Rehearsal 2

(Project 3)

5th June

We had our second rehearsal today - click here to meet the dancers.

We worked from Veronica's suggestion today, using the ideas about transformation/transcendence - birth/life/death - love/hate - as our themes.
We discussed the nature of transformation/transcendence - we felt that transformation is necessarily a traveling, a journey. It has a beginning (the original state), a middle (the transformation) and an end (the transformed state). It involves sharing, learning or change of some sort along the way.

Improvisation 1

Here is a short section of our improvisation work from Veronica's suggestion.

Veronica's suggestion:
A thought for the future, which is quite similar to your transformation game -Mirroring. Two dancers mirror each other's movement simultaneously. The hard part is to follow the movement (dancer A is moving the left hand, for example, then dancer B must move the right hand) especially when it becomes more complex than simply moving a hand. However, in keeping with your transcending concept, I was thinking that one dancer could "lead" the movement, and the others could follow one at a time. The placement of the dancers would be at different angles - just enough so that they could all see the "leader". So that "A" starts the movement ömaybe a turn or slow develop and "B" would follow the two would continue dancing and then "B" would become the leader and dancer "A" and "C" would follow "B". This type of movement would continue until all the dancers would be "leader". The key being not to stop the movement and keeping lag time to a minimum.

Click here to see the movie with QuickTime4

Click here to see the movie with QuickTime3 or earlier

Improvisation 2

Working from Veronica's suggestion, we looked at what would happen if "A" improvised, "B" copied "A" but allowed the movement to transform in the copying, and "C" copied "B" again allowing the movement to transform in the copying. Thus all three were doing different movement, based on the movement of "A".

We noticed that because the dancers are selecting movement to transform from what they saw in many of these exercises, a large amount of the development/transformation is based upon their personal selection - what they see, what they choose to develop, what they do with that development. This means that elements of their personalities become evident through these choices, and they "rediscover" themselves and their own movement qualities through the transformations of others' movements.

Click here to see the movie with QuickTime4

Click here to see the movie with QuickTime3 or earlier

Relationships Duet

Abbie and Liz decided to work with ideas about relationships - love/hate.
They began with approach and hesitancy, and how that might build into comfortableness, but then it deteriorates into argument and leaving.

They are using their responses to how the other moves to create the movement. They are learning from the other, sharing the other's feelings, and letting that inform the transformation of the movement, guided by the 'story' that they wish to portray. Their relationship 'travels' through the stages described above.

Click here to see the movie with QuickTime4

Click here to see the movie with QuickTime3 or earlier

Birth, Life and Death

We then looked at some of the ideas put forward as themes for the dance so far on the Discussion Page. Sarah, Ronnie and Maggie chose to work with the idea of birth, life and death.

They worked to generate movement around the mirroring and transforming process in Improvisation 2. They took turns at leading and following, but they allowed the characteristics of birth, life and death to act as a guide to how they transformed the movement. Thus they came up with three short solos that represented each of the three stages - birth, life and death. The movement phrases had moments of similarity but also differences according to the character of the stage. They put them together to make this dance.

We were trying to work around what Jeff talked about on the Discussion Page - about making a dance with multiple meanings, or possible interpretations. Therefore the movement is abstract, rather than directly representational.

Click here to see the movie with QuickTime4

Click here to see the movie with QuickTime3 or earlier

<<Previous rehearsal Next rehearsal>> <Return to Main Rehearsal Page>

Meet the Participants