choreography Class chance methods

Delving deeper into chance methods we began to put them into practise. We were given a dice and asked to attach a movement to the numbers, making the dice in charge of what movement would be next. I found that this made it easy to work within the group because personal opinion didn't matter as the moves were already predetermined.

 Also the process was quicker than any other creative method I had used before in group choreography, meaning that we generated a lot of movement material in a short space of time. Also it created a piece that ventured outside each others comfort zones giving us movements that were less generic.The movement vocabulary now was interesting but lacked any dynamics.

We then repeated this process but labelled the numbers with Laban's efforts instead of possible movements. The results of this chance method gave us interesting and intricate dynamical movement, by adding a range of dynamics to the choreography the movements began to jump out at the audience. However I felt that it was important to look back at the choreography by either recording it or stepping out to view it, so you can see if it appears too busy or needs adjusting.

After we had choreographed a few motifs in this way we then used this method to structure the dance.  We split the motifs up into half's and then allocated a half to a dice number.When collaboratively choreographing a group piece I found chance methods a more effective tool to use, than when producing a solo. Personally I felt that this was because it uses were now expanded and chance could me manipulated in different ways.  

   When doing this I found that the splitting of motifs was nice as every now and then you would see movements that you were familiar with, linking the whole piece together. Unfortunately we kept rolling the same number so the choreography became very repetitive in places, showing me that sometimes the score you get works and sometimes it does not and you have to try again.

I particularly liked using chance to manipulate the rhythm and speed of the choreography because more often than not we change our movements to fit to the quality's of the movements. By taking this choice out it meant that the music and movements sometimes contrasted each other, but then also worked in harmony at points giving the whole piece a abstract feel.

choreography class

 

In choreography today we watched Merce Cunningham Dance Company at BAM: Split Sides (Silas Riener sol.) We were asked to look into what aspects we thought he had manipulated through the use of chance methods. After watching the video a few times I noticed a pattern forming in the dynamics used, they would be either floppy and soft or then  suddenly sharp and strong. To me it looked clear that he had used chance to develop the dynamics within the dance.

 

The next task was to create a short motif using the range of dynamics Merce Cunningham had used  in the piece. I decided to use the same soft and floppy movement, by sinking my body down to the floor. But then contradicting this by using different dynamics making them sharp, and using different movement material each time. I found this exorcise useful because I gained the knowledge that by using more than one dynamic in my work makes it more appealing to the audience.

 

At the end of the class we were given a short task to pick an object and then dance in a way that the object influenced us to. I chose a radiator and used the visuals of the object such as the lines, making my work quite lineal. However being a radiator came across as quite comical at times as I also interpreted the water rushing round and heating up. I was amazed at how much movement material I could generate just by looking at an object. I feel that this could be something I could use when creating work when it becomes difficult to generate new material.

 

 

 

 

Merce Cunningham

Merce Cunningham wanted to find new ways of choreographing as he felt our imaginations restricted us creatively. The way he worked focused on movement and not narrative and emotions.He helped to push the movement of chance procedures forward by using them himself, to create works such as Beach Birds.

 He created his own chance method were he dissected the human body into different sections on a computer.Then this would generate what part of the body would be used next, and also the dynamic and direction it would take.


He worked along side John Cage who was a musician who also created art though chance procedures. His process was slightly different however :  Cage took it to work in his way of making compositions then; and he used the idea of 64—the number of the hexagrams —to say that you had 64, for example, sounds; then you could cast, by chance, to find which sound first appeared, cast again, to say which sound came second, cast again, so that it's done by, in that sense, chance operations.
Merce Cunningham, Merce Cunningham: A Lifetime of Dance, 2000

choreography class

In this class we were given choreographic challenges to complete. The first set of instructions were to make sure that at least one person was elevated up of the floor at anytime, allowing only one part of the body to have contact with the ground. These extra aspects became a challenge to incorporate smoothly into group choreography as it was something I didn't experience when choreographing a solo. I liked this task because it pushed us all out of our comfort zones and we had to work collaboratively as a team to make it work. To improve we needed to make the transitions smoother between lifts and movements as a lot of the time we looked like we were transforming into a shape instead of the shape appearing elegantly.

The 2nd task was to ensure that every movement meant that a new performer was at the front, our group found this task easier than the first one. It meant that we could play around with different ways to make this happen giving us lots of movement material to choose from. The final outcome involved a lot of contact work and lifting, giving it the appearance of a fight.

This clip explains why Anna Halprin chose to dance, I feel that she has many reasons as why she dedicated herself to modern dance. However I personally think that it is because she liked to bring change even if that was not in the dance world.

Anna Halprin

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By natasha11111111 | View this Toon at ToonDoo | Create your own Toon

By natasha11111111 | View this Toon at ToonDoo | Create your own Toon

Experimental

Trisha Brown in this piece experiments with retrograde, I find that although they are not performing the movements become more interesting because the movements themselves become familiar to us. I think that the use of retrograde showcases the talent of a performer, because it is an aspect that is mentally challenging and easy to get confused with.

Again she focused on the process however the end product has an appeal to the audience. This experiment with reversing the movements has stuck and many choreographers use it today to give their work an interesting dynamic. Here is an example of a performance that uses retrograde to make the movements more exciting:

experimental dance

This is a piece made for camera by experimental artist de Yvonne Rainer in 1966. Although it is only choreographed on an isolated part of the body, I do still believe that it is dance because it contains choreographed movement. However it is clear that she is more focused on the process as the performance is not very engaging for the audience, but does show isolation in its simplest form.

I feel that it is important that this style of choreography was experimented with, as although we don't use isolation in this form, we have developed on this to use isolation with in our own body's when choreographing. Isolation is used in both the commercial and contemporary styles, although its purpose adds different performance quality's to both genres.

After watching this clip we were given a task to make a score from what we saw and follow it, without changing or manipulating the score in anyway. I struggled to work in this way to begin with as I tend to envision movement in my head, and then see what it looks like when it is performed.

However I found that I was limited to what I saw in the movements in the clip, and didn't like the fact  it had to be the first movement that I came up with. Once I got over the fact that I was not completely controlling what I was choreographing it became spontaneous ,I found that it gave me very abstract and interesting movements.

This it useful as a tool to stop the constant repetition of movements that I tend to use and expand my movement vocabulary. This was just an task so it didn't really matter what the end product looked like, but in the future I could always change and adapt the movements I have created to become more fitting.

Research into Postmodernism