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It was so thankful that the school gave us to choreograph our own solo piece from the beginning. It was nice to see myself and others.
It challenged me to create something more from the original version but was fun and helped me a lot to expand and put deeper  thoughts form my inside.
For the last version, I wasn't sure to change it totally different or go further from what I have and I'm quite sad because I think I could try more things and take risks. But I really learned a lot from this project by looking back myself and watching how classmates' work were being in progress.

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This piece is quite tragic for me. It has meaning that
there are many artists who are having struggle with their artistic growth and themselves and it continues in an endless loop.
It started from the idea of dying artists and from Café Müller's lethargic walking motion, we begin with the significant motive and put that into our escaping motion.
we set a skeleton of the piece first, applied elements from Café Müller and put our thoughts into the piece.
It's ironic but even though it's sad but it still contains the meaning we still try. I think it represents us how we have struggle but we don't give up.
It was fun to create a piece with my group member and learned a lot from Pina Bausch. I appreciate her a lot and Lasalle for giving the chance to work on this kind of project to explore thoughts and create.

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Minnie, very interesting choices! Instead of being modifications for your body, they almost seem to be choreographic choices and variations to a movement! Great work! Also, the first step you did actually looks like the walks in Chinese classical dance, do check it out!

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What are the artistic and choreographic elements  that you can draw inspirations from with different types of non dance related artworks? And why? 

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What are the artistic and choreographic elements  that you can draw inspirations from with different types of non dance related artworks? And why? 

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For example, If you look up a picture, there can be lines and shapes. One-dimensionally, You can simply take that to your dance and create lines related with the art you choose.
Also there will be colors, they can be bright, dark, or vibrant even more. Because colors have strong power that can impact to audiences and capture their eyes, we can think about why the artists chose the way they did and pull emotions out of it. It can be not only emotions, it can be dynamic, accents, speed, tempo, rhythm and more.
Art pieces also might have a theme. I think this is important for getting the idea of a concept and direction of what we are trying to expand from the chosen arts. If it's not for only representation, I think we don't have to follow the statements the artists pursue. If it's we get inspired and create something new but we still can see the relationship with the art piece it'll be interesting to see.

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Pilobolus- ok go

https://youtu.be/liTIaWUUpfQ
This one is such a creative piece!! Ms. Leia shared with me last class and I really wanted to show you guys this work.
About the choreographers, the Pilobolus was founded by a group of Dartmouth college students in 1971. There are 6 of them and they are famous for shadow dances. You can fine them in YouTube, still on going!
This piece of work plays with gravity and optical illusions. There are a lot of making shapes in diverse ways and that just wakes my mind and expands my range of thoughts of formation.

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How do you think the art of theater practice might help you be a more expressive dance performer? Do you find it challenging to emote the choreographer’s intention? Why?

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How do you think the art of theater practice might help you be a more expressive dance performer? Do you find it challenging to emote the choreographer’s intention? Why?

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I sometimes feel challenged to emote the choreographer's intention. If my tension is not enough for the piece, or I feel unsure about what's the mood of the piece, there's a way that I just fake or exaggerate it but that's definitely going to show to audiences and the choreographer.

To take the choreographies fully and dance it through my understanding, it's important to experience feelings and emotions and having discussions with other dancers and choreographer.

Pina Bausch was a choreographer who thought the relationship between each dancer and choreographer should be considered deeply and her company has the power to deliver their vision and move people's hearts. That shows how it brings impact when dancers have abilities to be expressive.

From theater practice, we can get a chance to be different personalities in our own understanding and that helps us to take risks for trying unusual things and be confident in expressing ourselves.

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https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vWJZG1DzvkmoIEiedCzK_Ai8tTX_xa3o/view?usp=sharing

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Reflection on Music and dance collaboration

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Reflection on Music and dance collaboration

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I appreciate having a chance to collaborate with classical piano musicians. It was first time to try making performance based on classical music for me. I learned knowing history of the music is important and strong strength to create further.

Our musician was cooperative and nice, Tessa, she explained the music well and gave us thoughtful response to our drafts and that helped us move forward and figure out what direction we are going to head. When we first met her and rehearsed, it was much more inspiring feeling music deeply. For me, the mood of the music is calming and some parts glowing tension but not too crazy. It left on my heart strongly and I really appreciate that I had this experience. The live music for the first time, the beginning part was felt shorter than the recorded version and we discussed about it and Tessa slowed down the parts for us. During the final showing, I could feel the musician's tension and it was really uplifting sensing each other at the moment.
With the dancers, we discussed a lot what direction we should head and tried to feel the music deeply. At the first point we only just listened to the music and tried to create a storyline but after the feedbacks, we focused on how we create a portrait and imagery. Planning formations was so fun, because we were trio, there were more options we could try also I and Jocelyn usually prefer to choreograph and Alden prefers to improvise and we needed to set a compromise plan. We set parts what parts we are going to improvise and choreography. By improvising, I could try to connect with the musician more and take risks.

About sharing it on zoom, as Ms. Maria said it would be much better if it went as live. We needed to limit the space because of the camera angle and facial expression and small details were hard to see from the zoom but it was not too bad, there were photographers and filmmaker, that made me feel the showing formal and it made it possible for joining people abroad.
It was really a thankful experience and I hope we have more collaboration. 🎊🎊

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improvisation

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Court Dance
-social entertaining
-dancers and audience is not divided
-fancy dresses
Romantic Ballet
-exaggeration
-broken wrists
-row burns
-bell shape tutu
-narrative
-first point shoes
-lighting(gas lights)
-miming
-fantasy, supernatural
Classical Ballet
-higher technique
-high burns
-flat shape tutu
Neo Classical Ballet _Diaghilev Era
-Nijinsky
was a remarkable male dancer and choreographer in the early 20th century in ballet.  He turned the table and brought about a big move to ballet area.
His Major works
[Afternoon of a Faun]
[The Rite of Spring]
Contemporary Ballet

Modern Dance
-break away from stereotype of dance in that time point
-no shoes
-floor work
-Toga style costumes
-break out of ballet lines
(mobilizing spine, free torso)
[America]
Loie Fuller
-skirt dance
Isadora Duncan
-mother of the modern dance. She taught herself and  broke the stereotype of dance in the period (ballet). She danced free like a butterfly with barefoot.
Ruth St. Denis &Ted Shawn
-orientalism
Martha Graham
-contraction and release
Merce Cunningham
-dancer as a body
-clean lines
-chance score
Doris Humphrey
-fall and recovery
Jose Limon
-fall and recovery
[Germany/Europe]
Rudolf Laban
-Labanotation
Mary Wigman
-witch dance
Kurt Jooss(learned from Laban)
-the green table
It has satire on the time period in a sarcastic way. It was so interesting I really liked.
Pina Bausch(learned from Jooss)

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The choreographer
[Pina Bausch]
The name of the Piece
[Café Müller ]
based on the chosen piece, our work named
[Catastrophe]

Presentation

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1C3N3mFBFp9ZiZQTRWIar23eRAzDJ0mVIM9a5OtPcW0Q/edit?usp=sharing

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It's basically we rely on randomness to choreograph something.
It was quite hard to figure out how specific sections we need to cover by randomness but it helped me to break out my certain habit when I dance.
We did rolling dices for formations, directions, movements, counts, accents and whether using music or not and the genre.

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This method was created by Lucas Viallefond. It’s based on the point of view of dance that is based on the science of quality and the science of space

This was based on
"Hello I'm Minnie"
8/5/12/12/15/9/13/13/9/14/14/9/5
It was so fun to explore this method of choreographing. It helped to relieve stress of thinking about theme and emotions but just playing with movements and was good experience to think about how the space around me can be specific. This is a good choreographic skill to wake our brains when we are stuck but it also challenges me to think new ways to reach points.

Ms. Leia's comment
Yeah, so good! I can see very clearly (and it's beautiful) how you used your legs/toes to point to the specific space. I wonder how it might turn out if you were to use other body parts you give less attention to, to find these specific space instead...

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we explored Martha Graham's technique and I tried to improvise with her method. This was so graceful for me to explore how my body can release and contract and how emotions can be expressed by this.

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3. Frappes on point
I watched a part of Giselle by The Royal Ballet and there is the part the girl crossed the stage with doing frappes on point shoes. I changed it to do with my feet on the ground and twisted my bottom part of my body to cross the stage

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2. Scissor jump
Since I can't do any jumps and my legs are not fast enough to make it happen in the air, I decided to do it on the floor!

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What do you identify with and cannot relate to in ballet that you watch and learn in class? How would you do the same step differently?

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What do you identify with and cannot relate to in ballet that you watch and learn in class? How would you do the same step differently?

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1. Bourrèes
This step is supposed to be on demi point in first ballet feet position but since I can't do because my point and turnout are not good enough to make my feet together and stable. I changed it to just my feet on the ground in parallel feet position and pretended nothing wrong with my bottom part 😀

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With the concept of trying out unconventional things to me, we brought butoh dance to ballet and in turn breaking rules of ballet. In ballet there are fixed rules we must follow and we tried to express student's emotions when they feel they are not fit to be where they are. We brought movements from butoh to our piece to show a more creepy styling to pair the concept. Also in general, ballet is always presenting to audiences so we decided to dance for individuals.
We started from 4 corners showing interpretations of daily routines before going to school, congregating at the barre to symbolize the meeting. Slowly the student's appear to lose themselves to their emotions. At the barre, while we did a plie sequence, we were doing it in a wrong way such as little toes off the floor or arching our backs. As the music grew louder, our emotions followed and became more explosive.

Ms. Leia's comment
Oh wow, people, so good! I felt I was really watching a  well thought out, well rehearsed dance work!
I particularly enjoyed watching each of your improvisation. You each have such different but captivating styles and voices=) Such good use of the space, music (how old are you guys that you know this song?!?!?! haha...) and barre as well. Very impression weight bearing barre work Stanley=)
I could see the Butoh elements of slowness, especially in Alden (you were quite consistent and persistent except for one or two moments of minor explosions) and of brokenness (Natasha) and chaos (Minnie not following the ballet rules in your tipping toes movements) in all of you.
You really created a piece that clearly portrayed your idea and I'm actually looking forward to a more complete version if you have time to work together again!

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Against music- hard to go off the beat
Try to think about the other music playing in my mind and against the emotion of the music like imagine I'm at different space like festivals observing other people as the music goes on it got more harder to against the music and anyway I try to go off the beat oddly go with the music so..
Without music- it was more easy I was just dancing however I wanted and played with an imaginary beat. Connection with other dancers.

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with Dibi, we improved based on repetition from our solo choreography  and expand it while we improved I realized that concept can be come out and sensing each other without watching is possible by wind blowing around, sounds and breathing etc.

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This improv was based on imaging drawing alphabets through each own body.
It was quite difficult to use certain body parts that are not usual for me .

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We tried to connect it to recent music style and create it enjoyable for everyone and had so much fun with it.

Ms. Leia's comment
Oh so fun!!! I really enjoyed this and I can still see the resemblance to court dances, e.g., the formation and the arms linking hops, etc. Thanks for having fun so I also feel invited to have fun!

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Brainstorming _ What are the elements of choreography?

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Brainstorming _ What are the elements of choreography?

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During this activity, we came up with a bunch of ideas of choreographic elements, from the first run of brainstorming to the third round, we challenged our range of thought to expand ideas. This helped me to think about a bigger picture of what are the elements of choreography. They can be specific or wider in view.

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With Ms. Susan, we did an improv warm-up as we closed our own eyes. Without seeing each other I felt more comfort and tried to sense other dancers around me by breathing, hearing, and the flow of the wind between each other. It was quite difficult to catch her directions and apply them right away but effectively, it helped me to explore the space and think in different ways than usual.

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With Stanley, we explored on Creativity (lines and shapes), spatial awareness and silence.

When we were focusing on Creativity, I tried to think in different ways of making lines and shapes. For example, not making lines with only arms and legs, I found out just a body can be a line as standing straight or laying down and for shapes, not only in middle level, tried to make shapes on the flour using entire body parts.

Spatial awareness was a interesting theme for me. We were moving around the space bigger in dynamic ways as running, crawling and more.
while we were focusing on this, I found out it's important to use our brains not only improvising bodies specially when we were getting away farther each other  to catch up with partner's movement. It made us to be in the moment too.  Also I tried to aware the people around the space. There was a moment  Xue Jing was next to me, I interacted with her without touching. (It will be fun if we do improvisation that interacting each other without touching to explore connection, spatial awareness and more!!)

About silence in movements, I realized silence comes with pausing and slowing down a lot. after the experience, I thought I could be more dynamic to make silence for example, using sudden timings. But I also found out silence draws attentions and emphasizes moments.

Because of my twisted ankle, I couldn't speed up or jump but I hope next time I can add more dynamic to the activity. It was effective way of improvisation because we were focusing on certain elements that led us to not just improvise but be more creative and think in different ways. I hope we do it again with elements that each one didn't explore yet!

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I found this piece on Naver Grafolio.
It's called 'Thinker' and created by artist 'Zinna'.
I can feel 'silence' here even this has lots of colors in it. The structures are upside down, colorful but in parallel lines and it's a contradiction but tells me the theme is a structured instability. It feels like someone drew lines on the color to just make it stay there. If you scrutinize, you'll see it's shaking inside.
This art work also makes me write a story on it. You can see some white area on the bottom and it seems like windows to me, the door to the other world. A person sitting on the building, with spatial awarenes around him seems like he's looking at the inside of the building not just thinking. If you count it as someone's mind, he can be considered as he's checking his deep inside and agonizing about million things. When he goes out through the window and meets people, he will act as normal, behind all the concerns.

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She is contemporary and old school at the same time. She graduated three prestigious European academies, the school for new dance Development in Amsterdam where she studied choreography, The London Contemporary Dance School where she received a diploma in contemporary dance and the Warsaw Ballet School where she took dance classes. She is currently associated with Centrum Ruchu and in Burdag Foundation in Poland.
The video we watched is 'Let's dance Chopin' with an orchestra. For me, it was unique and new. The dance is not too exaggerated but the music background is magnificent and it goes together well strangely. The movements with elbows creates angular shapes and it seems abstract and I feel some natural vibes even the dance is quite unusual. It seems it's breaking rules of general dance. She says 'the dance can be a great pleasure instead of being a long and bumpy road to perfection' and I'm glad that I hear it as a dancer. I think every dancer has pressure to be perfect and that's normal but we must remember dance is also a pleasure, as she says.