Dc5014 Creative Protfolio by Sutton, Poppy G

k2418665 — 2025-12-23 13:01:29 UTC

As an overview of this project, we were exploring how stillness can be created as a choreographic tool, getting inspiration from Davinia-Ann Robison exhibition “Through an Embodied practice of stillness” displayed at Stanley Picker Gallery (2025). My group chose to focus on how Davinia’s exhibition reflects personal emotional turmoil, self-reflection, and disturbing stillness to show her dismantling racial trauma and overcome it. There was excitement coming into this project with getting to work in a site-specific space taking us away from the environment of a dance studio and alongside working with another artist exploring how we capture her artwork. Along the way my group had uncertainty with how we wanted to approach this project using the site Stanley Picker Gallery, what did we want to capture to display of Divina’s work to how we interpreted it. Over the project there was key moments that worked with how we wanted to capture Davinia’s work, using natural surroundings (e.g. rain, background noise, the river and our breathe) to enhance our motif of disrupting the stillness of sound, and using Divina’s exhibition exploring movement within the artwork highlighting shadows, minimal moves and capturing the essence of someone without physically being seen. But along the way there was difficulty with in what different site- specific places we could use and how it would relate back to our intent, so we based our main focus point in the exhibition space while intertwining different footage of darkness, a flowing river, and birds eye view footage. This gave my group the best outcome on highlighting Davinia intent by engaging “…through the body’s engagement with somatic practices and raw and reclaimed clay” (Stanley picker gallery, 2026). As an outcome to this project, it helped push me in my choreographic development with how I can challenge movement with stillness pushing me to introduce more intricate, small, and minimal dimensions towards choreography. I am hoping to take this development into my dance practice as this is beneficial in being a choreographer or dancer applying it to a stage presence alongside it.

k2418665 — 2025-12-23 13:21:43 UTC

As an overview of this project as a group collective we had to create a 4-minute dance on screen choreography for the output. My group choreography was based on looking back on our childhood memories in the scrapbook and zooming in on how we have grown in dance. During this project i was excited about learning the behind the scenes of how to work the camera and what editing can look like. This was a new opportunity for me and to expand my knowledge in the industry of what other work can look like and allowing my creative side to bloom in a different art from creating the scrapbook that is shown in the output. Along the way there was a lot of uncertainty with the time limit we had and what we could get down with in the hour of being in the recording studio. Building up tension within my group on how we wanted to approach our idea and realising did we have a bigger outcome then what we could produce? looking deeper into what worked well and what challenges there was, i would say coming together as a group to help each other out with the positioning of the camera lens was a highlight because we chose to stick with one lens being stationary and giving back critical feedback of how each of the solo choreographies look on screen. But a challenge before entering the stage of filming was how we wanted to produce the dance on screen. Did we want to use different filming techniques e.g. animation Honda “Paper” by PES (2016). This was leading to a bigger question if we were able to fit the different filming techniques in the time limit? The outcome to that was to produce our work effectively since this was our first project to keep it simple but creative with the editing. As an individual choreographer I learnt to push myself out the comfort zone and explore how movement can be captured on camera. This will be useful down the line in my dance journey if I pursue to make a project with dance on screen.

k2418665 — 2026-01-02 16:36:37 UTC

In this project our brief was to collaborate with my peers and lecturers to create material developing a three-minute choreography. For our participation we created 16 counts in the beginning of the choreography displaying movement with space. For this project there was uncertainty with some of the sections in the choreography and tension with people missing and being put into the choreography day before the performance. But there were also positive highlights with this project by having the chance to start creating a collaborative piece with my peers and lectures towards the Christmas performance displaying our choreographic work. As an overall view in this project, I felt restricted in the collaboration. This is because we only choreographed the first 16 counts of the dance with the rest, choreographed by our lecturers. But how we choreographed our first 16 counts was useful and successful as we were given a prompt to focus on how we travel across the stage. My group prompt was rotation, this helped develop our choreographic choices having to keep on track with rotation in movement travelling across the floor. When we created this choreography in the end section our lecture put in a locking piece but during the rehearsal I found it to be difficult with how it was taught (being to fast, no structure and no clarity) to us and this led to me feeling lost and out of control while my peers was understanding the locking choreography. Even after performing in the show as an individual, I look back on the piece showing how messy, confused, and uncomfortable it was not having full knowledge of the locking. As an outcome to this project, there has been highs and lows but for my professional development it has taught me how collaboration works in a big setting of dancers/choreographers, highlighting how methods to teaching dance do not work for every dancer and could be adapted. But as an individual choreographer I would like to take away the use of giving prompts this was the most useful part in the collaboration project and would be beneficial to choreographing in future sessions for dancers.

k2418665 — 2026-01-07 13:01:52 UTC

Gibbs, G. (1988) learning by doing: A guide to teaching and learning methods. Oxford: Oxford Polytechnic..

Hunter, V. (2015). Moving sites : investigating site-specific dance performance. London [Etc.] Routledge.

Lavender, L. (1996). Dancers Talking Dance. Lavender Larry.

Lebaron, M., Macleod, C. and Andrew Floyer Acland (2013). The choreography of resolution : conflict, movement, and neuroscience. Chicago, Illinois: American Bar Association, Section Of Dispute Resolution.

McPherson, K. (2019). Making Video Dance : a Step-by-Step Guide to Creating Dance for the Screen. London: Routledge.

Melissa Blanco Borelli (2017). The Oxford handbook of dance and the popular screen. London ; New York: Oxford University Press.

Stanleypickergallery.org. (2025). Davinia-Ann Robinson , Through an Embodied Practice of Stillness | Stanley Picker Gallery. [online] Available at: https://www.stanleypickergallery.org/programme/through-an-embodied-practice-of-stillness/.

Tharp, T. (2013). Collaborative habit : life lessons for working together. Simon & Schuster.

Youtu.be. (2026). Honda ‘paper’ by PES. [online] Available at: https://youtu.be/vpyeQeTDGFA?si=SP0KgS2WSlkR2pgl [Accessed 8 Jan. 2026].

k2418665 — 2026-01-13 14:36:06 UTC

I have read and accepted all points in the Academic Integrity/ Similarity Declaration 2025/2026