21st Century Choreography by Georgia Green ec1854619

i only love some.

ec1854619 — 2024-03-23 14:06:16 UTC

My piece 'i only love some.' is an episodic piece of work that changes focus drastically throughout in order to give the audience a full rounded understanding of animal rights and vegan activism. The piece has been created using a 50/50 mix of didactic teaching and democratic collaborative choreographic techniques that I have been learning about over the course of our module.

Opening / section 1

ec1854619 — 2024-03-23 14:30:57 UTC

I wanted my piece to open with the voice of the animals front and centre. My vision was something angry and aggressive yet surrounded by an aura of exhaustion. I decided to go about creating this atmosphere by developing a rough outline of choreography that gives the dancers the freedom to adapt everything to their own style. (Process 2 of Jo Butterworth's Didactic / Democratic spectrum model) I learnt while doing work placement with YDance that dancers will perform movement with more conviction if it's something they've created or is catered specifically to their movement style. This inspired me to give my dancers as much freedom with the movement I gave them as they wanted, only giving them the instruction of a certain emotional quality; anger. As we developed this section we never changed much of the movement itself, but instead developed our emotional connection to the piece and the textures and movement quality needed to accurately convey the message.

Not Human at All / section 2

ec1854619 — 2024-03-23 14:46:44 UTC

I started off this section by creating a skeleton of formations to the song I had selected however the movement itself was created democratically with the dancers. I decided to adopt Emanuel Gat's philosophy when it comes to allowing the piece to come together naturally and not entering the rehearsal room with any expectations. This section represented our human relationships with different species of animal and the question of who's allowed the right to live and who isn't; addressing the larger issue of speciesism. The three duets along with most of the content was created using Wayne McGregor's 'What if?' method, fairly quickly becoming set movement. I enjoyed using 'what if?' to develop duets but also had fun saying "what if" to the full fast. Examples being "what if we ran forward and reached towards the audience?" and "what if we all slowly looked at our hands?".

Miniscule - section 3

ec1854619 — 2024-03-23 15:42:51 UTC

This section I started first as I knew I wanted it to be sharp and precise; the most didactically taught out of all my sections and played to my strengths of creating unique gestural and rhythmical movement. I selected two dancers who I knew where suited to my movement style and had good chemistry with each other. This section took a deep dive into what it's like to be an animal rights activist in the 21st century; fighting and arguing for a better world only to be met with ridicule and apathy. The feeling of being 'miniscule' now being placed onto the activists and not only the animals themselves. The two dancers aggressively dance circles around each other, created in a way that looks as if they are trying awkwardly to dance with one another but either failing or avoiding it all together.

The Reality of the Animal / section 4

ec1854619 — 2024-03-23 16:02:55 UTC

This section was the most democratic in terms of the creative process, using Emanuel Gat's task based methodology and Merce Cunningham's chance technique. The purpose the section being to show the bleak and awful reality for animals who are subjected to the agriculture industry. I gave my dancers two images as well as lines from a speech performed by animal activist Gary Yourofsky to create movement with. This movement was then developed into duets and trios, later creating a random order for these sections without hearing the music. I instructed the dancers to play around with their speeds during different movements as they wish before playing the song and watching what happens. Many moments were created using this method such as the whole thing ending slightly early, leaving one dancer on stage for a prolonged time.

The Fish / section 5

ec1854619 — 2024-03-23 16:18:02 UTC

For this section I explored absurdism to create the feeling of childlike innocence and optimism, giving my dancers situational concepts to act out and play with. Allowing my dancers to do whatever they wished with my instructions meant they could be as silly as they wanted and ignore any boundaries that may be present when creating dance specific movement. Creating in this way was extremely effective in cultivating a childish, innocent atmosphere that surrounded the story of a young person forming a deep emotional attachment to a fish. My goal as the choreographer is that the final section would reignite the audience's childlike love and admiration for animals, asking them if empathy towards even the most "insignificant" is possible.

Version 1

ec1854619 — 2024-03-24 14:29:50 UTC

The first full run through we were missing two people and the full thing very much appeared like an underdeveloped skeleton for something much larger. I left thinking about how I could draw out it's potential.

Unison Sequence

ec1854619 — 2024-03-24 14:33:32 UTC

I created a hip hop adjacent sequence for the last section of the opening, feeling that a moment of all the dancers moving aggressively in usison would add to the overall message.

Version 2

ec1854619 — 2024-03-30 12:09:11 UTC

We started to work on our personal intention when performing this piece, delving into a more democratic process for rehearsals that included an element of chance, asking the dancers to experiment with textures.

Version 1

ec1854619 — 2024-03-30 12:19:28 UTC

The first draft of this section having placed the duets created using 'what if?', and the solos about animals and pets the dancers cared about into a rough skeleton idea. The first basic idea created through playing and experimenting, with lots of areas for development.

Version 2

ec1854619 — 2024-03-30 12:22:00 UTC

This rehearsal we focused on developing the duets. I added some extra content to fill out the time and tried to highlight my favourite moments from what my dancers created. I also aimed to get the dancers more comfortable with the movement.

Version 3

ec1854619 — 2024-03-30 12:28:31 UTC

There where not many changes in this rehearsal as we focused on introducing a new dancer into the section. I was happy with the content, but saw that there were moments that needed more focus on details and dedication to the long held moments to avoid gaps.

Rehearsal 1

ec1854619 — 2024-03-30 12:37:24 UTC

Rehearsal 1

ec1854619 — 2024-03-30 12:38:51 UTC

Rehearsal 2

ec1854619 — 2024-03-30 12:41:10 UTC

Cleaning and practicing what we had done previously.

Rehearsal 3

ec1854619 — 2024-03-30 12:42:35 UTC

First practice of the second half.

Rehearsal 4

ec1854619 — 2024-03-30 12:43:59 UTC

Cleaning and working on energy and technique.

Full Section

ec1854619 — 2024-03-30 12:47:30 UTC

Completed in one rehearsal. Wanted to try the idea of giving the dancer creative freedom with the sections, giving them permission to be as absurd as they wish.

Solo created form a section of the speech

ec1854619 — 2024-03-30 12:48:55 UTC

developed into duets

ec1854619 — 2024-03-30 13:17:05 UTC

Gestures based on image

ec1854619 — 2024-03-30 13:19:36 UTC

ec1854619 — 2024-03-30 13:24:19 UTC

Image of pig in a gas chamber (most common form of pig slaughter in the uk). Asked the dancers to create movement based on emotion from the image drawn from the image.

Solos based on image

ec1854619 — 2024-03-30 13:25:04 UTC

ec1854619 — 2024-03-30 13:29:46 UTC

Image of chickens in lage farm. I asked the dancers to think about colour, claustrophobia and neglect when creating gestures.

Full speech from Gary Yourofsky

ec1854619 — 2024-03-30 13:33:14 UTC

Developed into trio

ec1854619 — 2024-03-30 13:35:28 UTC

Both tasks developed into longer solo

ec1854619 — 2024-03-30 13:38:06 UTC

Full first draft

ec1854619 — 2024-03-30 13:42:03 UTC

Putting all the content together.

Final Piece

ec1854619 — 2024-03-30 13:49:25 UTC

We developed a lot of our transitions, textures and storyline for the final piece. There are many differences between this version and the final videos for each section. The dancers seem more dedicated to the movement and the message reads much better.

Music

ec1854619 — 2024-03-30 13:51:36 UTC

Each song was picked to accurately represent each section. I specifically picked songs that where very different from each other, purposely avoiding coherency. The emotional reaction that I wanted to arise from the audience helped me pick the song; whether it was to grab attention, convey anger, peace, or soul crushing hopelessness. The music and the movement is supposed to take the audience through a journey of smaller stories instead of a long singular event.

Research

ec1854619 — 2024-03-30 14:27:59 UTC

I've done a lot of learning and looking into the popular practices within the animal agriculture industry. The ones I've focused on within my piece and tried to convey through movement is the violent separation from mother dairy cows and their calves in the dairy industry, the treatment of male chicks in the egg industry and the cramped conditions they are kept in alongside the popular practice of gas chambers to slaughter pigs which causes them to rip their own legs off and suffocate to death.

I also did a lot of investigating into to the human attachment to our pets and how that compares to how we see other species of animal. This learning was done through conversations with my peers.

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ec1854619 — 2024-03-30 14:34:00 UTC