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My original idea was to look into the character movement of good and evil characters; expanding to entertainment complexes like Disney, Dance Theatre (Zoonation), Musicals and Ballets - figuring out if movement is stereotypical throughout all the art forms for characters.

The idea behind this is to see if entertainment is becoming mundane for an audience, expecting to see the same character portrayal, movement and storyline. The aim of this dissertation would be to open up the creative world and see how we can manipulate new movement to convey new meanings and themes.

In order to do this I plan on looking at certain loved characters across the art forms looking if they have the same archetype choices, ideologies and contextual background in order to set a foundation for characterisation.

An idea got brought up on how I would make observational research and based off of what I already know and have used before of Laban Methodology I believe it would be a great idea to indenting movement through LMA. Understanding that Laban annotated movement to create meaning behind them and essentially that is what I want to find out. However, the challenges with using LMA further in this process is I’ve only ever looked at it from a dancers POV and in this dissertation it will challenge me to also look into the world of Animation as well as applying a human movement study on animated bodies.

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I created this playlist to do when doing the exercise Move Like The Character. I chose 12 characters good and evil;

Maleficent

The Evil Queen

Mother Gothel

Cruella De Vil

Ursula

Queen of Hearts

Sleeping Beauty

Snow White

Elsa

Anna

Rapunzel

Ariel

The purpose of this playlist was to gain music to help the students feel like the character. However, certain music choices on the playlist I chose so it would seem unexpected. For example, for Sleeping Beauty I played Lana Del Ray's version of Once Upon A Dream. The dark and gloomy nature of the song juxtaposes with Aurora's nature and would be an obvious choice for Maleficent. However, for the antagonist I chose to go with ballet piece from Sleeping Beauty the Ballet, to see if any of the students would replicate the ballet aesthetic present in Maleficent's movement utilising there ballet training they've received since a young age. However, when spectating I didn't see much variety - there was a lot of angry stomps and sinister looks but no variety with arm lines and posture., throughout the whole course of the exercise.

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Own Character Movement - Good Characters

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Own Character Movement - Good Characters

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Looking at the movement displayed, I identify a majority of Flick and Float Efforts, with the only change being time (sustained/sudden). This can be seen by one student running around the room, weaving in and out of people - this shows that this particular character could be free of something, excited or a comedic character. Whilst others took a more traditional princess route with Float Walks representing naivety and careless worries. However, to help them with creativity I prompted question such as does your character have any hobbies? Surprisingly, none of the children went down that route. There is one that is doing ballet walks, which could highlight her character having an interest in dance. But with given examples, such as; painting, sports, sleeping, it was interesting to see that no one took it on board? Highlighting the question of whether Disney portrayal of Princesses is so stereotypical, that there's no movement differences between the first princess in 1937 till present.

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Own Character Movement - Good Characters

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The villains movement had much more variety, but there was still a lot of stomps, hands on hips and snarled looks in Punch Efforts. There was one child who used though that utilised movement qualities similar to Maleficent - have an enclosed body with focus on the hands to then a sudden, direct and light outburst opening the chest area to create a grotesque shape. There was more analysis in Padlet [...]

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As part of my work shop, I chose 6 villainess and 6 princesses for the children to play charades with. Firstly, they had to guess which character they had and what movements they could do to symbolise their villain. The purpose of this task is to see if even with different facts about all the characters will the children still do movement similar to one another. Will they be creative and imaginative when thinking of movement?

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In this video, we can see two students moving around the space and others guessing who they are. Poppy stamps her feet in a Punch Effort, swinging her arms in angular trajectories. She uses the space in a circular manner, not really ever changing pathways and directions. She uses the little vertical patterns. It turns out she was the Queen of Hearts, but one of the points on the charade card was that 'your character is very angry and insane - she has many mood swings!' So it would've been interesting to see more imagination in that aspect, maybe more irrational spacial patterns and more use of the upper body and breathing, to make her character more obvious. Anna used less harsh Efforts such as Glide and Float, noticing one of the attributes of The Evil Queen, starring in the mirror. However, like Poppy, Anna used similar repetition for the character. An expansion for Anna to explore, would've been the incorporation of The Evil Queen's alter ego, her old self. Utilising different posture and body alignment and potentially different Efforts Wring.

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Synopsis of Sleeping Beauty

The town come together to celebrate the joyous christening of Aurora (Sleeping Beauty), all except one. Whilst fairies bring gifts of beauty and love, Maleficent enters in a jealous rage for her supposedly not being invited to the christening and as a result, this vicious woman casts a curse on Aurora so that she dies on her 16th birthday with the prick of a spinning wheel. As a result, the three fairies give her the gift that she will  go into a deep slumber instead and will be awoken by true loves kiss. For the next 16 years of her life Aurora is kept hidden from the evil Maleficent in a little cottage in the middle of the forest, away from all her family. On the day of her 16th birthday, Aurora is welcomed back into the palace as all the spinning wheels in the kingdom have been destroyed. However, that’s not strong enough to break the curse she eventually makes her way too the spinning wheel and falls into a deep slumber. Prince Phillip, who briefly met Aurora in the woods one day has been held captive by Maleficent, after they both fell in love. The good fairies eventually help him break away to help Aurora, however, this results into Maleficent transforming into a dragon and Prince Phillip stabs her straight in the heart - ending her wicked ways. Prince Phillip finds Aurora and true love wins once again.

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The Little Mermaid (1989) is about a young mermaid, who just wants to be free from her family home and explore the human world; collecting all things human in her treasure cove. On one of her expeditions she comes across a human prince, and she falls in love instantly. Her over-protective father finds out about her visits and her new love interest and destroys her treasure cove. As a result, Ariel runs away and makes a deal with the sea witch Ursula - she will allow Ariel to become a human for three days to get Eric to fall in love with her in exchange for her voice. If unsuccessful, she will give her life to Ursula. However, when problems occur within those three days, her father, King Triton is left to make the ultimate decision.

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Self -absorbed Kuzco is the Emperor of his kingdom, along side is Royal Advisor, the malicious Yzma. However, Yzmas thirst for the throne ends up in Kuzcos transformation into a llama, where he becomes stranded in the jungle. The only hope for Kuzco is for him to team up with a peasant, Pacha. Can they return before Yzma tracks them down to kill them both?

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Consent Letter for Workshops

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The Walt Disney cooperation, began by Walt Disney, wanted to create a new professional business with his brother Roy on October 16th 1923. Despite launching two new movies, the new film company owners would've faced a lot of money problems and claims, if it wasn't for the birth of Mickey Mouse in 1928. From here, the cartoon company created its first franchise, creating well-loved characters such as Minnie Mouse and Donald Duck.

Disney began works on Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs, the first full length feature film the company produced, making its very popular debut in 1937. However, it only became popular due to all the work that went into it and unfortunately had production expenses needing to be paid. World War II came soon after the debut and no more films could be produced to pay off Disney's debt (Sanders, 2021). Things took a turn for the Disney company, with big releases and successes, with the first live-action film, Treasure Island, and a new animated princess feature, Cinderella as well as many television series.

Despite, the success of the films and series, Walt wanted more fantasy and decided to build his own theme park, opening in 1955. It was not just a theme park, but a world of fantasy, discovery, adventure, tomorrow and overall, magic. His ides for this world was like nothing anyone had heard before and Disney once said; 'Disneyland will never be completed, as long as there's imagination in the world.'

Following the success of the 1950's in amusement, animation and film. Walt Disney released more films such as the delightful Mary Poppins in 1964 and finally Walt Disney saw idea flourish into an empire. However, Walt Disney sadly died in 1966. The devastating impact it had across the entertainment industry didn't stop Disney's imagineers from fulfilling Walt Disney's wishes, carrying on production works such as The Jungle Book (1967), The Love Bug (1969) and The Aristocats (1970).

In the 70's Disney reverted its focus on the theme parks opening one in Florida (1971) and began operation for Tokyo to be the first overseas theme park, opening in 1983.

The 1980's became detriment to the company, with society diminishing the idea of family films, resulting into a lack of teenage and adult audiences. Therefore, Disney branched out into the Hollywood scene with collaborations with other production companies creating blockbuster hits such as Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and Pretty Woman. With Disney's expansion in catering for older audiences, it saw great redemption for the company as a whole. With the release of The Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast (1991) and Aladdin (1992). The new success of animated films saw more stories including, The Lion King (1994), Pocahontas (1995), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), Hercules (1997), Mulan (1998), Tarzan (1999) and Fantasia (2000). It was a great successful decade for Walt Disney Studios, but more innovation accrued in the 1990's. Disney created Pixar and together made progression in computer animation, releasing Toy Story. They also expanded their films into stage adaptations in 1994, 'Disney on Broadway,' creating musical spectacles of Beauty and The Beast (1994) and The Lion King (1997). In terms of theme parks, Disneyland Paris opened in 1992 and Animal Kingdom opened in Walt Disney World in 1998. There was a sea of Disney Stores worldwide by 1996, reaching numbers of well over 450.

The 2000's strayed away from princess fairytales and gave us films such as The Emperors New Groove, Lilo and Stitch, Brother Bear and once again, another collaboration with Pixar studios creating Monsters Inc and Finding Nemo. New franchises came about with Pirates of The Caribbean - grossing over 300 million dollars. The was a rise in popularity on Disney Channel, a tv service aimed for pre-teen and the teenager age group, with High School Musical and Hannah Montana becoming overnight sensations. Many other films and ideas flourished I the 2000's from theme parks, to tv, to film attracting everyone worldwide (Disney History, 2023).

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History of Topic - Laban Movement Analysis

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History of Topic - Laban Movement Analysis

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Rudolf Laban was born in 1879,  Austro-Hungary. He studied dance and went on to choreograph and create one of the most known theories in dance studies - Laban Movement Analysis (LMA). Laban got dance known for being such a vital dance form, understanding the context behind movement through the investigation of his theory, he ultimately changed the perspective on dance and the theory behind it. He generated 'choreology', an apparatus for creatives to use Laban Notation. His theory allowed an insight into the meaning of movement, looking at placement of the body and the area surrounding it, showing that anyone can dance using their bodies (Preston-Dunlop, 2023)

At the started of his life, in anguished the life that his father had decided for him; Laban wanted to be an artist and as a result started looking at moving bodies.

By 1919 he had reached an influential part of his career, beginning his own dance company and opened an actual school, movement choir and began becoming an author, performer and choreographer. Throughout the next decade, Laban created 25 school and choirs for children, amateurs and professional dancers; always sticking to the movement analysis he created.

Throughout all this, he still was working and developing his theory. He was astonished to find a new meaning for movement as behavioural patterns, experimenting on real life bodies of factory workers and psychiatric patients. Therefore, creating the official LMA we know and study today and his new outlook on his theory enabled it not just for dancers but actors as well.

Laban was inspired by the changes of time through socio-cultural contexts. The inspiration allowed him to no longer feel confided against showing and feeling, opening up a freeing essence for the body. He felt that dance was the best way to make the body feel free. Cultural changes include seeing other artists flourish, such as Picasso, Shiele, Matisse and Kandinsky. The new influence of artists made him question the visual aspect of movement, by ditching a more codified structure of steps and use of music, the influence allowed to find his own steps and rhythms. This create a basis of his terminology: flow, weight, space and time.
Laban spent 20 years yearning to know about movement, how could moving parts of the body be moved in space and time dynamically'. To this day his work has provided structure to behavioural patterns and movement analysis of our bodies.

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Between 1937 - 2019, a study showed that only 40% of characters in the Disney franchise were female; 60% being male, also uncovering that only slight change has been made within character choices - still representing gender through attractiveness, occupations and leadership. Behind the scenes, Disney and other Hollywood cinematic companies are male dominant, perhaps reflecting the lack of female representation (Hamilton, 2022). Kristen Madej approaches Disney’s concept on reality, stating that animators want ‘believability through authenticity, studying reality in order to caricature it’ (Madej, 2020) - emphasising the necessity animators go through to gather inspiration to create authentic movement, whether that be own input or villain and gendered archetypes like witches and mothers or taking afflatus from themes such as the femme fatale or ballets (Do Rozario, 2004). Opposing the themes of realism is Nandini Maity, who believes that the women created by Disney are ‘unrealistic depictions of womanhood,’ using hyper-reality to express that pretty portrays good and ugly portrays evil, making Disney films a bad influence on any child as it sets unrealistic expectations of real life. Disney films promote feminine beauty via behaviour, appearance and movement through both princesses and villains. Mother Gothel (Tangled, 2010), for example, uses magic to achieve beauty standards and self-validation but also uses it as trickery towards Rapunzel to make her seem trustworthy and virtuous despite her motivations of keeping her locked up in a tower. However, Maity articulates that Disney is evolving with their visual of women, not relying on the social expectations - princesses have morals, stepmothers are less apparent and hags no longer need validation, showing that as ‘time progresses each films takes more control over their destinies’ (Maity, 2014). However, one can argue or agree with this with Disney representation of females in their remakes.

Looking at female characters like Tiana and Pocahontas, it can be argued that they both achieved their goals whilst falling in love, but many others would disagree and began exploiting their opinion on TV shows, magazines and articles. 1998 - an episode of Ally McBeal vocalises their opinion of Disney’s representation of females through their script with one of the characters stating;

‘We’re brainwashed. The first stories we hear as babies - Snow White, Cinderella - [are] all about getting guy, being saved by the guy. Today it’s Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Pocahontas. All about getting a guy’ (Davis, 2006).

The passage of writing, ‘we’re brainwashed’ can emphasis Maidy’s viewpoint of Disney’s bad influence on young girls, along with many other scholars like Jack Zipes, writer of ‘Don’t Bet on the Prince’ (2014) emphasising that Disney can have negative psychological effects on children. However, it must be argued that even though the first three films of the Princess Franchise; Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty showcases females being passive examples waiting for a guy, but the next films in the renaissance period, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin and Pocahontas, females in a different light. They’re no longer bystanders waiting for something to happen and their motives aren’t based primarily on love (Davis, 2006).

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From my nieces and nephews inspiration, I knew I wanted to look into the characters we see in Disney films, however, I was yet to know what route to go down. Around this time many live-action remakes was being released and announced like, The Little Mermaid, Peter Pan and Wendy, Cruella etc. and it made me wonder if there was any need for the remakes? My original views on them was that they are just a copy and paste of the original and didn’t do anything to develop characterisation. However, when watching of Maleficent, it was a well put together film to showcase the sincere maleficent rather than the character in the original film. This then influenced me to go watch Sleeping Beauty (1959) and I felt when watching that the two portrayals of the villain maleficent was completely different. This sparked a curiosity of the original portrayal of these characters, what influenced Disney to make them the way they did? Why do they look the way they do? And as a dancer, I wondered if there was any meaning behind their movement?

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My inspiration for my dissertation was my nieces and nephews. It began at birthday party for another member of our family and as the night went on the kids got less and less involved, so I took them away and told them to draw something. They then asked what, thus the start the idea surrounding good guys and bad guys. I told them to create a protagonist and antagonist, including whatever they liked; magic, powers, colour, appearance - they had total creative freedom.
When I saw the completed pictures [Drawing 1-6], it made me laugh seeing fish looking bananas with laser eyes and death machine robots; it made me realise how creative children can be. However, when I saw Drawing 6 - it reminded me of the well known Disney Princess Elsa, which stemmed a thought about the characters we see in Disney films. I questioned whether animators are being as creative as they can with their storylines and characters, especially for a company aimed at younger audiences like my nieces and nephews - who thrive off of imagination.

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Overall, as I assumed the children have stuck to the stereotypical movement attributes and not really delved into creating imaginative ideas, even with the help of prompts to myself. This is an overall worry for me, as I wonder how a group of imaginative children who study a creative art form, struggled with showing something different. Despite seeing glimpses of it, I do wonder about the future of the entertainment industry - I believe that Disney has created stereotypical ideologies of these characters and as a result children may be getting less imaginative I'm the way they create, direct and choreograph.

However when in discussion with the students, they made a comment about how there's so many different types of villains - when placing different pictures of villains down for them all to see. This piqued an interest in looking closer at villains - after all there is so much that is undiscovered about an antagonists life.

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An updated questionnaire was undertook to fit my new avenue of study - focusing more of the analysis now villains. The results overall, showed very split opinions and allowed for counter-arguments and debates to be addressed.

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Many scholars over time have utilised LMA, uncovering new was of utilising this study in everyday life and entertainment, and as a result many scholars have great opinions on utilising LMA.
Laban's methodology, some may argue, that the system is dated and needs to be modernised to fit the current time. His experiments on factory workers may not resemble how we currently do things in this era and that adaptations may have to be done for this to be an interchangeable theory.
Sarah Jane Burton argues that it is a 'concise, comprehensive structure for observing, analyzing and representing movement, which can be of great use for generating affective movement for artificial agents, such as robots, kinetic sculptures and environments'. It's interesting to read that her analysis of the benefits of LMA was based off of technology. She brought a contemporary outlook on his theory and overall, reinstates the capabilities that LMA has not just as a human study and how it's ever changing as socio-cultural shifts happens, as stated in the history of LMA (Burton, n.d.).

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Sleeping Beauty | The Curse Scene | Coming out of the Vault for the first time on Digital

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SleepingBeauty Check us out on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WaltDisneySt... Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DisneyStudiosAU Join us at: http:// www.disney.com.au/Princess Releasing from the Disney Vault, Disney's Ultimate Fairytale Classic, Sleeping Beauty, is Available on DVD & Blu Ray and for the First Time on Digital HD.

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View: 4:25-4:28

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The Little Mermaid | Poor Unfortunate Souls | Disney Sing-Along

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During my work, I will be looking to the archetypes, ideologies and briefly discussing the contextual history of the films release dates and how this all has impact the characterisation of the female villainesses.

Archetypes

Serious: Does the villain show no other emotion that seriousness? How does this impact there appearance, movement? And how does an audience react to her?

Comical: How is humour emphasised through the character? Does this impact her storyline and relationships? How does an audience react to them?

Terrible Mother Archetype: The relationship between a mother and daughter but also could be showed as girl and mentor. The terrible mother archetype is a theory , that is highly opinionated by the mother been jealous over her daughters youth and values.

Crone: an archetype symbolic of the latter ages of a woman’s life. The crone image is a replica of a witch/hag figure. It demonstrates Disney’s portrayal of the old characters as ugly and deteriorating.

Ideologies

Femme Fatale: an imagery present in all the female villains, however, it’s the way this theme is utilised that makes it unique to each villain. Via, parodies and alignment.

Ballet Culture: Due to the high amount of ballets around the Walt Era of Disney, animators used ballet movement to help create animated gesture. The codified states of ballet is used to align with serious structure of the Walt  Era Villains (e.g., Maleficent).

Drag Cultire: expanding on the parody of the femme fatale, the grotesque caricature is shown via the drag influence on movement.

Context

Rape

Rise in MTV

Musical Theatre

Plastic Surgery

Jung’s theory of gender

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I identify this study looking into many gaps of research. As mentioned, Johnson acted as my primary source of research as nothing I found resembled my topic. I had to go out and find influences and ideologies and backing this with contextual research to help come to my conclusive findings. Though Johnson was my primary source, I felt like her work didn't have a conclusive ending as to why -- expanding me to look into how the movement impacts todays entertainment industry and therefore, this new outlook of my topic invites me to find the gaps in research via the use of workshops.