Choreographic Journal: fourth Lesson

24^th September 2014

Hey

So I had my fourth lesson this week, and we focused more on our own stimulus, though we did start out with our warm up, which is getting easier each week because it keeps being refreshed in my head. The dance routine we are learning is getting longer and it’s getting harder to remember it all but I feel I can keep up with the speed if only I can remember and when we are in pairs and going through it, I go slower and that helps, but I don’t have enough time to practice speeding up. So I could ask my teacher when we are going though it if I could film it so I can practice at home.

When looking and exploring my stimulus I found I hit a wall so I discuss my ideas with my dance teacher which I found was very helpful and I could start getting ideas again.

When my teacher and I were talking, she was telling me not just to look at the picture but look at the feel and shape of a library, about how the book shelves are in parallel rows so I could use that to travel around the spaces, for example moving up and down the rows like you would in a library.  We also looked at my  picture and saw the different colours they used and thought about how there was some of the people the same colour so I could uses the colours as different sections. She suggested I could do three movements and have a long transition on each. She also said that having a book as a prop maybe be bad because I may start to focus on the book instead of my stimuli.

I found it helpful to talk to Laura, my teacher , because it help me refocus and I  came up with some good ideas over the next few of days. I wasn't so worried and that mean I could come up with some more ideas.

I could use this position to start off my dance and then used the same position at different levels as I travelling though the book shelves like I'm putting books into different shelves I can use different levels for different shelves while slowly going down one book shelves  then maybe going fast up another books shelve.

 

I could follow on with this action like the person is trying to find a book. I could use opposite dynamic movement from starting off fast and sharp which can help imply that I know what book I’m looking for but I may not be in the right section and finishing with slow and soft to imply that I’m in the right section and about to find the book I’ve been looking for.  So I’m thinking about using levels as well to find the right book title in book shelves.

I saw this one and I consider that I could end with this and add more height to it but jumping up in the air like I had won something because sometimes that’s what happens when you find the right book

you jump for joy.  End with something like holding the book close to my chest or imaging walking out of the library.

At the end of the lesson we looked at motif development, which is used to advance your dance by using these techniques:

• ·            Repetition - An act of doing something again
• ·          Inversion - a reversing of the order, arrangement, or position of something
• ·          rhythmical modifications - with a regularly recurring pattern or beat
• ·          Amplification -the act or process of making something larger, greater, or stronger
• ·          Minimization - to play down the extent or seriousness of something
• ·         Ornamentation - the addition of decoration that enhances beauty or visual appeal, especially in the arts
• ·         Deconstruction – breaking something down 

    And remember keep dancing

       Jenny

Choreographic Journal: Third Lesson

Hey,                                                                                               17th September 2014 

Third lesson we started with a warm up and it seem to be getting better each week, I think it is because we are going over it each week and it’s slowly going in to my head. We went on to an ice breaker which was fun because we had to fall in to some one that we were paired up with and hope they caught us. We had to go in to groups of four and the three who you were putting your trust in to would catch you. I felt when I was in the middle I would clamp up which I not think was good for this exercise because it made you feel like you couldn’t trusted them and  you would be scared to be relaxed because you didn’t want them to not catch you if you unclamp and relaxed.

The following active we did, was the dance routine which we have been adding to each week but this week, I keep not being able to remember what we had just learn for the next bit of the dance routine and it seem the tutor added more movements this week from last week which was hard to remember because I was trying to remember the first new section of the dance and she added another new section after that so it became difficult. I may next week ask her to slowed when she’s teaching the next section of the dance or break it in to smaller section like she could teach us a small section then ask us to go over it then teach us other bit then go over both new section so I can slowly remember what she had taught us.

This week we started looking at our stimuli for our dances, we sat in a circle and went round everyone to see what they are going to do, then we were split in to our pairs, which we will be with till the end of this assignment, so I went with molly who I know won’t let me do something that doesn’t work for my stimuli. we had to do three dance moves for each stimuli, molly and I choose to do the movement together for each stimuli so we could feel how the movement felt when you were performing them, on Molly stimuli I step back to watch the routine and give feedback on what she could improve on and what would looked better or what looked good. We also did this on my routine which works well because she told me that I could use different level and flow more in to my next movement, we then got in to fours to show our routines to another group but we got in to a six because there was an odd number. We showed each other what we had come up with and all of the ideas looked really good and they gave good feedback on everyone. We then had to sit and talk about how we came up with the movement, I got my movements from how people stand and read in a library, I was also thinking about using a prop which would be a book that I have read that is my favourite and it would be “Perry Jackson and the Lighting Thief” because it was the first book and I read that found my love of reading.  And I’m going to try and see if I can find some music to go with my dance but I don’t need to find something because if I wanted to I could do it without music because I’m doing a library I thought it could be quiet or silence but I think I am go for silence but I want to see if there is any music I could use.

My strengths from this lesson would be that I came up with more than 3 ideas for my stimuli but my weakness is that I couldn’t remember what I did so next time I would film what I did so I can look over it and remember my ideas.

And remember keep dancing 

Jenny

Choreographic Journal: Second Lesson

Hey,

We had our second lesson of dance which was easier than last week because I know how to do what was coming up which give me confidence, which made me feel better about the lesson.  We looked at the stimulus which the teacher used to come up with the dance movements. The picture was by Nicolas Poussin called "The Triumph of David" . This was a interesting picture because it had different actions and different people to look at and get ideas from. We also look at some information about the picture and the text link to the picture. It told us more about the artist and the painting. We circled the words that were related to movement, words which help us come up with movements that we had to make for our own 10 minters of choreography.  This was helpful as it gave us more information to work with.  I was in front of my friend, so we show each other what we come up with. This was easier to do than last week as I felt more confident about doing it,  not as self-conscious.  This was partly due to knowing my classmates better and also not being afraid I was getting it wrong.   So I feel I have overcome one of my weaknesses from the last lesson. We went on to learn a different dance routine which I started out fine because it was simple and I could remember it  but then I had trouble following piece like the floor work and quick movement with lots of hand twisting, but I feel like I tried and it went better than last week. Which shows the importance of rehearsals, practise and breaking down tasks in to manageable chunks.

We got our Assignment this week, which is to make up our own choreographic piece which last for 1:30-2 minutes. We need to find stimuli that we can create from. I did look at a poem I found on Pinterest, I like the poem, but I don't think it is right for this project because I think I may find it hard to come up with movements, so I keep looking and instead of sad poems I would look at happy poems which makes you feel like you could do anything or be anything.   

When chatting about school to my Granny she suggested a song called "Before I grow too old" by Tommy McLain. I really like the is song as it has a good beat, it quite uplifting and I  could use the music and not have the words playing.listen to song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_KF-LdHK8Q


I started to think about what makes me, me and thought about libraries.  I love to read and you can sit or stand,about the different ways people read or look at books and I could take movements from that. I need to find some music to go with this idea. So I was thinking I could use music that is slow to begin with, that feels like you are choosing a book, then you have it go to an up beat song and that shows you going to a different world with every book should take you on.  I feel this could be a really good idea if I used my knowledge of reading a story and the feelings I go though as I reading. 
Remember keep dancingJenny

Choreogrphic Journal: First Lesson

Hey my name is Jenny, This is my blog about My dance/Choreographic class that I've just started at the Brit school, which is part of my course Community Art Practice. I'm going to write a logbook for each of my dance/Choreographic class.

3rd of September 2014

Dance wasn't what i thought it was going to be, I thought it was going to be more of a set dance routine that we would practice and then perform but it was more showing us what warm-ups we could do for workshops. We then learnt a dance routine and after we were shown pictures of a piece of art by Antony Gormley called "CONCENTRATE I" how our dance teacher came up with the ideas. We had to come up with dance movements we could get from the same images that our dance teacher got her routine. I focused my routine on the steel that the sculpture was made from and the small shape of the sculptures. so I started small and used sharp and strong actions as steel is strong and hard to move around. she also told us we could get dance movements from images, stories, piece of art, materials or poems which was interesting information in  first lesson. 

I feel I tried my hardness to follow what was being showed to us about the dance routine that we had to learn, but struggled with remembering what the next move so i loss some confidence when going though it.  I also found it hard to do my own movements as i became self conscious with being in my own space with other people in the room, so that was my weaknesses from the first lesson.  My short term memory is not good, so repetition helps a lot.  I can be self-conscious of this and think I am the only one not 'getting it' which makes me more flustered. Thinking how I can tackle this for the next lesson, i could ask to slow down the dances routine and go over it more and maybe if we ask to go through it on our own so i ask someone to show me how to do a section that i didn't get.  I also need to not worry as much in doing my own movements.

My strengths was that I came up with good movements so I am trying and focus on that next time so I feel less self conscious.

Till next next and remember keep dancing

Jenny