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9 - Final Evaluation

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In the beginning our main goal was to create a solo that holds purpose, deep meaning and direct reference to our stimulus “Speed Head”, while working with attention to the dynamics of our music “Starry Night”. Throughout our choreographic journey we expanded our knowledge about choreographing as we learnt about choreographic motifs, researched James Cousins our practioner and analysed two of his pieces. We included motifs like contrast, repetition and embellishment which is similar to what is used by Cousins in his works. I think we have achieved our main goal as we have created a purposeful solo that holds the dynamic and meaning we intended to use. If I was to go through this process again, I would remind myself to be more experimental with movements, and not to be afraid to go out of my comfort zone. I would challenge myself with trying to create more contemporary movements and more difficult floorwork which would enhance the difficulty of the solo and impress the audience more....
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8 - Personal Development and Reflection

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    We have finished choreographing our solo. Next week, as it is the last week before our assessment we will focus on cleaning and embellishing the adding the last few details to some movements within our piece. We plan on running the solo a few times to make sure the order of movements is clear in our minds. We received feedback to slow down our ending phrase so we will continue to adjust and experiment with the timing and see what works best (before and after seen in videos below).    I have learned a great deal of information from researching about our chosen practitioner, James Cousins, and his pieces ‘Taste Water Again’, and ‘Everything or Nothing’. As we continued on our choreographic journey, learning about how Cousins creates movement and implements deep intentions within his pieces allowed us to choreograph more easily. It is Cousisn’s way of using motifs and deep intention that directly inspired us while creating our solo, more so than the movements themse...
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7 - Practitioner Study 2: James Cousins ‘Everything or Nothing’

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  ‌  I have decided to review James Cousins piece ‘Everything or Nothing’,  (www.youtube.com, 2012)  Cousins choreographed this piece for Mathew Bournes annual new choreographers award, which he won in 2012.  This piece this piece is set on 10 dancers. It is about becoming aware of a concept, “ With the single realisation that nothingness is a state of mind, we unlock the possibility to become anything that we desire.   Without that nothing, we could not have everything”. ( Bettina John, 2016). This piece clearly has different intentions to the first piece I reviewed ‘Taste Water Again’, which focused on the journey of a girl who seeks resolve in a situation that is beyond her control (Cousins, 2013).   I believe there are great differences between the movement in the two pieces.  ‘Everything or Nothing’, overall holds more dynamic and sharper movements throughout compared to the contrasting sharp and flowy movements Cousins included in ‘Tast...
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6 - Reflection on My Choreographic Process So Far

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  I am very happy with how our choreography is coming along.  We are towards the end of our choreographic process as we have 2mins 45seconds choreographed.  We analyse our work by looking back at the videos we take each week. From this, we discus what worked well and what we can improve on, which allows us to adapt our piece accordingly.  Repetition of covering our eyes has worked well, and we will continue to embellish other movements with this detail.  Coming up with contrasting movements worked well for us also. We will continue to adapt the timing to make the dynamic more unique and memorable, which will improve the overall quality our solo holds. For example we have already gone back and sped up certain parts, which created an even bigger contrast between the sudden sharp movements and the flowy ones: During class time we have received valuable feedback. Firstly, our teacher told us that we should consider if it is an internal or external force that is allo...
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5 - Practitioner Study 1: James Cousins ‘Taste Water Again’

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 James Cousins I have decided to review James Cousins piece ‘Taste Water Again’,  https://youtu.be/EqWgy8EMsY4?si=OfTqDiQGYltVZkDX  . This was the initial piece my group was drawn to.    “Taste Water Again follows a lone female in her search for resolve, in the wake of an unexpected and harrowing experience, beyond her control”. (Cousins, 2013)    Dancer-choreographer collaboration is a big part of Cousins creative process, he believes that “Our ideas collectively together are far stronger than mine alone” (Cousins, 2019).   Cousins intentions are definitely made clear to the audience when watching this specific piece. Having to deal with something that is beyond control directly links to our solo. In cousins piece the girl is only at the beginning of her journey while in our solo an external force is guiding us through towards the end, which finally alllows us to see more clearly.    Overall I think the most intriguing thing about this ...
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4 - Exploring Choreographic Devices

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    Firstly in this class we did a quiz where we had to match choreographic devices to their meanings. We learnt some new words and ways of creating which will be beneficial moving forward.    After this we started to choreograph phrases of movement that we could potentially include in our solo, thinking of our chosen choreographic devices.  We chose contrast/compare, repetition and embellishment as our choreographic devices . Repeating sharpness throughout, will create a contrast towards the flowy movements, which directly links to the contrast of texture on our stimuli’s surface. We plan on embellishing particular movements as our solo develops. For example, we did this by making an arm movement sharper which enhanced the dynamic of our movements, as seen below. Going back and reworking is an example of what I learnt last week… that choreography is not a linear process.    We are influenced by James Cousins method of emotion portrayal in his pieces, ...
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3 - Exploring Choreographers

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In this choreography class we explored a range of different choreographers.  We watched… a ted talk video with Wayne McGregor (www.youtube.com, 2012), a short video of behind the scenes of Mathew Bournes “Red Shoes” (www.youtube.com, 2019) , and finally another short video where Crystal Pite explains her creative process (www.youtube.com, 2019).  From these sources I learnt that choreography is a transfer of energy and our bodies are architectural objects. I also learnt that repeating movements in a slightly different way can change how the message comes across. My point of view has changed as I now know choreography is not a linear process, you can come back at any point to change, edit or rework certain movements. This will keep your piece authentic and fresh.  After this in our small groups, we each researched a choreographer that we didn’t know much about. We then discussed the different choreographers in our group and decided which one was most suited ...
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