# data[].attributes.headline
Week 1 - Exploration of choreographic techniques and tools.

# data[].attributes.subject
Week 1 - Exploration of choreographic techniques and tools.

# data[].attributes.body
Today we explored partner work and choreographic tools; we used the environment around us as inspiration for choreographic processes. What I found most challenging was working with new bodies and trying to work with their boundaries; I am very open and come from an improvisational background whereas I felt others hitting a wall with their movement. I could tell they had a mental block which can be frustrating, this meant we were not able to explore in much depth which resulted in repetition of movement.

We explored the use of mirroring in partner work, following the others body through the space and mirroring what they do. I really enjoyed this part of the session as it was my first week working with the group and it was great for me to be able to see how they move, to build a foundation with them for future work.

During the session, we were set different challenges during the tasks; for example, having our eyes closed. One task in particular was the most challenging, we were told to stand in two lines on opposite sides of the studio and walk backward towards each other with our eyes closed. This meant we had to be very quiet and focused, so we were able to hear where one another was. This type of training is a successful way of improving your spatial awareness and gaining knowledge on how your peers move; and helps with teambuilding. After this particular session, I felt as if I had began to build a better foundation with the group.

Over the coming weeks I hope to be able to progress with creating work with the group and being able to work with a variety of bodies. This will also be beneficial leading up to the final project and towards my dance making piece.

# data[].attributes.headline
Week 2 - Production for Contemporary Theatre Setting.

# data[].attributes.subject
Week 2 - Production for Contemporary Theatre Setting.

# data[].attributes.body
Today we were given a task in which we needed to choose a theme and write about how we would portray this theme in 3 different settings, these were; a production for a Commercial Contract, a Contemporary Theatre setting and a community participation project. We chose mental health as our theme as we thought this was a wide enough topic to use with all settings.

Within our group we decided it would be best to split into three smaller groups and research one setting each. Amba and I went with a Contemporary Theatre setting.

# data[].attributes.body
When presenting to the group, I found that they liked our variety of ideas for the different settings. The main idea we managed to explore was from Jade and Rebecca, they wanted to use a commercial to target towards university students. We felt this was appropriate and felt that there could be more support offered to that age group in their circumstances.

We wanted to create a physical theatre commercial, so we had thought about what different situation’s university students would be put in and came up with three; a classroom setting, a hallway and a library. We also represented three different disorders; depression, anxiety and a form of obsessive-compulsive disorder. The three of us came up with two counts of eight to perform at different times during the commercial; we had planned out how the camera would move around us and that there would be a narrator speaking over the film.

If we had been given more time, I would have liked to explore how the filming process could have worked. This would have given us the opportunity to show the audience (the class) our idea in its progressive form which would have been better translated.

# data[].attributes.body
Today a KU graduate, Jean Pierre, visited to lead and teach a workshop; it was content taken from JP’s own company What is Written; a hip-hop dance company based in London. During this intensive session, we were taught an extract from a piece that the company had been performing. It was very character based and expressive; political and abstract. The biggest challenge I personally faced was muscle memory; some sections included repetition which made it difficult to define what was coming next. I had overcome this by the end of the session by use of repetition of movement; I aim to continue to work on blockers such as this throughout the year as this is something that I have already been working on and training myself in.

The first thing we were tasked with was a mobilisation task; he had asked us to lay on our backs and visualise being on an island. Imagining a hot air balloon and putting our troubles inside and watching them float away. This was the first time I had heard of this particular psychological task and so it became quite a significant moment for me, I am successful at being able to compartmentalize and leave my troubles at the door, however for some this can be difficult; I believe this task could help others in being able to do so.

This session with Jean Pierre was very insightful, I had learnt much about experimental hip-hop and how use of political issues could be used in a creative piece. We explored large, loud movements and used improvisation as a way of moving across the space; applying different styles. JP had asked us to listen in detail to various parts of the music, to break it down and move to the sounds we heard; It was a notable moment for me as I can occasionally get caught on moving to bass or lyrics the most.

# data[].attributes.headline
Week 5 - Big Spender and Hip Hop Choreography

# data[].attributes.subject
Week 5 - Big Spender and Hip Hop Choreography

# data[].attributes.body
We had been put into groups by Jason to rewrite the words of ‘Big Spender’ by Shirley Bassey. Jess, Emily, Alicia and I had been put together; our personalities are very similar we worked very well together and had a lot of ideas. We are all openminded and so initiating movement and speaking out was not an issue for us.

We had managed to rewrite the lyrics in a short space of time and so moved on to create choreography to perform to the rest of the group; being the bigger personalities of the class, this was a very notable and successful session and one that was most enjoyable.

Later on in the session, we were asked to show the rest of the group what we had been working on in our dance making sessions. We had had a hip-hop workshop from a member of Body Politic and were told we would be using some of the choreography towards another piece of work. Within my group were others from dance making, we had been given instruction to restructure our choreography and teach it to the others in our smaller groups.

It was great to be able to show the rest of our peers what we had been doing and to also be able to reuse the choreography for a piece. I feel strong progression for the whole group in moving together; I am personally able to understand other’s styles and bodies better.

At the end of the session, we were asked to conduct a hot seating session. In our hip hop groups, we had chosen Jess to be the character we asked questions to (please see voicenote in week 7.)

Link to Big Spender video: https://www.icloud.com/photos/#020JtRB7_SVKGEGPcfUkW2WmQ

# data[].attributes.body
Today we finalised our musical piece; we put together some verses from Jason’s original version of the song and added a verse from Emily’s groups song. It worked very effectively and best portrayed our ‘prison’ theme.

We used a movement technique called flocking to recreate our hip-hop choreography; we start as a clump with Jess at the front and use our wave steps to move forwards. This section was to come straight after the song; we called this ‘the courtyard’ section as if we were in prison in our cells. I found this a very effective way of portraying the cell’s; we had set ourselves in a grid formation and attempted to sing the song. We found it did not work as well as the harmonies were spread out and it was difficult to hear the others singing in the same key as ourselves. We decided to keep the singing section by the piano and go straight into the courtyard section with the group flocking.

Today’s process seemed to work very seamlessly, as we have spent three weeks on the musical, we had worked profoundly on each section using techniques such as hot seating to develop characters; this was one of my favourite sessions as we were able to put ourselves in the position of pressure, of someone who had gone through something.

Overall I found all sessions very useful. They gave me a valuable insight into what it means to write a musical and the steps of writing a musical; I found it effective to be able to practise voice work and gave me more experience in working with keys.

# data[].attributes.body
During this session we maximised our time to be able to run through all the pieces we were to be performing in next week’s showing. In Jason’s rehearsal for the musical piece; the group did not seem to be particularly engaged; we were challenged by our harmonies and it seemed to be an off week for us in our voice work. I feel the group were tired but I was grateful to be able to use the time and ensure we were most prepared for next week.

# data[].attributes.headline
Week 10 - Children's Dance Theatre Piece

# data[].attributes.subject
Week 10 - Children's Dance Theatre Piece

# data[].attributes.body
Caroline spoke to us about doing a children’s dance theatre piece. We were given a choice out of three books. We chose ‘The Same But Different Too’, we thought this book was the best choice as it had a wide variety of ideas for generating movement.

We wanted to first set the scene with how we would tour the piece and we thought touring schools during class time or assembly would be best. As the book was about accepting differences, we imagined we could be teaching them a moral of the story.

As the director, I imagined the piece to be very fluid. We decided to chose 4/5 of our favourite pages and to work with those. We imagined the words to directly transform into movement to make it as simple as possible as we were aiming our piece at aged from reception to year 3 or 4; we wanted them to connect with it as much as possible.

As we developed the piece we decided that it would benefit by having some background music to fill the silence and transitions. We imagined it to be quite relaxing and calming for the children, we came across a meditation soundtrack that started off with a light gong and developed into a glistening wind chime sound.

The feedback we had received from Caroline was that she thought we could work on using different voices for the words from the book. It had become one consistent tone throughout and in order for it to become more engaging we had to work on this for the final showing for week 12.

Link to video: https://share.icloud.com/photos/025LT8nNI-HKrstZ7Dfvad9_w#Kingston_University

# data[].attributes.body
During this session, Jason had started by showing us some lyrics he had written. Some had been written as a verse, some as a chorus and some as a bridge. This session was very interesting getting to hear my peer’s voices; it was a different type of challenge we had been given for the first time. We practised different keys, which was the first challenge as some had not sung much before and it became a case of playing around with different people standing next to others in order to harmonize effectively.

Jason had then asked us to adapt the song, we had been told to write about a form of domestic violence that we had been arrested for and so we chose to write from a woman’s perspective.

Adapted song:

I F*cked Him Up - The Musical

I believe that I f*cked him up I don’t care I don’t care

He had it coming

I f*cked him up

I play it over in my head, I saw red I saw red

Fist to face

I ripped his balls

Bridge:

Hold me away from you

I’m going crazy

Runnin around with my kitchen knife

Runnin around with my kitchen kniiiiiife

# data[].attributes.body
We started by talking about criteria for grades and lesson plans for next few weeks.

Rolling across floor- release.

Trying to improvise with each other - hard to connect as haven’t known my peers long and they’re quite closed.

Female Empowerment: what does it mean to us?

Expressing yourself - saying and doing what you want to do without feeling judged.

Not feeling pressured and not feeling like you have to feel the same way about things others do.

Girls supporting girls - togetherness

Determination and ambition

(Make above into sentences)

Who inspires me:

⁃           Jojo Gomez

⁃           Beyoncé - so much strength and power

⁃           Business women - Michelle Obama

⁃           Mother figures

Positions of power X6

⁃           chest forward

⁃           Arms back

⁃           Arms crossed

⁃

Phrase 1 - just positions

Phrase 2 - with transitions

Phrase 3 - consider a spot in the space that is a power space in the studio

Phrase 4 - groups of 4 - learn each other’s positions

Phrase 5 - putting together: see video for end result.

Overall this session gave me some inspiration to create choreography. Coming up with a few movements and then creating transitions for them; it was a very clear instruction which I found very simple to translate. When I choreograph alone I can become very linear so this gave me some ideas to take away and try outside of class time.

# data[].attributes.body
Overall, it was a very supportive atmosphere, it was a valuable element to be able to see what the other years had been doing so far and it was a good opportunity to pull together and celebrate the end of the term. The best interactions from the audience came from the children’s book pieces; we had worked hard to make them engaging, had we the opportunity to be able to tour them to different primary schools, it would have been very successful; alongside running a workshop for them.

I regret that we did not have more time to work on the female empowerment piece as a group; this piece had a lot of potential but needed more time to develop. Including making more use of the space and each other; it felt linear and underdeveloped. From an audience’s perspective; I believe they had felt the same and were waiting for more to happen which never did.

For teaching block two, I hope to be able to work more vigorously with learning choreography and training harder more consistently. This should develop as we get into our groups and start working on our final project pieces. I want to work on my stamina and strength and also hope to work with others in more depth during the course of this period.