.ursulakaufmann.de/gal/index.php?/category/1573 (Accessed: November 30, 2022).

Orpheus und Eurydike 2008 (2019) Youtube. Fatova Mingus. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Istl2NSMs54 (Accessed: November 30, 2004).

COLOSSUS by Stephanie Lake Company (2018) YouTube. Stephanie Lake. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qdn4LELnzpQ (Accessed: November 30, 2022).