.................Moving in a New Direction

Now that this semester has officially ended, I am switching gears and beginning to prepare for my Honors Thesis which will be performed on February 27th, 2010. I have my cast of seven dancers which includes, Alyson Corbett, Nisha Kapur, Lydia Mokdessi, Tal Schapira, Julie Serow, Komal Thakkar, and Hannah Ziegler, with my ASM Debbie Hammett. This piece will be a 20-25 minute work that is based on a piece I had previously choreographed, Seventeen Seventy-Five plus one, e.d. This piece will be performed in 5 movements and will follow the life and the creative process of Emily Dickinson.

..........................Video From Dress Rehearsal

This was a video from a Dance Works dress rehearsal with an understudy in place.

We Levitated the Pentagon

I haven't posted in while as I was wrapped up in the hustle bustle of performance time. The performances of Dance Works Fall 2009 went better than I could have ever anticipated. My cast was gorgeous and my piece was everything I had hoped it would be. My final title "Levitating the Pentagon" seemed to be the right fit and embodied the themes and images I was trying to convey.

Looking ahead to next semester, I am preparing for my honors thesis that will be performed on Saturday February 27th. I will be posting my research and ideas as I try to plan and begin to choreograph this work over winter break. I will continue to use this blog as a tool to present my rehearsal videos and notes when I begin rehearsals in January.

---------------Facing a Raging Wind

After adjudication, I had a change of heart and decided to go with a more simplified music scheme. I am much happier with the new music and it allows the piece to flow much more easily. Two of the original pieces will be added later once the final sound design is completed. Thanks Tal for your help with the music editing! I was so pleased with this rehearsal because I am finally starting to see a continuous piece that transitions well from one idea or image to the next rather than a series of short vignettes strung together. All my dancers have been so helpful in contributing ideas, especially as we created transitions that felt natural for them and served the overall theme of the piece. My working title at this point is "Facing a Raging Wind" but I'm not completely sold on it. Hopefully it will develop further into something I can feel passionate about.

My Structure is Complete

My structure is now complete but I use the term 'complete' lightly. I have the bare bones of the story that I wanted to tell. I have finally narrowed the focus of this piece to examine various forms of protest through the cultural lens of the 1960s in America.

Although these videos are seperate, the work is one continuous piece. Due to a technical difficulty we had to stop in the middle of the run-through and resume in a seperate video. I already see changes that I would like to make, including a musical change on the opening phrase and a musical change on a new phrase in the middle of the piece. I also plan to incorporate gestures and movement that evoke specific images of protest.

Back to the Beginning

I have been working a lot on the second half of my piece so I decided I would spend some time tonight focusing on the beginning. I really like the idea of a phrase incorporating breathing and decided to structure this section in duets. I taught the dancers a short phrase and asked them to manipulate the movement to create duets and I really like the end result.



I went even further back to the beginning of the piece and created a syncopated phrase that each set of partners could manipulate at one time or another. This is all of the material that I have thus far and while it is in a very rough form, it is beginning to take shape.

Finally a Focus

After compiling a great deal of research on my topic, I realized that I would need to narrow my focus significantly. There was no was I could cover a whole decade and make any kind of statement, so I decided to focus on the different forms of rebellion that the hippies asserted in the 1960s. This portion of the piece focuses on unity, silent protesting, agressive protesting, and asserting one's individuality. We have been working with several of these phrases for a while but the transitions are new and a piece of choreographpy is now beginning to develop from what used to be simple movement phrases. Other forms of rebellion that I plan to explore in future rehearsals include fighting for the right to breathe clean air, unorthodox relationships, and of course, the fight against the war in Vietnam.

Rehearsal September 22nd

Tonight I decided to work with material I already had rather than creating a new phrase. I wasn't satisfied with the order of the vignettes so I rearranged them and so far I like what I see! I also added some transitions between the phrases and a possible ending that may or may not work....we will see. My cast was great tonight and helped me work out some problems that occured when a few ideas that worked well in my head didn't translate well to movement.

Seventeen Seventy-Five Plus One, e.d.

This video was shot in dress rehearsal for the Spring 2009 Dance Works concert. This was my first major choreographic project. The piece was based on the poems of Emily Dickinson and served as a commentary on the creative process and the artist's relationship to her work. I will expand upon this piece in the Spring 2010 semester for my choreographic honors thesis.

Stringing Together a Story

This was my first attempt to string the four vignettes together. Obviously transitions will be added and phrases will probably rearrange and appear in different places, but seeing all of the movement together shows me how much material I have to work with.

Vignette Number Four

This is one of the longer of the four vignettes. I'm not sure where it falls in the grand scheme of the piece, but that will come later. I think this phrase is a beautiful representation of how well my cast members dance together and understand one another. This movement is so dependent upon the dancers tuning in to one another and they certainly fulfilled this objective.

Moving Forward

I created a lot of material last night and was expecting that it would take a few rehearsals to cover it all, but my cast completely absorbed everything I taught them and we made a lot of progress tonight. As of now, I have four seperate sections of movement, each with a different piece of music. I'm not exactly sure how they fit together but I think they are each unique and important to my concept. I'm leaning toward creating a concept piece composed of contrasting vignettes and the following videos represent four seperate thoughts integral to my choreographic concept. My next goal is to find a common thread that unites each movement in order to create transitional material.

Protest

Individuality

Initials

Clarifying My Concept

I have been thinking a lot about the theme of my piece and how I can narrow my focus. 'The 1960s' is an incredibly broad topic and I'm working on focusing on a more specific aspect of culture or society in the time period. My main area of interest is the youth movement and their feeling of empowerment and their confidence in their ability to change the world. While their motto was peace, love, and freedom, they also had the courage and the drive to fight for what they believed. In my opinion, this represents an interesting concept between passive and active which I would like to explore in my choreography. I am also considering the idea of representing current social challenges in contemporary society. When I opened up this topic to my cast, we came up with several contemporary issues that parallel the fight of the youth in the 1960s. Some of these issues include immigration, education reform, public health, environmental conservation, and marriage equality.

I have also identified several areas that I should research to find information and inspiration for this piece. I have been reading books by Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg and want to continue exploring these writers' material. I also plan to look at visual art from th 1960s, specifically psychadelic images to see if I can draw ideas for movement from them. I also plan to listen to a variety of musical selections from the decade, including rock, folk, and electronic.

Beginning Phases

My cast is so awesome and I am really excited to work with them throughout the semester to see what unique ideas they can bring to my piece. The first rehearsal focused on manipulating the audition phrase to show a contrast between slow suspended movements and sharp aggresive dynamics. At this point I am really looking to see how the members of my cast blend when dancing together and which nuances stand out in the group. I am also working on solidifying my concept and integrating movement into the theme I am developing.