Week 4:


 Week 4:

Adding Depth to our Stimulus:

Today’s class started by further exploring our chosen stimulus - War. Our research of key historical figures pointed to a clear correlation between them all: the reason they had gained notoriety was because they had acted in either a rebellious, heroic or maverick manner. With this in mind, we formed one of our key concepts: soldiers are individuals.

‘Army’ is defined as: "an organized military force equipped for fighting on land/ a large number of people or things." (Oxford English Dictionary)  We can view an ‘army’ as a robotic mass of fearless people; 'death caused by War' as figures on paper.   We can, unintentionally, become numb to this.  Our intention, therefore, is to portray these people as individuals, with real lives, emotions and ambitions. War may bring about some positive outcomes, but the aftermath of violence is far reaching.  The aftershock takes various forms: life-long grief and trauma, financial ruin, destroyed homes and sacred history.

Lesson Activity:

In order to create our first set of movements for the group piece, we split into three groups of two. The pairs decided on one word as a stimulus for a small phrase, to include choreographic elements learnt in the last three weeks. The 3 chosen words were: fear, marching and teamwork. 

Each word provoked hugely contrasting qualities of movement. ‘Marching’ was crisp and together, displaying automated and mechanical dynamics. In contrast, ‘teamwork’ was grounded and strong showing power and determination. Lastly ‘fear’ included impulsive moments, like an adrenaline rush, that fed into slower, deliberate moves representing vulnerability.

After creating the phrases, we came together to teach, learn and start placing them into group formations. We were able to suggest small changes that helped increase the impact and depth of the piece. For example, I suggested changing the dynamics of a movement in the fear phrase by introducing slow motion; this changed the effect greatly by creating the illusion of glimpsing into a small fraction of time, intensifying the emotion and then being pulled back immediately - like taking a small breath before returning to reality. 






Comments

  1. Lucy Imamzade11 November 2020 at 07:19

    This is a great blog Louisa, I feel although you explained the task in great detail and added videos to compliment your thoughts. What ideas did you have in mind when choreographing the 'Marching section'? Was there a specific dynamic you wanted to get across to the audience?

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    1. LouisaBratby4 December 2020 at 08:02

      When choreographing the marching section, we continuously thought of using quick and crisp movements. We included, sharp heads, impulsive contractions and grounded walks to get this across. Combing this with strong dynamics emphasises the robotic nature we tend to categorise an army as.

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  2. rosabella murphy3 December 2020 at 13:01

    This is a great blog Louisa in which I enjoyed reading, you have included some detailed and informative points following along a clear structure. I liked reading about the different movement you had choreographed for each word and how it linked. Did you face any challenges during this task ? If so how did you manage to overcome them ?

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    Replies
    1. LouisaBratby4 December 2020 at 08:09

      I think the most challenging part was to teach and learn what the other pairs had created. I found by not being present in their creative process gave me a slight disadvantage to understanding where they had intended movement to come from and the details they had decided on. With more practice, I believe we will all eventually get the same level of perception.

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