Dance lesson 1 - 15th September 2016. Unit 50: Movement in Perfromance

Unit 50: Movement in Performance - Dance

What is a stimulus?

·         A starting point for ideas, phrases, movements etc.

·         A starting point.

·         Something to react to.

Types of Stimuli

·         Visual – Picture/photo

·         Text   -   Book, song lyrics, poems, script

·         Aural  - Music, sound effects, dialogues

·         Concept/theme – Hate/War/Black history month

                                                                                                                                        

Initial stages of our dance inspired by Shobana Jeyasingh. Based on Indian dancing called Bharatanatyam. We can tell this from the use of elaborate hand gestures. Our main influence is the piece ‘Faultline’ which contains themes alongside: gangs, aggression, violence, rebellion, belonging etc.

WWW - In our group performance I felt as though our formations were interesting and dynamic in      order to make it visually engaging. For example, we started facing on a diagonal in the formation of a diamond. We then managed to keep this formation throughout our entire piece only changing at the end where we run off different ways. For example, I am at the far point of the diamond and I run forward past Megan who was the first/front point of our diamond. I felt that this was successful because we didn’t break our formation during performance and therefore presented a strong initial opening. Also in our group performance we found that when we were in time with each other our unison was on point, and therefore was a strong aspect for us and a good start to our piece.  

EBI – Personally, I feel as though I need to work on my fluidity when dancing and extension of my arms and legs when performing in order to create a more convincing portrayal of themes. Such as: aggression, gang culture and violence. For example, when we do jump spins or fast arm movements I tend to pull my arms in and create speed rather than outstretch and slow down. This is clear when I go into my jumps as I tend to land and finish that movement before other people meaning that I am out of time with the others and therefore move onto the next movement phase before the others. Therefore, this is a crucial point where I need to extend. If I fully extend my limbs I feel as though this will then improve the quality of my dancing and help me relax into dance and perform more fluidly.

Even though parts of our piece were in time with each other not everything was. Therefore, we plan to progress through this and work on moving together by figuring out an 8 count beat(?) where we will constantly be counting and therefore be able to come in at the same time to improve our synchronisation. This will also help us create pace so we are constantly moving forward rather than staying on a specific move for too long.