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Tasked with creating a 4-5 minute long project in collaboration with 4 other students, we worked together to create an experimental film focusing on the individuality of dancers and the unique choices they made with the different challenges they faced. These various challenges were given to them in the form of different objects acting as stimuli affecting their movement choice, and overall creating unique opportunities for each dancer.

BRIEF: We gathered together 4 different dancers varying in style and asked them to react to the stimuli through their movement. All 4 dancers were placed in the same set up and were given very minimal guidelines as to their reaction to the stimuli. This allowed them to create raw, unedited movement which was completely unique to themselves.

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Although our initial ideas were all different at the beginning stage, we managed to produce an idea that simultaneously used elements from every member of the group. We found that we shared interests in the effect of objects on movement quality. This then helped us to take a deeper look into what objects would help to create varied movement.

We originally thought about using things like paint, tape, leaves, water, sound, and bubbles; but narrowed these down to 4 stimuli to prevent the project from being too broad. Selecting these 4 stimuli also helps the dancers navigate the variation in their movement when being filmed. The video linked above was our main source of inspiration for the use of tape.

We played with the idea of making our piece into a social experiment that would be filmed - this was to show the raw reaction to the stimuli. In the end we decided against this and instead chose to create a film, this was because we could compare the effect of the stimuli on the movement more carefully than we could if we were to do a live experiment as we have the video evidence to look back on.

https://youtu.be/I2gmj72iBD0?si=VUQLXToieGHsGFtH

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Contacting via group chat we organised to meet somewhere accessible to all of us with enough open space to properly experiment our ideas. We decided early on in our planning process that we wanted every frame in our film to be identical all the way through with a plain white background - this would prevent the surroundings taking away from the main focal point of the video. We also originally planned for all our dancers to be in white/ neutral clothing but then changed this to all black, close fitting clothing to make the dancers stand out against the white background. We wanted this to create the illusion of a blank canvas with nothing to distract the dancers, this also means every dancer has equal opportunity in the experiment.

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We gathered a small group of people who were happy to be filmed and gave them very minimal information as to what we wanted them to do with the props that were given to them. We made sure to leave them alone in the room whilst being filmed so there was no effect/ distraction from us on their movement. It was after these experiments that we decided to start interviewing our dancers, asking questions relating to their reactions and which stimuli they found the hardest and why. This was carried through to our final piece.

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Throughout the creative process our ideas varied and changed a lot. We found that after our first few tries with the stimuli it was hard to grasp for the audience as they didn't vary enough therefore we had to narrow down our final idea as it was too broad.

We began by looking into the 5 senses (touch, taste, smell, sight, hearing) and how these can help to influence the movement and be open to influence by the dancer. After trying these in different ways we decided against using the 5 senses as our main stimuli but stayed with the idea of using sound/ music. We then worked on finding contrasting pieces of sound and kept experimenting with different soundbites, seeing which pieces of sound created the most contrast in the dancers movement. (See video 3)

Influenced by the 5 senses, we tried experimenting with leaves and the noise they created when manipulated. The use of leaves did not make it to the final piece as our dancers reported that it was awkward to try and incorporate them into their movement and prevented them from creating authentic, genuine movement. (See video 1)

We used water as another stimulus and originally were going to focus on the temperature of the water; how would hot water react differently on the body than cold water would? (See video 2)

We also experimented with the use of a balloon and how the force of gravity would influence the movement - we found with this one that the dancers also played with levels as if they were being weighed down by the balloon/ gravity. Therefore we also carried this object through to our final piece. Playing with the idea of the senses, this gave us the name for our final piece; REACT.

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Beginning to experiment with different stimuli (leaves)

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Water

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Throughout our experimentation process with the stimuli was when we had to keep our audience in mind the most. For example, even though the idea of using tape as a stimuli was engaging for the dancer, it was not as effective to watch for the viewer. This was because the manipulation of the tape mainly focused on the sense of touch which could not be displayed to the viewer through a video.

We believed that using the same setting and objects for all four of our dancers was interesting for the audience because it would further encourage them to think about the many different methods of using the stimuli and get them thinking of ways they would go about using them for their movement. It also highlights our main aim which is to show the individuality of dancers.

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Our roles changed depending on who had availability but overall we stuck to these designated responsibilities-

Lorea - Director

Abby - Contact and Videographer

Sarah - Sound Editor

Olivia - Graphic Designer

Rebecca - Video Editor

These roles worked successfully within the group as it meant that everyone was focused on one aspect of the project, but we made sure to overlook all roles so that the project was a group collaboration and not left reliant on one person.

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Although I feel we worked well as a group, the main challenge we faced was scheduling time to meet during our experimentation process and our filming period. This was due to conflicting classes and rehearsals that were taking place outside of class time. This made it difficult to schedule a time when we were all available and therefore able to make important and final decisions.

Following on from this, the outside rehearsals going on at the time made it hard to gather dancers to use for our final film. We had quite a few people drop out of the project due to scheduling conflicts which had a negative effect on the group as we had to find more people in short notice. Something we could have done to resolve this issue was use the same dancers all the way through our project. This would have given us reliable participants from the very start, meaning they would have been well informed and had a good understanding of the piece.

I feel we worked well when it came to bouncing ideas off each other and taking inspiration from each other's ideas. We found similarities in our original ideas therefore found it was straightforward to develop ideas within our group as well as include elements from everyone. This made it a positive working environment.

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We always wanted our project to have an individual and personal effect on the audience but found this harder to reach when we decided against a live experiment as this would have been more up close and personal. When we moved onto a film project we made it our aim to carry that idea with us.

Video 4 was taken during the time when we were experimenting with camera angles and how we were going to set up the camera for our film. Reflecting on this evidence now, the use of the mirrors detracts from the viewing experience of our film as being able to see the camera detracts from the main focal point of the video which is the dancer. This would have also taken the viewer out of the main subject which was the effect caused from the stimuli.

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Before sharing with the rest of the group, my original idea took inspiration from the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray published in 1890.

"Dorian Gray, fictional character, the hedonistic protagonist of Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891). He exchanges his soul for youth that never fades."

MacDonald, R. (2024) Britannica.com

I found the idea of ageing through art interesting and would have gone onto portray this through movement, using things such as paint or picture frames to aid this. This blended with ideas from others in the group who were interested in ideas with paint therefore we found it easy to take ideas forward and think about how we were going to portray these ideas.

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Dorian Gray, fictional character, the hedonistic protagonist of Oscar Wilde's novel The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891). He exchanges his soul for youth that never