Festival Project Journal

  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.

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...

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...

After our festival contribution focus group, Sophie recommended a book to me, Moving Consciously (Fraleigh, 2015), to explore different somatic practices I want to implement into rehearsals to help create set movement. She said it was quite a heavy text to read so when I read parts of it myself I looked for specific chapters that could be helpful in the moment. Why Consciousness Matters: Somatic Potentials and Expressive Imagination (Page 5) This was the first thing that I came across when flicking through Sophie's bookmarked pages, and it drew me in as it started talking about the self. This idea of a relational self speaks to my stimuli of external perception and how we exist through the eyes of others. Though in rehearsals we have previously done written exercises in perceiving each other, I want to bring that back and then use the aspects that each dancer sees to create a version of each other's phrases where they are replicating it in their own style. This will add another...

We sat down together as Year 3s and gave each other an update on where we're at with our festival contributions, this is just a log of what feedback/ideas I got given. I talked about where I'm at and how I'm struggling to choreograph contact work as a singular person and starting to set material to a structure. Ideas: - improv prompt: magnetised together, find ways of moving without losing contact, how does the magnet move them back in, film the testing process - improv prompt: different body parts - more bodies in the space - bridges between random orders of things, how do things start and end? - fit the things I do have into the structure, what do I have and where does it go? - suggested reading: somatic transformations through dance yoga and touch - take some photos of dancers that speak to the influences, practice research

I was thinking about the self as a constant marker of identity and being alive and started to think about what else physiologically are constants throughout life that a person can feel/hear, which led me to breathing and heartbeats. Breathing is something I've already used within my choreographic practice with the dancers as a driver for creating contact movement, doing improvisational warm-ups stemming from breathing into each others' backs and how they can send energy from the great between them and breath into different body parts. This was inspired by part of our choreographic process on residency with Patricia Okenwa, where she gave us similar tasks to get in touch with our bodies in the space and between each other in developing contact work. Knowing my dancers weren't as experienced in contact, I thought that would be a good starting point in establishing a relationship and genuine connection between the dancers.  With heartbeats though, I immediately started thinkin...

 Because the mental health condition of Depersonalisation has been an influence for me in how I'm presenting my piece, and it's not something I regularly experience as a part of my mental health, I wanted to do a bit of further research on the condition as to not misrepresent it in how I talk about my piece in different contexts. The epidemiology of depersonalisation and derealisation: A systematic review This definition of depersonalisation gives a good understanding of the experience and sensations that come with the condition. This idea of detachment from the self is something I want to explore in the work's staging to the audience. By creating a work in a black box theatre, I want to create the sensation of observing the duality of the self from a distance for the audience and take the audience out of reality outside of the theatre. I further want to create an atmosphere of unreality through the tech of the piece, using gobos and haze to set the stage in a dream-like st...

The first ideas I had about creating a choreography for my third-year festival contribution surrounded the theme of duality, which came from an initial stimulus of layered photography. This idea isn't something I've necessarily researched in detail but I'm interested in exploring it as I go with my dancers. However, I want to go into my first rehearsal having a good idea of what sort of concepts surrounding this theme I want to explore, as it's such a broad topic.  The Duality of the Mind: This is an article that talks about the author's personal experiences surrounding the duality of the mind, I've picked a few comments/experiences that spoke to me in a choreographic sense and thought about how they apply to my creative development. He explores a positive and negative side of the self, which is not the direction I want to go in, as I don't necessarily hold the opinion that certain parts of a self can be categorised into good or bad, that feels like a very s...

 When I had my first initial meeting with  Luc í a  and talked about exploring ideas of the self in response to stimuli of duality and perception, both self- and external-, she recommended I read The Oxford Handbook of the Self (Gallagher [ed.], 2011), to explore these ideas further. The book wasn't available on the Sunderland Library, but  Luc í a  sent me the introduction that I read and got a better grasp on how I want to explore the self in rehearsals with my dancers and what sort of narrative I want to develop. Here are a few of the quotes that spoke to me in the development of my understanding of the self and how I want to explore this through contemporary dance. This abstract on how some of the authors explore aspects of the self led me to think further about the internal versus the external self. Certain aspects of the self are defined by their isolation to the cognitive self, there are specific things/idiosyncrasies that only an individual knows about t...

Idea: The creative idea behind my piece is the exploration of duality within the self, psychologically and physically. I aim to use the creative process to explore this through a lens of depersonalisation, looking into how we observe ourselves from an outside perspective. I want to explore different aspects of the self, particularly the speed at which minds move compared to our physical selves. I want to look into what parts of the self are only known to an individual, what aspects of ourselves can only be seen from an external lens, and how the experience of depersonalisation can put a person in a unique perspective of experiencing the self externally. I first started thinking about the idea of duality in response to a type of photography called layered photography and wanted to explore this further, particularly in relation to the duality of the self and different sides of the self. So, I decided on a duet exploring two sides of a self so as to not make the idea more convoluted than...