Media Piece Exploration & Initial Choreography

In this lesson we discussed the media and it's role in society, and how that can be translated into dance, for inspiration, we put together a mind-map of ideas and key words or terms related to this.

We learnt a phrase, with manipulation and secret holding gestures, including vivid angles, swift torso movements and levels. In pairs, we created duets with this material using choreographic devises such as repetition, fragmentation, retrograding and instrumentation. Jaydee and I worked together to create a small piece that showed we were in together in keeping a secret,  It demonstrates the pressures of the media controlling secretiveness, and being afraid of the consequences of telling.

Jaydee & Emily Duet

Next we looked at a more specific stimuli of secrets, which a whole class dance is going to be based on. In groups of four, we looked into this. My group thought of the following points.

• Chinese whispers
• Exaggeration
• Change
• Build-up / Acceleration
• Hidden
• Trapped
• The secret being an invisible object

Megan, Jaydee, Emily & Talia Quartet

This piece explores how secrets change and develop when passed from person to person, how something can start small and grow in urgency and concern. Using cannon with repetition and a development of dynamics we can see this. We also created something that wasn't there at the beginning by using our bodies so show that we are carrying something from one to another, like a secret. This, and other groups choreography will be included in our final media piece.
Our creative levels, canon and fluidity were most effective, the manipulation is clear in this through the use of 'hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil' sequence, the rapid dynamics suggest we are being pulled around by something without using contact. To improve, more interesting formations could have been used, and more rehearsing of the unison timing, as this would have looked much more effective if our timing was better. Contact work would have been a good way to clearly demonstrate to the audience that we are being manipulated, however this could take away from the idea of us all being equal and manipulated together if one person would be doing the manipulating.