Week 1:



 Lesson 1: Art Political Tool 

Today's class was designed to exercise our interpretive skills, develop our ability to work efficiently in a team and test our creativity when given an open field of possibilities.

Six picture-stimuli were given, all sharing a common theme: political disruption. The first task, in small groups, was to spend three minutes per stimulus annotating the page with our thoughts, opinions and questions. The time pressure made us operate rapidly, pushing us to use our imaginations and creativity. 

However, maintaining momentum became more challenging as the pages began to fill. At this point, we had to work especially hard to look at the later pictures in a different light from the groups before. As the annotations increased, we were able to fill in questions asked by other group members and develop their ideas. This task allowed me to witness the expansion of ideas that can come from collective collaboration.

After the annotation task, each group was appointed one of the six stimuli. My group was given the partially drawn face of a young woman. I interpreted this piece like a diagram: the amount an individual is actually thriving and embracing life is shown through the quantity of detail and warm tones given. The rest appears to have been roughly sketched, representing the amount of time we waste worrying about unnecessary things, just existing. 

The drawing was actually based on the Breonna Taylor story, who in March this year was shot dead, whilst sleeping, by a local police officer.   The drawing is part of the Stolen series by the artist Adrian Branson. He uses "time as a medium to define how long each portrait is coloured in. 1 year of life =1 minute of colour."(2020) In this case, 26 minutes of colour has been used. 

After discussing the stories behind the art, we circled three favoured ideas from the annotations which were used as a platform to help create a small motif based on our picture. We explored the idea of being completely powerless of our fate - often a result of others' ignorance. This was expressed through movements of continuity; they followed on, merged and influenced - as if without the individual’s consent.  This conjoining created an element of vulnerability as they were unpredictable and came from a a feeling of high alert.

(Branson, 2019)

Overall, this choreographic method was quite thought-provoking and challenging.  Developing a phrase by using words as a stimulus can have many associations and encourages a variety of movement, all of  which spring from an emotional core. 

 

Referencing:

Branson, A (no date) Stolen. Available at: https://www.adrianbrandon.com/stolen (Accessed: 10 October 2020)

Levenson, E. (September 24, 2020) A timeline of Breonna Taylor's case since police broke down her door and shot her. Available at: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/23/us/breonna-taylor-timeline/index.html (Accessed: 10 October 2020)


Comments

  1. rosabella murphy1 November 2020 at 13:22

    This is a great blog in which I enjoyed reading, containing detailed information and a clear structure. I liked how you mentioned your own opinion upon the Breonna Taylor picture and what you felt the drawing portrayed. Did you use any choreographic devices within your short motif?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. LouisaBratby3 December 2020 at 12:46

      Thank you. My group did try and incorporate choreographic devices into the small motif, we were aware that specific devices would increase the impact and purpose of the phrase. We decided to include canon because of its repetitive nature, this contributed to the overall feeling of helplessness, like the timing of our movements were already pre decided by another far greater force. Fragmentation was another device we used as it helped symbolises the breakdown of a person as they are being manipulated. We demonstrated this through movement being deconstructed into weaker forms, like a grasp to the side that is repeated however the second time it has half the energy- this makes it obvious that the person is wilting away.

      Delete
  2. Lucy Imamzade7 November 2020 at 08:56

    This is a very detailed a structured blog Louisa well done! I like how you researched into the photo to widen your knowledge. You mentioned this choreographic method was challenging. How was this task challenging and how did you over come the challenges you faced?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. LouisaBratby3 December 2020 at 12:56

      This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    2. LouisaBratby3 December 2020 at 12:59

      Thank you.
      The fact that there were endless possibilities of how we could interpret the piece was initially quiet daunting as we didn't know where to place our focus. However when we broke down the procedure, by calming our thoughts and trying to direct them to a specific theme in the subject, we were able to create a small well formed motif that only required and included a small fragment of the topic

      Delete
  3. Nanson23 November 2020 at 03:34

    Great detail in this blog Louisa. Do you think you could create a longer dance piece from politically motivated art like this. would this be of interest to you.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. LouisaBratby3 December 2020 at 13:06

      This would in fact be something I'm interested in doing in the future. I love how art can be used as a form of expression to raise political awareness as well as providing a onlooker with endless possibilities for interpretation. I would also enjoy experimenting with ways to extend our piece using other choreographic methods in the process.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 10

 Week 10: Our most important starting objective was to demonstrate the impact War has on individuals,  express the repercussions of war and to exhibit its repetitive nature. These have  strongly directed our group throughout the creating of our piece.  We wanted to create something emotionally driven, using movements with clear purpose to enhance our stimulus and messages. We wanted to leave viewers feeling emotionally warn out, aiming for them to strongly question: why haven't we learnt from our mistakes? Should we be using real lives like playing cards to solve problems? At times we drifted away from our key objectives, occasionally simply filling the music for convenience. However we always bought ourselves back to our motives by taking the time to review, reflect and question our work. This did result in changes to our original structure, for example conjoining Fear and Chaos with the War section, as we developed ideas that would support our object...
Read more

Choreographic Influencers:

Throughout the weeks, we have looked at different artist, performances and chorographers as a platform to inspire us and help the flow of our creativity. Two groups that particularly aided our vision was the Shaolin Monks that perform in Sutra and the group Ballet Boys in their Basic Training video clip.   When considering the choreographic process  Iván Pérez,   used to create "Basic Training" in Young Men, I couldn't help notice how the scene was so genuine, so real... suggesting to me that perhaps he simply allowed the character's emotions and reactions to dictate the  coming movements and steps. The impact is massive, placed exactly as they intended me to be, the overwhelming feeling of concern and pity consumes me as a viewer. This is the phycological control we aim to have with our audience. Great emphasise is placed on showing facial expressions, despite these pauses the piece is incredibly engaging as the contrast of stillness helps increase th...
Read more