Dear All,
Thank you for a hard working, patient and productive session this morning. We got a lot done, once again in a reasonably short space of time. The pace at which your are working and the discipline and intelligence with which you are completing the tasks we set is commendable. Please keep this up - it has promising implications for the work as we journey on.
Today we moved from notions of the individual to notions of the communal and what drives these moments in a group. We would therefore like you to:
1. Comment on the creative process we undertook today to allow the final coming together of the section we were aiming for.
2. Comment on the function of isolating some members from the larger community. Why were they isolated at first? What makes them move in and out of isolation and conformity?
3. How were gestures used to differentiate between 'anxious waiting' and 'not willing to confront the audience' in the two sub groups?
4. Finally, how was repetition used today as a choreographic strategy achieve today in order to 'construct' and 'deconstruct' the whole?
Looking forward to hearing from you. Your first blog assessment task will be up on this blog by this Friday, 6th February.
Royona
Bahok, Akram Khan Dance Company
Exploring Liminality
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
1.
The creative process we underwent today was very interesting for various reasons. We began by re visiting what we had created last week and activated our body memory once again, this was very interesting to see how easily the body adjusted to the movements and how the body remembered if I was not doing something correctly.
During the rehearsal of the opening scene I had almost forgotten my movements just before we began running it through but it came naturally which actually shocked me because I didn’t think it would operate in such a way.
The final section felt fresh and alive with ideas and it was clear to see that the focus levels were very high despite having the 10 minute rest which did loose a lot of focus for the group. The process we went through today was the classic “clap” call and respond type of work which worked very well during today’s session. There were minimal disruptions from any group member (maybe because a lecturer was present?) which allowed us to create ideas, put them together and criticise and change moves accordingly to get everything very well tight and in sync.
2.
The isolated members were not isolated from the word go which was interesting to see how this was done. The chairs were placed not facing the audience last week and I knew this was intentional, when two people were instructed to move the chairs I could see that this was going to form their own little community and it did which was a great idea.
I believe from watching the small community that they do not move on impulse but when they feel the connection is present and the time is right. This happened when we were doing the run through for the final time, group members were following the large group before retreating back to the small community. It was kind of like, “do I want to be following the crowd or not?” which was very interesting to see each member react differently.
3.
The waiting gestures were created with the devising process and the group picked 5 movements which stood out for them. All of the movements seemed to build into an anti climax with the exception of the first movement. This did portray waiting because we were tapping which is what waiting generally means, a sign of boredom.
The other group was clearly not intending to look at the audience and this was clear to see from the way the body moved and the change in tempo when they were seen to be communicating with the audience.
Merging the two together was fantastic to perform because it was almost mesmerizing to watch a large group domineer over such a small community before they all copied the group and essentially admitted defeat, I do believe that some of the group would have chosen not to join in if they were not told and this is good to see in their character development.
4.
Repetition was used today like it was used in the past week. It allowed each ensemble member to tweak and adjust their movements in order to satisfy the needs of the group and their energy. As a group we were able to pick and unpick key moments which we did not think fitted well to ones that worked well but needed that extra push to perfection which was achieved quite nicely through repetition.
In this style of work repeating something over again makes you realise little mistakes which you might not notice at first until the body memory kicks in and you think something is not right and then are able to change accordingly.
The process we undertook in today’s session was one that I enjoyed it allowed us as individuals and as a group to return to our body memory and go over what we had produced last week. I feel this worked well as it not only allowed us to remember what we had produced previous but it also allowed us to return back to the character we began to form last week. Once we had recapped on what we had, we were then given the task to come up with another sequence. For this sequence we were spilt up into two groups, the people who faced the audience and people that didn’t, I feel this worked extremely well as the groups weren’t forced together we produced them unconsciously. Separately we produced a sequence, came back together and slotted them together and bit by bit we became one doing the same movements. At first glance you wouldn’t think the two sequences would work well together and many problems would occur but at the end of it I felt a sense of, without sounding too cliché, bonding within the group.
The isolation wasn’t deliberate. The 8 people that weren’t facing the audience sat on those chairs or turned them without thinking about it too much. The only reason we did this was because as our characters we felt the need to not be part of the community, and didn’t want to conform to the rules set by that particular community. Speaking from personal experience being one of those 8, when we were putting the two sequences together it was only until the very end I felt comfortable to complete the communities sequence purely because as my character I didn’t want to conform to the never ending cycle that was present.
The two set of gestures used in both groups were at times similar but not similar enough to represent the same idea and I think that’s one of the amazing things about the process. You could produce the same kind of movement but when you’re driven by completely different feelings they like nothing alike. The anxious waiting gestures were at times speedy and there was a sudden urgency to finish them but when it came to the not willing to confront the audience the gestures were slower and took longer to execute them. Therefore creating two contrasting communities.
Repetition was used today not only to create a section of Porto but it helped us as individuals and as a group to create our characters. Granted this has only been the second session where we have created material but these initial sessions matter the most because this is where we begin to find within ourselves not only where our characters begin but how we intend them to involve. So the session allowed us to do that by using repetition.
1. The creative process seems to be happening very quickly. With working the two groups separately I thought it would be more difficult to put them together, however they slotted together without any problem. So far we haven’t encountered any problems which has enabled us to work effectively.
2. For the group that are isolated it is as if something that has stemmed from their characters, emotional baggage and background to drive them to choose a chair that did not face the audience. But within everyday life people within society can subconsciously pick up others idiosyncrasies, and the oppressions which are upon from every part of life can eventually make the individual conform with the communal, even after having tried to fight it.
3. We all created movements using the “clap” technique to create the “anxious waiting” sequence, however some were more obvious movements than others, having a good sense of balance once our five were chosen. As Dan has mentioned the moves seemed to end in an anti climax as it seemed what we were waited for never happened.
When the other group brought their sequence together with ours the look of the piece became really effective. Their movements looked as if they were challenging themselves to look at the audience but there was a force from inside pulling them away.
4. The repetition mainly for me was bringing out the character. The more i seemed to have to repeat it the more genuine my gestures became. The gestures started to come the real frustration of my character. And I think that is those sequences at the beginning were your really starts to develop, so when comes to not working as a communal then a character has already developed.
In terms of structuring I mentioned the briefly in the previous questions as the other group easy slotted in their routine with ours, and the repetition eventually brought them into our routine. I can imagine being the minority it was difficult to focus on their own routine when there was such a large number of us doing a different routine.
Post a Comment