REHEARSAL 7 - 10/05/2024

 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 to reset to the position. This allowed them to test out ideas and build the choreography up organically; I also asked them not to talk to each other too much to allow them to get used to their communication being more kinesthetically driven as they will be on stage. 

Starting Position:

Video of Creation Process:

I didn't give them a set amount of time for this task, I just kind of left them to it until I found a good point where I felt I could go in and find variations in the movement and work with the dancers on qualities to make it into a longer phrase. The start of the piece, I very much want to establish a relationship between the two of them, so by having the choreography come from a silent conversation between the two, I found it authentic in their problem solving and the movement felt like they were interweaving like cogs in a machine. 

Video of Start Section (Before Development):

I really liked the variations in levels that they implemented and the different ways they physically connected beyond what they usually do in contact improv, I feel like both myself and them were feeling quite creative today so this did help in creating that establishing relationship. I wanted to go back in and add more time at the start moving in the starting position to build up the levels more gradually, so I added some hand reaches and head rolls that then initiated the movement out of the position. I mainly had them add more transitions and breath to initiate movements so that each move had a purpose in getting them into the next; it was almost like they had the building blocks and then we built some bridges between them together. 

Video of Start Section (After Development):

I started the music and decided that a few eights of stillness was effective in establishing the two of them on stage before they start moving, and we worked with the idea of adding breath to each movement.

Then we started going over the duets that we finished last rehearsal and Lucía came in to watch the rest of the rehearsal. This was quite helpful as she was able to observe my process and how I was working with the dancers, our methods for creating movement as well as the actual product. After going over them for a bit, Lucía gave us some notes, sometimes reinforcing some of my instructions of intentions like giving each other true weight and making the contact more tactile, as well as talking about the dancer's consciousnesses as they are moving in relation to one another; she said they need to have more awareness of the other in the space, not necessarily just through their eyes. With these things in mind, I filmed these duets again so they have a visual record of the movement qualities put into practice.

Video of both Train of Thought Duets:

After this, Tilly had to leave early so I started creating a new section with Emily, replicating Tilly's solo in her own style. This was quite helpful to do without Tilly in the room as it was a creation more from memory and we could find some similarities in anatomical structure but added softness and contraction. I wanted to create these sequences of the two of them replicating each other to again play with this idea of perception, how can one person take material that they know quite well and spin it to add part of themselves to it. It was a good exercise in Emily percieving how Tilly moves and what she needs to do to bring something to the movement that wasn't there before. These sequences are a good visiual of them blending together and interweaving in a way that isn't contact work. It is evident that they both can do each style and execute it well, but I'm more interested in what makes each of them different and how those differences can work in tandem to make their movement more creatively nuanced and their relationship more established and dependant.

Video of Emily Replicating Tilly Solo: