module code: PCD5101

Castle on the hill by ed sheeran - the reality of growing up and becoming an adult 

Pros : highly relatable as i'm going through this process right now of trying to become an adult and dealing with adult issues 

Cons : these song takes a while to get to the point of what im trying to say

Im going to struggle making up choreography in my preferred style with this song but then again this could push me to dance/ choreograph outside my comfort zone

• Finding hope by ava maria safai - being the oldest child in an orphanage who doesn't get adopted / being the older child whilst parents go through a divorce 

Pros: choreographically i can do so much with the song and i already have editing ideas

This idea is unique and i feel like i can do what i want with it as it hasnt been done 

Cons: the research will be harder as i've never experienced either of these but i have my older brother who i could interview about this

Creating a dance with such a deep topic may become mentally draining and difficult opening doors ill find hard to shut because i love to get very into my work. 

• I feel pretty/unpretty the glee cast version - being envious of other peoples looks but learning to love yourself

Pros: this topic once again is very relatable as  ive struggled with self love and accepting who i am for years and i struggling with fully loving myself now 

Cons:i find the song annoying and will struggle listening to it on repeat  even though choreographically i can do alot with it 

 Beginning of my Journal 1/10/23 

Today is my first day of thinking of a concept, luckily i've thought of three ideas already with a range of different stimulus, im looking forward to exploring these different ideas. Im naturally drawn stronger to this idea ( feel pretty/unpretty the glee cast version) - being envious of other peoples looks but learning to love yourself) only because I find it the most relatable. My goal for the next time I do a journal , I would have made a 15 second first draft of all three ideas. 

18/10/23

Yesterday we had our ainsley rickets class. This class was different to any other class we have had before with him, unfortunately due to personal reasons i had to sit out during this class but i was still active within the class doing the arm and upper body movements. This class opened my eyes to connecting movements and choreography to music and emotions. I cried in this class as i was watching my classmates connect in their own ways to the music was inspiring. I now feel confident in the song and idea i want to do. Im going with the  ( feel pretty/unpretty the glee cast version)  story as i can connect with the song the most and i feel like the choreography i produce will be moving and good quality. 

20/10/23 

Today we had a workshop with corbyn , it was absolutely amazing even though the lesson wasn’t necessarily for this I learnt how to hide moves that I either don’t know or don’t look the best by transitioning and using different formations, she did dancehall/ hiphop piece and I felt so comfortable in the style .

3/11/23

Today we had a Krump freestyle lesson with Claire and it really inspired me with the way that I choreograph. She taught me how to listen to the words and then correlate the way that I move with the way that the words In the song make me feel.

See 

21/11/23 

Today I had a 2 hour session working on my solo and as I was dancing and creating I realized that this song and this dance isn’t working 

I fell out of love with the song and decided that I need to pick a new one and start again 

22/11/23

Today I picked a new song I’m going with “pretty hurts” by Beyoncé because I feel the song choreography has more to work with and it’s more interesting 

23/11/23 

Today I started to create my new solo , I used old material from my old solo and tried to make it work with the new song. Being honest I feel very nervous about this as I know i haven’t got Long at all before this needs to be ready and shown to everyone 

27/11/23

Today i finished all my story mapping and choreography of the piece i created my motif and the climax of the piece

 30/11/23

TODAY WAS THE DAY OF filming the beginning of my solo , i had a friend help me with filming this. We both helped with the ideas of what I can do to help me film and convey the emotions I wanted to show. I ended up  filming myself going through a mixture of emotions starting with being envious of other people and insecure about how I look , I then filmed myself being angry and upset with wanting to change myself to then accepting I am who I am but unfortunately going back to how I felt at the start. 

6/12/23

Today i finished filming my solo this took alot longer than i expected , i took me a total of 2 and a half hours to film  and was a long process of stopping and starting and experimenting but im happy with my end results.i also today did all of my editing and im waiting til friday to hear from jasmine of what i can do to make it better.

While I was creating my solo I feel my ideas flowed perfectly and my piece was portrayed really well through my movement and storytelling. The music I used really helped with the way the story was conveyed. I also felt that my dancing flowed when I was choreographing, because my music choice and stimulus worked together effectively. A challenging part of this process was changing my song and choreography because my original song didn’t match the choreography I was looking for and the message I wanted to portray. Another obstacle I faced was editing, due to a lack of software and technical limitations I wasn't able to accurately bring my vision to life.

I used a motif to stretch my piece and to make it visually pleasing through its repetition and to develop the piece as I choreographed it. For example, at the start of my solo the motif was quick and fast as I wanted to show that I was repressing my feelings by doing sharp movements. 

I used this as a distraction from how I was actually feeling. Towards the end of my piece the motif grew and grew to show that I am embracing the way that I feel and my insecurities.This helped to develop my piece because it shows the progression of my story and the audience will recognise this. My research on mental health and body image really helped me with the progression of my solo. I was able to use my research to improve how I dance. I researched the effects of negative body image and how it can make someone feel so I knew how to accurately portray these emotions. I have suffered with my own body image and the way I see myself so I was able to draw on these emotions through looking back at old pictures from when I used to suffer with my appearance. My final piece worked perfectly as I was able to use my choreographic devices effectively to show my stimulus, for example my motif showed progression through my journey over the course of the piece. This made my final piece effective because I achieved my goal and showed my theme of body image and the rollercoaster it entails. My intention was further portrayed through my editing, as I used picture in picture to show how I feel as a contrast to how I actually act. This made my piece effective as I felt like it was clear to the audience what I was trying to get across, which was that I was thinking about something.To improve upon my piece I would have dedicated more time to rehearsals and routine development. I feel like towards the end of filming my solo I had to improvise, which was a hard process for me as I don't like freestyling. Even though I was comfortable with the stimulus and the song, I still felt like freestyling was hard and this is an area I wish to develop and improve upon for the future.  

GROUP REFLECTION 

The things that went well during this process was the way we all worked well together as a group, we were able to choreographically bounce ideas off of eachother and make our piece as strong as possible. Another thing I feel like went well was the overall process of creating an idea for our piece , we were able to sit down together and have a conversation and by doing that we created our idea for our piece, there was little to no debate or argument about it , it all just melted together perfectly. our  biggest restraint was definitely trying to find time to rehearse together. I feel like out of the whole couple of months if rehearsals we only had to rehearse with the entire group present, this made it hard to piece sections together as dancers were absent. 

When working in a group the main difference was having to rely on other people. We had different sections each that we were responsible for and when working on your own you can trust yourself to get it all done and choreographed but when working with other people relying on them to do their own sections is the main reason for things not getting done in the time frame you want it. We used the merce Cunningham chance method to help us decide what formations to use instead of us having to think of it ourselves. The rolling the dice method made the process more enjoyable and easier. We also had a Motif that we repeated throughout the dance , having this put in place helped us when it came to choreographing as if we ever got stuck we could just result back to the motif. As a group we watched the  Black mirror series and got inspired by how odd the series was and how it confuses and disturbs its audiences. We wanted our piece to have the same effect so we each watched a handful of episodes and tried to add things we saw on the show into our piece. For example there's an episode called “white bear” and within this episode the main character is always running so we added running into the beginning of the piece.

Overall i think our piece matched exactly to what we wanted to do, minus the fact that we had to change the idea of using props as we couldn't find the right material and size sheet to use for the beginning and we changed the idea of the costumes as we thought the idea of using colors to match the parenting style was juvenile and predictable. We had feedback from our peers who watched our rehearsals say that they thought our pieces were weird and eerie which is exactly what we wanted. 

If i was going to do this process again I would make a rehearsal plan with dates and objectives that fit everyone's personal schedules  so that the whole group would take the rehearsal process seriously if there was a schedule to follow. This way we would have everyone in the rehearsals and the process would be smoother.