Today our priority was to put the sections we had created into some kind of order to create our piece. We worked quickly and efficiently to prepare as much as we could for when the other companies came to watch our sharing.
Surprisingly, we did not start with the section we had planned to. We created a new beginning made from mine and Abbie's solos. It then continued into the section we had already worked on. We continued to add a few small lifts and new sections to come to an ending. I'm not sure if this will be added on to but we have found a comfortable ending if that's what happens.
The piece hasn't been polished and perfected but our aim was to create the piece and then make final adjustments on our last day of rehearsals.
We started with a warm up as usual and then got stuck straight in! Today was very busy indeed!!!
Using Katie's shuffle motif as the feature, we created a group section with the intention to slot it in to the final piece somewhere. Katie used her shuffling movement and Crizzel and Greta moved across the space with the awareness of their breath. Tara, Abbie and myself moved slowly towards the floor but never quite made it all the way, we repeated this three times. Here is the section we created...
After this, I worked alone for a while to create a set solo based on the idea of my free movement improvisation taken from the story board. I wanted to keep it a true to the original idea as possible so I tried improvising and trying to remember what I had done. I was getting too lost in the movement to remember what I was doing and it was a lot harder than what I first thought. I enlisted the help of Tara to be my watcher!! She watched my improvisation and told me the movement I had done. It took a long time doing it this way but it definitely worked! I wrote notes in order to help me remember the solo. I then had to teach Abbie my solo so that she could repeat it at some point during the piece.
Once my solo was complete, Tara had to join me to create a duet. Her role was the fill the space around me. To fill the gaps I had just left and to create gaps for me to move into. We were almost dodging and weaving around each other. Again, it took a while to complete this process because we had to identically recreate the improvised movement each time. Tara took the same approach as me by writing it down. We both wrote each others movement just to keep a record.
At the same time Tara and myself were completing our task Abbie and Greta were doing the same. Abbie had learnt my solo and Greta was filling the gaps so to speak. We finished the day by filming everything we had done. It was going to be 2 weeks until we saw Marina again and this way would be able to remember what we were doing and rehearse on our own.
We spent the morning looking at our story boards that we had made since our last intensive. The idea was to create a solo that could be used within our final piece. We were almost rearranging them, like finding a more in depth movement strategy that could become permanent. Broadening our vocabulary. Altering the movement. I kept a particular aspect of each box but changed it in a way that created a new way of moving.
For example:
Hands on Back- Hands moving other body parts.
Negative Flashback- Stillness, pause.
Nodding the Head- Initiating movement from the head.
Negative Flashback- Running to a new space.
Free positive movement.
I originally made my story board so that it could be taken in any order, but now I was structuring it so that it became a set order every time it was danced.
Initiating movement from the head.
Stillness, pause.
Hands moving other body parts.
Running to a new space.
Free positive movement.
I tend not to dwell on things that are improvised because they become too set, this is why I think I was the first to finish. I wanted my material to remain fresh and not become rehearsed. I also have prior experience in choreographing for myself and I have learnt how I work most efficiently.
Marina watched my solo as I was one in the first to finish in the company. She particularly liked the hands moving other body parts section. She asked Tara to film me doing this section with the intention of using it as a projection on the wall to accompany our finalperformance. She encouraged me to try and move as fast as I could!!!!
Videos to follow...
We also did some filming of the skin as Marina was interested in this. She liked the idea of the light on the skin and the reflection. She also liked the idea of not being able to tell where it was on the body. Moving in and out of focus. Slow motion. We then discussed the possibilities of having projections of both me 'scrambling' and the skin at different intervals throughout the piece.
This is a basic idea of the projections we have planned for the piece:
After lunch, we had a one to one meeting with Marina to show her the progression of our solos and to discuss how to work on it. I didn't have much feedback regarding things that needed to be changed. Tara and myself had both finished our solos and therefore she asked us to do a task together.
This is my story board that we were all asked to create before our second intensive day. It was based on the improvisation tasks that we had done on Monday. The aim was to have movements that could be arranged into a solo, although it did not have to be set material.
I continued with the idea of the negative and positive attitudes I had from our discussion on Monday.
As you can see, I was very vague with the negative ideas. To begin with, I simply labled them a negative flashbacks as a contrast from the positive movements. At a later time I was going to decide exactly what that would become.
The positive moments were much more obvious and defined. I was able to pin point exact movement from the improvisation tasks and through feedback from Marina. They are based on new things I have learnt during my time at Coventry University or thing that have been brought to my attention quite vividly. For example, thinking of my floating skull and the alignment of my body through my spine, the connection of my arms to the torso and improvisation.
I set it out in a way so there was no start and no end, each box could be taken in any order. I took this idea from how Marina explained this task to us, it was just the way in which I understood it. My layout was different to everyone elses in Small Boat but I think my story board works best for me in this particular way.
I was interested to see what everyone would take away from the improvisation tasks and how they would make it there own. Even though we all had the same tasks we all discovered completely different things about ourselves.
I was anticipating what we would do with our story boards...
I didn't know what to expect from this piece becasue I don't think I've seen any of her work before, especially not live. I was anticipating what to expect because we had been recommnded so strongly to come and see it.
After watching the piece, I didn't quite know what to think. I had made plenty of notes throughout the duration of the performance but I couldn't quite sum it up. I tend to pick up on smaller details rather than the bigger picture and this is why I believe I didn't know what to say.
Here are the notes I made to try to help me explain what I saw and my views on the work.
