Choosing an assessment stimulus

For our choreography assessment we were split into 3 groups of 6. We were told to find a stimulus that we all thought we could portray in movement. My group discussed a lot of ideas but ended up choosing ‘War’. We thought this was a good stimulus as we could portray emotion and feeling easily to an audience, we could play with characters and storyline, therefore creating a piece that would be powerful and emotional. 

In our forth choreography lesson in our groups we brainstormed together and wrote down words that came to mind when thinking about war. Some of the worlds we came up with were, radio, silence, trenches, power, combat, struggle, soldiers, conflict, alliance and warfare. 


To begin choreographing we split into twos and using these words as inspiration each pair created a motif. A motif is a phrase of movement in a dance that can be repeated and developed thought the choreography. Myself and my partner, Lucy created a motif taking inspiration from the world ‘together’. In our motif we wanted to make sure we showed teamwork and that you have more power and strength when you work together. We also wanted to show that we were relaying on each other. To do this we choreographed movements where I would help Lucy and she wouldn’t be able to move unless I did. Showing togetherness was tough as we weren’t allowed to touch each other because of coronavirus, but we tried to make it look like we were reliant on each other by the use of our emotions in our face for example pain and struggle when dancing alone, happiness and relief when dancing together. 


Once creating our motif we taught it to the rest of our group and together we talked about how we could incorporate it into our final piece. We had the idea of putting our motif after our marching section that we decided to put at the beginning of our piece. The marching motif was created by another pair that we learned in todays lesson. With discussed that the marching section should be emotionless and we liked the idea of contrast between the two sections as we wanted to use facial expressions a lot within the 'together' motif like I discussed earlier in this blog. 


We learned the other pairs motifs and filmed them. (Please see attached links) Splitting into smaller groups allowed us to come up with lots of choreography in a short space of time. 


https://youtu.be/W31MLA5chwE

https://youtu.be/FU4_uwPdsKU

https://youtu.be/n_M340HoEz8


Comments

  1. Daisy StonierOctober 18, 2020 at 11:47 AM

    I really like how your group used some of the methods that we used in previous weeks by brainstorming lots of words and ideas that were evoked when you thought about your stimulus of 'war' - I feel as though this list will be a great source of inspiration for you to look back on when generating movement. You mentioned that you discussed with your group about how you could incorporate your motif into your final piece, what ideas did you discuss?

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  2. Erin TaylorOctober 23, 2020 at 6:05 AM

    Thank you for your comment daisy! We discussed about where and when the motif would link with the storyline of our piece. We want the piece to have a clear narrative and so deciding where our motif would go was very important. As a group we decided to put the motif near the beginning, after our marching section to show us coming together right before setting off for war.

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  3. Devanshi GanatraOctober 29, 2020 at 2:16 PM

    I appreciate the fact that you and your partner chose the word, 'together', even though you were unable to make contact. Through your approach, you abstracted the idea into a movement phrase that is both meaningful and sophisticated. Can you elaborate on your artistic intention for the piece? As you portray emotion through the performance, what do you aim to convey that the audience can take home?

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  4. Erin TaylorNovember 7, 2020 at 12:29 AM

    Thank you for your comment devanshi! My artistic intention was to create a feeling of happiness and unity. I wanted to make sure we showed strength and power when working together. In this section we want to be happy and we want the audience to be happy with us. We want them to feel part of our piece and travel through the story with us.

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  5. Lucy Athorns choreographyNovember 28, 2020 at 7:02 AM

    I like that in your motif you wanted to show teamwork as its very easy to be independent in a task and then come back and show your group what you came up with. From this section I feel as though the audience will be captured by your characters journeys, well done. You responded to Daisy's comment about how you placed this motif at the beginning. Did this work out well and give the impact you wanted?

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  6. Erin TaylorNovember 28, 2020 at 7:14 AM

    Thank you for your comment lucy! Putting this motif at the beginning worked really well. It showed contrast from the marching motif that occurs before hand as in that section we have blank expressions and are emotionless. In the coming together section the audience really gets to know the different characters we are trying to portray as we have used a lot of acting in this section.

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