Festival Project Journal

Reflective Space: Here is my poster from the reflection space after the festival week. I chose to represent the piece by using practice research photos that recreated the initial inspiration for the contribution and its themes. Questions I Asked: Were there any moments in the piece that you felt connections with the dancers on stage? How did their individual dynamics make you feel? This piece explore the duality of the self, what did you notice about the relationship displayed on stage? I think due to the time my piece was in the schedule, there was a smaller audience, most of which were family and friends of me and the other choreographer and dancers. So, I didn't end up getting much feedback about the actual questions I asked. One person did note the feeling of panic as Tilly started speeding up which was helpful to note as it meant our intended general intention got across to at least this person and the narrative had a heightened moment where I wanted it to.  There's also a...

 During my tech rehearsal full run, I took some photos of the piece. Because I was still trying to watch, there were a lot less than usual, and the lighting was quite dark, but I'm still glad I got some higher-quality images of the piece as its initial stimulus came from photography.

 Tech Specifications & Reasons: Low gobo wash as they're breathing together: I wanted the light to be low and patchy with the gobo to isolate body parts and establish their relationship as a connected system, so I didn't necessarily want to audience to see who is who whilst establishing that starting position that will be repeated a few times. Sidelights + Wash brighten through opening sequence: As they start moving off their spot I wanted them to get more visible so the relationship is more visible through movements and breath. A diagonal overhead light starts as Emily walks backwards to upstage right:  This marks the start of a new section as they both finish their solos and are drawn back together, it gives Emily a clear direction back to Tilly and continues to the end of the song with the movement through the light which is brighter than the wash to highlight the leaning positions.  Lights pulse over gobo wash with the beat of Song 2: This enhances the 'heartbea...

 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.

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 ...

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...

  Today I took photos of my piece for the Fuzion Festival programme, I took photos of the leaning sequence to get across this idea of the dancers supporting each other, as well as because these positions will be recognisable motifs throughout the piece. For the programme, I've gone with the third of these images as I've decided that it will be the starting position of the piece so it gets across the establishing shot.

  Performance Information Requirement Form   Performance Pieces   DanceCity Newcastle – (BA Festival Project – Name: Fuzion Festival)     Please com plete this form and return to bh99yk@student.Sunderland.ac.uk (Kate Ovington) by 04/04/2024     Name of artist /company   Kate Ovington   Contact email     Bh99yk@student.sunderland.ac.uk   Name of piece     Superficial Thinking   Date and Time     Thursday 30 th May – 16:45 (Double Bill with Courtney’s work, starting at 16:45, my piece at 17:00)     Location     Theatre   Duration     10-12 minutes   Number and names of performers   2 Performers – Emily Armstrong, Tilly Jobson   Appropriate age     7+   Trigger warnings     Movement created from a m ental h ealth stimulus of depersonalisation which could be triggering to some , haze   Short copy ( 50 words max , info about...