I felt that my biggest strength in this workshop came with listening and staying in tune to my peers. I tried not to let myself get lost in what I was doing, but instead stay present and aware of both myself and the rest of the company. For example, I used my peripheral vision and the mirror to watch the entire group as we moved across the space. 

I personally need to work on being able to physically connect with other bodies and feeling comfortable in doing so. For example, for part of the workshop we worked in groups to move one person’s body using our own. I found it challenging to know how to move them in creative ways and found myself feeling somewhat lost. In order to overcome this, I began thinking of how I move my own body and ways I could replicate that on someone else. This helped to get me out of thinking just about the other persons body and what they can do, and instead use my own knowledge of how I move to then move them. 

I will apply a lot of what I worked on in this workshop to future work with my company. Firstly, I now have a deeper understanding of how each member moves and their personal style which is useful when creating choreography because we can draw from each persons strengths to create a diverse range of movements. Secondly, I learned how to perform collaboratively and what it takes to stay present and in tune with the rest of the company which I will use in every rehearsal and performance to help create the feel of a collaborative company piece. 

One strength I identified in this workshop, was my ability to actively engage in a style of movement that I had no experience and initially no confidence in. At first, I found myself holding back but eventually, because of the trust I began to develop with my peers, I was able to relax into it and therefore feel more confident. For example, I had to put all of my trust into JP, despite feeling nervous and reluctant to, so that he could safely lift me. By finding this trust with JP, I could begin to apply it to the other company members 

An area I want to develop from this workshop is my own self-confidence when lifting and physically connecting with people. Although I tried to throw myself into it and put my trust in others, I found I had a level of reluctance when it came to trusting myself to not drop them. I learnt throughout the workshop that the act of lifting another person is a team effort and requires a sense of balance, core strength and confidence.

In relation to us as a company, I found this workshop allowed us to all see what technique each person has and how we can utilise each persons individual strengths in our company. 

My strengths in this workshop were being able to stay in my own body and focus in on which parts of my body I needed to pay attention to or be careful with. I found doing this during the meditation was helpful for me because of how my body felt during that day; tired, heavy, and stiff. By taking a moment to feel these things and acknowledge them, I could move passed them and found myself feeling much more awake and ready for the session. 

An area I would like to develop is my understanding of what constitutes a correct warm-up and stretch. I learnt during this workshop that I had been overstretching myself, which has lead to more stiffness and injury, and not correctly warming up my body so that I am prepared for moving. 

· We began thinking about what we wanted our company piece to be and the direction in which we wanted to take it, which then carried us into some exercises such as tai-chi inspired movement and brainstorming of choreography.

Personal Outcome 

From this lesson I was able to first feel connected and ready in the space through the opening exercise. It helped me to feel present with everyone and remove any outside thoughts that may have been distracting me.

The choreography itself was somewhat a new style for me because it took inspiration from tai-chi and martial arts, but I found it to be very grounding and a good springboard for other styles to blend into. 

In these initial stages of creating our piece, we have worked collaboratively as a company alongside JP to brainstorm choreography that has elements of each person’s dance style. JP has been able to take ideas that seem contrasting and turn them into a cohesive movement section that encompasses the variety we have in our company. Much of our work so far has come from the motif of creating a storm like atmosphere, which has given us a lot of room to play with the various levels that a storm can reach.

Each company members role in the creative process has been similar so far because we are working as a collective and bouncing off each others ideas. However, we individually bring a different way of dancing into the space and are continuing to learn new ways of moving from each other. I am someone who often struggles to be choreographically creative and have input in company projects but have felt comfortable and able to share because of our company ethos and how we are choosing to work together.

Prior to these workshops, I didn’t completely understand just how important inclusion and open mindedness is in a company. It is crucial that we all take in and try everyone’s ideas, even if they don’t end up working, because that is how you make sure everyone feels heard and part of the team, which in turn creates the best work. I now understand that without each person’s contribution and effort, the creative process becomes difficult. Being in a collaborative company is all about balance, between understanding each other as people and working as professionals. 

Although it went well and I felt I was picking it up quickly, I did feel slightly out of practice because of the long break. By the end of the class once everything had been pieced together, I was beginning to feel more confident, and I started really seeing the idea being portrayed through our movement. It was tough getting myself back into it and feeling the same level of confidence I did before the break, but by the end of the lesson and the reassurance from JP, I felt myself moving more confidently. There has been challenges in choreographing our piece because not everyone is there all the time to be placed and taught, but we have all handled it well and stayed positive together. 

 

It was useful for all of us to be able to perform with an audience, but also to see the other pieces because we could clearly see how hard everyone is working and how diverse each person is as a dancer. We were able to hear feedback from our peers as well as the lecturers and perform it again, taking in what they had said and applying it. The feedback we got was that we needed to have a clear image of where we were going and keep our focus and eye line to that place. We also needed to make every movement bigger and ensure we finished each movement to the very end. I personally noticed a big change in how I performed after this feedback because I felt grounded in the movement and focused on the performance as a whole.

Personally, this week felt like the week where I finally felt connected to the movement and my understanding of the concept grew as a result. This meant I was able to push emotion through and dance the overarching message rather than just the movement. We all contributed this week by working together and ensuring we were all in tune to each other because the movement involved being in a tight clump, and running together, which requires concentration and awareness from everyone. 

In watching everyone during this class, I was able to see a different side of the work and view it from an “audience” point of view. I think in a way this has helped me because when I am able to dance again, I will know what level everyone else is at that I need to match and what I wanted to see when watching it. For example, I know where my focus needs to be at various points, and how tight a formation we all need to be to get through the desired effect. Small details such as these aren’t things I was thinking too much about prior, but now know are what makes the biggest difference. 

 

I was able to learn some arm choreography that was seated, which was being taught by Khyrese and Lauren, to hopefully have included at some point in the piece. It was a fast paced, technical section that is very out of my comfort zone. During this process of being in a company and creating a dance work, I have experienced a lot of various dance styles that I hadn’t had much experience in and this has really helped to grow my confidence and diversity as a performer, this section was another of those styles.

Having to navigate these classes with an injury has proved difficult because I don’t want to let down my company members or make it harder for them, but also have to make sure I don’t push myself to the point of making it worse and not being able to dance for even longer. However, I have been problem solving to try and make the best use of the time in class and do as much as I can and be as helpful as I can. 

 

We were able to use the studio theatre space this week which meant we could clean in the space and see how it would look and feel with the stage lights and exact space we would be performing in. 

 

Comparing the videos from this week to previous weeks, particularly towards the beginning of the term, I can see a change in myself in the confidence I have in the movement and with everyone else in my company. It is clear that I have improved my own skill set and how I dance alongside the other dancers.

 

This was the first time we ran the entire piece top to bottom, including the new sections and changes made. It was exciting to be able to do the full 15 minutes and we all felt the same excitement and satisfaction from being able to really perform it all together.

 

In watching the video back, I made notes for myself on movement, facial expressions, energy, etc that I can use next week during final rehearsals to ensure I am performing at my best.