Festival Project Journal

 When talking about costume, I mainly wanted the dancers to be comfortable in what they're wearing so we decided together on wider legs and smaller tops to be able to isolate the arms in the light at the start. I also just wanted them to be simple as to not take any focus away from the choreography and relationships on stage. I further wanted to have a consistency of black and white costumes to tie back to the original inspiration of the piece being black-and-white photography.  Emily:                                                   Tilly:

  As part of practice research for Superficial Thinking, I wanted to return back to my initial stimulus of layered photography and try it out with some of the images that you can see within the piece. I took two of the most recognisable positions from the piece and layered them with the opposite (first image) to represent the two starkly different sides of a self, and a slightly changed version (second image), to represent the slightly different layers of identity that can sometimes blend into one; the layers of a person filter over one another to create every person you know, and I wanted these images to be a representation of being able to see inside of a mind as we're trying to achieve with this choreography. These images will be on display in the reflection space as a representation of the piece.

 Today I took some photos of Daisy's festival contribution during her tech rehearsal. This was really fun as it's a promenade performance that goes around the building so I got to play with different lighting settings. Here are a few of my favourite images from each section.

This rehearsal was a bit tricky as it was the last one until the day of the performance and I needed more studio space. We ended up working through some things in the hallway before half an hour in Studio 3 and then half an hour in Studio 6. Despite the small spaces and the location changes, we made the most out of it and worked as productively as possible, trying out costumes as well. When we were in the hallway we read through the notes from  Luc í a  and I talked through my narrative thoughts with them to clarify storytelling. I wanted to spend this rehearsal combing through the piece song-by-song, clarifying details and implementing Luc í a's feedback from last week. One of her pieces of feedback was to take more time in establishing their relationship at the start of the first song before it changes to the second. This was tricky as the choreography I had set fit perfectly to the end of the first song. So, I asked Sophie if it was okay to go over the 12-minute maximum of...

When choosing the music for my piece I wanted the sound to have a contrast of softness and sharpness, so I started looking for pieces of music with violins as I feel like their sound has the ability to make you feel calm and at peace as well as panicked. I further wanted at least one song to have a steady beat to represent the constance of a heartbeat that intertwines with the self throughout a life. I needed something slower at the start and more erratic towards the end. So, I started listening to EPs and albums by classical crossover/instrumental artists and found an EP by  Ó lauf Arnalds called The Invisible that invited a melancholy, introspective feel. The EP is a collation of 'eight forgotten tracks' that the artist created over a decade ago which I further felt was an interesting representation of this idea of introspection, looking in on the self and finding forgotten parts hidden away.  I basically then used this EP as a soundtrack to our rehearsals before I decided ...

For this rehearsal, my plan was to choreograph the ending speeding up section into the dragging/weighted section and plot out all our choreography to the music. I didn't necessarily need the dance to be fully cleaned or for the dancers to have memorised the order, but I wanted to get a grasp on it for myself. We started off by recapping from the end of the first song to make sure the movement worked when doing it full-out and then added on to reach the end of the second song. They ended Tilly's Train of Thought duet crossed-legged and back-to-back, so I asked them to push over onto their knees and repeat their kneeling solos there. Then I asked Emily to get up and start doing her solo, with Tilly noticing and then doing her replication of Emily's material.  Video of End of Second Song: This definitely needs some cleaning and clarification on timings, but the timing of it and the movement content are definitely right for this section. There is this idea of awareness as they...

 Here are the final programme designs laid out as they were sent to print. Link to Digital Programme:  https://eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fissuu.com%2Fdancecitynewcastle%2Fdocs%2Fba_fuzion_festival_programme_2024&data=05%7C02%7Cbh99yk%40student.sunderland.ac.uk%7C2506ca8658cb404d7fd108dc7fc2411e%7C16a0d960ee744f56a22a19ae057918b2%7C0%7C0%7C638525719499114518%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=pqYqm5UqRr5FSS4sjntkNAs%2BYHplD99g%2FjmLG8CJCGI%3D&reserved=0 

before this session I redid my timeline so I went into the rehearsal with the plant to test what I had plotted out the music in the space. We were in studio 4 so I could get a good idea of where I wanted them to be at the start of each section, so we mainly focussed on the travels between sections. Timeline before Rehearsal: Due to Emily's injury, I didn't focus much on the qualities of breath that need to be added to the piece, and just went ahead with testing the structuring of the first two song as to avoid as much contact improv and back-involving movement as possible. I videoed a test of the first song; I asked Tilly to do as much as possible but Emily to mark. It ended up taking less time than the song and with me pausing them before each section was meant to start, but with the full movement I think it's going to fit perfectly to the music. I was more concerned it would take more time than the music so it's a good outcome to have to slow some parts down. From rew...

Following the editing of the music, I had to re-do my timeline as there was some space between the tracks that cut the runtime down by around 10 seconds and I wanted my timeline to be as accurate as possible. So I spent the few hours spare I had before our next rehearsal planning out the timings of sections to the songs to test out with my dancers. The timeline being accurate was especially important now because of Emily's injury as we had decided on her marking the movement this rehearsal and the timings might not line up as we test them. Me accurately placing the sections and making sure that at least Tilly's timings lined up with what I plotted will help to ensure we are productive and make progress in structuring the piece. I also scheduled our second rehearsal of the week to be on the Friday so Emily had the biggest gap possible in not doing the choreography to rest as much as she could. I also checked in with her as I was remaking the timeline on what she thought/how she ...

I don't usually reflect on my supervisor 1-1s in this learning journal, but we talked a lot about and developed ideas around the structuring and narrative of the piece and checking in practically. Going into this 1-1, we planned on discussing the structure of the piece as we previously agreed that I would roughly try to plot out some of the sections to the music. I came in with my timeline and we talked about different sections we'd created and how I would use them to propel the narrative of the piece. I had some thoughts about the narrative the day before and jotted them down in my notes. These were very reflective in terms of what duality means to me personally, and the different ways that I perceive the narrative of the dance. My Narrative Thoughts: Through their styles and outputs of energy, I have established that Emily more so represents the Internal Self and Tilly the External Self External Self: Something that feels so controlled, energetic and intentioned can spiral o...

 Here are the final poster/flyer designs that we've sent to print.

As my dancers were on residency this week, I wanted to take the time to get my head around the structuring of the piece. I discussed with   Luc í a  about bringing to our next 1-1 a timeline/blocking together of the sections I had already created so we could work on the structure and see where the gaps are and what is needed to fill out the piece's narrative. So, I arranged a 1-1 with Luc í a at the end of the Y1&2 residency week so I had the week to think about the piece and find a structure to it. To do this, I created a timeline of each song and a list of all the choreography we've created and started blocking out where each section is going to sit within the piece. This is what I came up with on my own. I nearly filled the first song, which I think is important for establishing the dancers' relationship with each other, so is where I want to work with them first. I found some links between the start and end of some sections that flow nicely, for example, the end of...

 Today I went in and took some photos for Courtney's piece, Restricting Space: Navigating Movement, to put in the festival programme. It was really fun to play with props. We went with the top middle one.

  Rehearsal 7 Plan: back to back breathing warm up Create Start: Repetition exercise from starting position Recap everything we have Lucia coming in to watch My main goal for this rehearsal was to get a start to the piece so I can start structuring all of the choreography that we have made after that. So we started by doing our regular warm up, and I noted down a few movements that they did that I can refer back to if I'm looking for transitional choreography. Video of Improv Warm Up: Ideas from Improv: E twist lunge from standing, T twist backwards over back, E lower to floor from knees, forearms push, pushing leg out higher like pendulum until standing before they go into the starting section they’re creating, feeding arms up and down, head rolls, then go into movement I then set them off on a task to create the start. I had them start in one of the leaning positions we created last rehearsal and move from there, and every time they get stuck/don't know what to do, they had ...

  Rehearsal 6 Plan: Regular warm-up Finish interweaving duets Start the leaning section, create 8 more leans and choreograph from there Try out choreographed bits in the bigger space, Lights + photos of leaning bits To start with this rehearsal, we finished the duets we made last week from the train of thought materials. We added a bit onto the end of both and I'm really happy and reassured that the contact/duet material will get their relationship across to the audience. I employed a few choreographic devices in making the material feel like a symbiotic relationship; unison to show that they are in sync/sharing a mind, contact to show their reliance on each other and how they need the other to operate efficiently/effectively, canon to have a rippling effect between them, differing levels and modifying each other's movements to show duality, and keeping their differing dynamics evident in the work. There are moments in each duet where the movement styles blend together to show ...