Personal reflection

My group has managed to finish our choreography and full fill both of our motifs. I think that the next steps are to learn and refine piece and focus on portraying emotion through our moments to make our message clear. Personally, I think that there are certain movements I will change to make the piece more suitable to my choreographic vision and creative process. This will enhance my part in the process and showcase my own personal stimulus and motifs.

During this process my research on Matha Graham really helped forward my process. Her technique and performances inspired my own movements and I feel like I have used a lot of my research on her into my piece. Her use of sharp fast and bouncy movements really spoke to my second motif and her contrasting style which highlighted the use of flow and suspension heavily inspired my first motif.

During the process I feel like my group faced a lot of challenges. During the midway point we were stuck on creating movement itself and some feedback we got was to empathize the story we are trying to tell. We were able to overcome this by each devising small 30 second sections and combining them to fill our music. Another issue we faces was making each section we creative cohesive to each other’s and making it fit well with the music. Musicality and timing is something that I think we will need to refine and go over now we are near the end of the process and now that we have a full three minute of choreography to show.

“Steps in the Street” from “Chronicle” by Martha graham

 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrkuB5WwQGE&t=47s)

The second piece of work I have chosen to study from Martha graham is “Steps in the Street” from “Chronicle by Martha graham performed by the Martha Graham company (2020).  Immediately I can notice that whilst the steps of this piece echo Grahams signature style and technique, the overall mood and composition of this choreography are quite different. Compared to “Diversions of angels” this dance has a greater focus on steps and patterns in spacing rather than following a linear like story. The movements themselves are much sharper and faster. There is a great sense of rush I get from this piece as if the dancers are running from something. There are also nice moments of stillness like from the screenshot which add contrast; the stillness that comes from the fast paste movements adds a heavy mood. I think all this allures the audience in and gives a greater scope for interpretation. The dynamics of this dance match the music. The tempo of the piece is very jumpy, to match this the choreography includes lots of springy jumps which make up most of the movement. Personally, I really like the use of spacing to symmetry whilst all the dancers move simultaneously which reminds me of a pack of animals who would move together. Despite this there isn’t a deep sense of emotion from this dance, and I feel like the audience is more connected with the movements themselves.

I think this piece of choreography has really inspired me for my “war” motif as the hard and distinguished movements create a sense of power and almost depict a sinister aura. Upon reflection I think there needs to be a bigger contrast between each of my motifs and one step I could take is to speed up my second motif.

·        *  www.youtube.com. (n.d.). ‘Steps in the Street’ from ‘Chronicle’ by Martha Graham. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrkuB5WwQGE&t=47s [Accessed 19 Nov. 2023].

 

Reflection

My group has devised about one minute thirty of our choreographic piece. We found that it was much faster to each create a thirty second section for each motif separately then conjoin them to create a section of choreography. I found this was much quicker and meant that we each had a personal part in the piece. However, a challenge we faced was linking each section of choreography, so it flowed nicely unto the next. I think our next steps include refining the movements, so it looks like a cohesive piece.

Unfortunately, we were not able to receive any feedback recently as we did not have a full section of choreography to perform. Despite this some feedback we received earlier on was to make sure each of our motifs were unique and definite their own emotions which we chose. Think my group and I have taken this feedback and applied it quite well to our new sections of movement. When creating my own thirty seconds for the group I really tried to capture the essence of the sharpness and dull/ hopeless emotion that we want to be present in our contrasting war motif.  I was also conscious about linking this choreography to my chosen practitioner Martha Graham by taking inspirations from performances of hers that I watched and studied. Similarly for my other motif I tried to capture the softer movements and think kind of separate emotion I want the audience to feel.

As of now I am very happy with the direction that my choreographic piece is going and hope to further improve and refine my movements to create a full piece of choreography that links back to my main stimulus and can convey the story. This includes piecing each section of choreography together as a group.

 

 

Diversions of angles by Martha graham

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9LGVsKY1iQ (‘Diversion of Angels’ by Martha Graham, 2020)

The piece of work I have chosen by Martha graham is “diversions of angles” performed by the Martha graham company. The piece starts with two people on the stage and begins progressing into several ensemble segments with the introduction of another dancer who wears a red dress. Upon first reaction the audience can tell that there are three main dancers in this seeming to play out a narrative story. The initial interpretation is that the story and relations of the dancers in this piece recreate that of the religious symbol of the devil (red costume) and angel (white costume) both trying to divert the intentions of the dancer in the middle. The choreography between he first two on dancers really stood out to me. The dancer in white is almost being placed by the other dancer, almost doll like. It comes across as uneasy in the beginning for the dancer has almost no sense of realty in whilst the dancer who is placing them seems very infatuated and through the movements and choreography seems to be longing. However, this is very different to the choreography and style of the dancer in red, their choreography is consistent of mainly jumps, sharp movements and dancing around the other dancers rather than with them. The impact this has on the audience is that of an uneven relationship between all three dancers.

The choreography to me relates to the music. Where there is soft instrumental, the dancers seem to flow nicely to the music compared to where there are sharper and more dynamic parts. In this piece specifically Martha makes use of pauses, holds and suspension which fit the music and create sense of interest to draw the audience in. this is something I hope to achieve in my own choreographic process and have already begun working on.

* ‘Diversion of Angels’ by Martha Graham. (2020). YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9LGVsKY1iQ.