Alden’s Padlet by Alden Wong

draft 1

aldenwong — 2020-12-11 05:08:29 UTC

we were tasked to choreograph a 1 minute solo based on art installations we found inspirations from and elements that can be used in dance. I based this choreography on an art installation called “Sticks” by Sebastian Chun and played with the idea of being trapped or in a constant state of discomfort and being in a trance. Most of the moves in the intro starts slow and then progresses into travelling in the same pace as well and finally getting up. The motion i chose was a slow almost prance-like movement like I was being controlled.

I chose to choreograph with a slow tempo song “Caged Bird” by Myles Cameron and the storyline actually came from the tile of the song. I felt like i could enhance the feeling lethargy and unwillingness with the half count of the bass, being a more “laid back” beat and each accent for the instrumental part is rhythmically slow too, to portray the sequence very mundane.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1--nsmlXsikq3f4PoKaUHt9rcyal8SV6Z

installation

aldenwong — 2020-12-11 05:09:42 UTC

“Sticks”, an installation by artist and designer Sebastian Chun, is made up of roughly 500 poles of bacau wood or mangrove wood, hammered into a tepee-like shape.

I chose this art work because I feel like even without knowing the original intention I can already begin to come up and develop new stories by looking at it.

I chose elements of story and angles, because the barbed design reminds me of briars and thorns, for dance it makes me think of directions with different angles and on different planes rather than front all the time

draft 2

aldenwong — 2020-12-11 05:17:43 UTC

The second round of choreography we were then supposed to add 1 minute to the solo, making it 2 minutes this time. I decided to change the song to “Stuck With U” and to introduce a lighter quality, if the controlled feeling was actually pleasant and you felt a sense of comfort by the borders instead of the apprehension of the first version.

draft 3 (final)

aldenwong — 2020-12-11 05:18:17 UTC

the final round of the session we were to add another 1 minutes to complete the solo. This time it was to silence and we were told we could make whatever we wanted to, to change it as drastically as we desired it. “Anything goes” essentially. For my last version of the choreography, I decided to add a narrative to follow throughout the dance itself. With silence there isn’t any boundaries that I felt contained by, I could play with any rhythms I wanted to, rather than following a music structure.

my thought process was “every art piece/artist has a temporary lifespan and often short.” The installation from when it was first put up was put up knowing that at some point its exhibition would come to a close and its lifespan ended. But what determines an installation from being art or not, just its exhibition period? How about when it’s in the midst of being installed, is it only considered art when its completed? In this version of a solo, I tried to personify the timeline of the material that was used to build “Sticks”.

it was created from wood and it’s main characteristic is being stiff and unwavering. So I decided to change the stiff and sharp movements from the first version to more connected and flowing movements, as though it were strings instead and the installation was expressed as though a spiderweb of sorts. To me dancing from the moment it’s constructed to the moment it’s torn down and removed.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1--nsmlXsikq3f4PoKaUHt9rcyal8SV6Z

reflections

aldenwong — 2020-12-11 05:33:03 UTC

this project has lead me to be more comfortable with choreography, as I tend to second guess myself on what’s the best movement for this sequence or what will be more appealing to carry my story, but I realised if I just believe in what I am saying then the intention can be carried through. i also learnt that the freedom of dancing in silent conviction is a comforting sensation for me, as the feeling of anything works if you will it to be comes from the lack of a music boning to guide your dance. It provides a good foundation for exploration in my opinion.

how do you define dance?

aldenwong — 2020-12-11 05:38:53 UTC

Dance is an outlet of expression to connect to one another be it physically or not.

what is the relevance of dance history to your dance?

aldenwong — 2020-12-11 05:42:21 UTC

It's relevant to me as I think it's important to be inform of the genealogy of our art form and how it came to be, to what it is now, in the space that we are it, what existed that allowed the current dance scene to exist. And how did "dance" as an institution interacted with the world in different time periods.

what is a dance performance that inspires you?

aldenwong — 2020-12-11 05:49:23 UTC

I started dance with Kpop music video covers so thats why I decided to pick from a K-pop artist that is known to be her group's main dancer (the member with specialization in dance).

more often than not, its mainly Hip Hop inspired for their song's choreographies and their training system with hip hop dance basic focus such as popping. So it was very surprising to see a more contemporary form chosen for their song to be performed.

this song's choreography makes me feel an emotion, that i can't really explain, it's the form of calm and happiness that makes you nervous and you don't know if you want to laugh or to cry at how much joy you feel. In my opinion it's not easy to keep the intention of a piece throughout and not get lost in the procces, to me it's harder to relate to a piece that is lighter which I find a bittersweet feeling to that. I find it easier to make a anguished expression than it is to make a joyful one, but neither are easier to make believable to an audience. This dance performance gives me a feeling of other-worldliness that gives you catharsis that you aren't able to find in reality.

“magic” can be a word I would use to describe the main performance from 0:00 - 3:40. From costuming to the design of the formations, are all small building blocks to enhance the choreography. I'm quite fond when the dancers aren't all doing the same combo or similar steps throughout, and the formation at the beginning already looked like you're about to walk through a threshold, and throughout the song there are many whimsical elements added in be in their hand shapes creating imageries of trees or embodying nature spirits and interacting with each other and the soloist, it feels like you're stepping into a new world. It’s almost empowering as it makes me feel like I am capable of doing something great as well and I am on a journey for my peace.

I'm more of a simple person so it doesn't take amazing technique or stunts to impress me, I'm usually impressed when the performance in regard is able to make me feel certain emotions. So I picked this because it just made me feel so happy inside and out

first response

aldenwong — 2020-12-11 06:04:14 UTC

i was placed in a group with minnie and jocelyn. we were asked to do a 1-minute response to the song we chose for the collaboration, but in the midst of the adrenaline perhaps, we got lost in the energy of each other and improvised for the whole song.

as a first response we thought of a scene of nature and could picture the forest and its woods, so we decided to emulate that as “child of the forest” inspired characters who just interacted with each other.

one first few listens we immediately realised that the rhythm of this song does not stay on the same time signature throughout and that there were many moments in this song and some repeat twice but longer, or it repeats only the first portion but transitions into a variation of the same segment, or with a different chord progression happening at the same time.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1EmeQkh4f3OM57W1WEjIztpdA7KLflCmd

song

aldenwong — 2020-12-11 06:11:56 UTC

the song I was more drawn towards was the song played by Tessa Chua - Debussy Estampe, "Pagodes"

second response

aldenwong — 2020-12-12 13:10:04 UTC

the task for the music collaboration was to be a structured improvisation, and because we had instinctively completed a full run of improvisation we decided to provide that with a structure. so as to not completely throw that improvisation away

we decided to meet up with tessa for a breakdown of the music structure as being dance students we struggled with the sheet music as to where we’d section of parts for improvisation and parts for choreography.

we were told Debussy Estampe, “Pagodes” was based on the Indonesian gamelan orchestras and with traditional Indonesian melodies. we felt the very oriental inspiration for “Pagodes” actually fit our concept quite well and we decided to expand further on that.

at this point we were still stuck on finding a cohesive concept that progressed with the music and it we we’re contemplating a concept about embodying flowers in a dying garden as if we were akin to a human village. with myself and minnie portraying flowers that are the older, last two surviving plants in the garden and jocelyn would be a flower bud that is first to emerge in a long time and is trying to join us in the traditions that used to be carried out when the garden used to flourish.

third response

aldenwong — 2020-12-12 13:49:56 UTC

during this period, things we’re going fine, not amazingly but fine. we felt like we were cruising as we were the first team to complete our song, so we felt a pressure to enhance and keep improving upon our piece.

we came to a consensus to do more research on Debussy music and how to make it fit with the music and more. at the end of this research process we realised two things, that we wanted to include more “pictures” in our piece. instead of using movement to guide the story we decided to include some moving tableaux to move our “narrative”. we also chose to make our narrative more vague, being more focused on creating a convey different emotions to our audience.

Debussy’s music focuses on Impressionism and its more about how the art makes one emote than a concrete narrative and we wanted to embody that more.

the final showing

aldenwong — 2020-12-12 14:10:06 UTC

at our final draft for the piece we felt much more confident in what we had created and in each other to portray what we wanted.

in the end to come to the piece that we showed below we decided to convey our piece as if we were a picture book coming to life and each section that we dance is from a different page of the book and it would not be directly connected to the previous section.

on a choreography sense we chose to mix improvisation and choreography in different section and we choreographed the overall pathways of each dancer but we didn’t set how we’d move so as to keep the structured improvisation aspect clear. in the beginning we held still in silence for a while and then began dancing, to show the imagery of us emerging from a picture of a storybook.

we used improvisation with me and jocelyn’s duo and choreographed sequence for minnie and jocelyn’s duo portion as we wanted to convey a sense of natural bonding of me and jocelyn’s character and for minnie and jocelyn’s duo was choreographed to show the two coming together to “work things through”. When the three of us started to come together we used a similar sequence to show it more clearly just in the second time we did it, it was more expanded upon and it shows how the relationship has grown after time passed. and at the end we are although separated and not physically in contact we are near each other and keeping each other safe as we returned to the still image of the book.

showing the three flowers relations to each other in time and how they interact with one another in their individual journeys of friendship

the first time we see a new flower
the first storm and
separation of choice
finding each other one by one
finding solace and comfort
even in the a future storm
just being together
and it stays even when it doesn’t, The Garden Grows

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-3R1EegJf91_fcPA8Jmuc7QrMbOhGtgB

what are the elements we can derive from non-dance art pieces

aldenwong — 2020-12-12 14:12:51 UTC

some choreographic elements that come to mind are ones that I chose myself for "my" art piece, and ones that I've seen my friends chose to develop for their 2 minute solos.

one // story, with story I feel like is the "easiest" base to start, as human nature is to find patterns and meanings to art or even just life. Also, story would be the clearest way to get an audience to relate to the piece itself rather than something "too abstract" (subjective to viewer of course).

two // contrast, with contrast I feel that it’s referring to the art in relation to the space it occupies, whether it stands out or blends more into its background. This can also be a way to make certain moments more memorable with contrast, eg sharper movements after a period of flowing smooth steps.

some ways non-dance related art and dance can come together with shared elements when creating can be by using motifs, recurring images, shapes, steps or even melodies, to carry a sense of familiarity and viewers may feel more invested to the piece if they can find ways to enjoy analysing or even learn from the piece. Another way would be uses of dissonance or syncopation to either break the flow of movement or ride an alternative rhythm that the one prior. This would invite the audience to refocus on the piece itself and find new "patterns" from the dissonance.

context

aldenwong — 2020-12-12 14:26:14 UTC

for this project the team consisted of myself, natasha, minnie and stanley

we were to choreograph a 3-5 minute piece based on the element we could learn from, that are present in Pina Bausch’s Cafe Muller.

these elements are, repetition, theatricality, gestural movements, from personal stories to the choreography, sounds from our bodies and falling

catastrophe

aldenwong — 2020-12-12 14:47:42 UTC

we decided to choreograph based on a heavy narrative this time as one of our elements was theatricality

Pina’s choreography tended to blur the divide of theatre and dance, blending acting and movement, so we included a lot less choreographed sequences and never in the piece do we dance all together and synchronised.

we named it catastrophe after a “denouement of drama, a classic tragedy” a definition by Oxford dictionary, to describe the cycle of life and death of an “artist” back then.

catastrophe - overview

aldenwong — 2020-12-12 15:15:39 UTC

our piece is based on our interpretation of the everlasting cycle of the “starving artists” blending the mind frame of artists back in the time of Pina’s prime and the mind frame of current artists. our narrative is strung by the fact that in the end not every artist has the space to flourish they way they want it to and even if they do manage they all go through that moment that they meet their final performance, be it in a long lived fulfilling career in glamour our an indie artist quitting as a sacrifice to survive in an industrialisation focused Germany after World War II ended.

our process is rooted in that postmodern nihilism. that what has value in actuality does not. what we find precious can mean nothing. but as artists we strive to see the world in a different way. to find opportunities on the stage as dancers, those few hours, minutes and seconds are when we actually feel alive and that we aren’t doing so bad. that it isn’t so bad in this world.

our piece opens with the four of us starting in four corners of a box trying to walk forwards but are being pulled to the center, and they each fall one by one leaving one standing, which can serve as a summary of the piece in itself. the lone dancer crosses the stage as the other three seem to be stuck in a pain stricken trance, representing the stress and emotional baggage of an artist trying to survive back then. the lone dancer contemplates helping but realises that there is nothing he can do to fix anything.

the three on the floor start to follow the standing dancer, copying his movements and mannerisms and one by one they start falling again and you start to lose the flow of who is following who.

as they come to a stop over the body of natasha, who is still in the trance as, minnie, stanley and I try to bring her back. when natasha recovers, she starts dancing wildly, almost in a whimsically comical but wholeheartedly sincere way as she feel alive, with us three focused and eyes following natasha. natasha soon realises us and in this moment faces the artists who were past their time and that her career will end someday too.

she joins us for some mindless chatter almost emotionlessly, as we exchange “words”, to when we all join in a short burst of unison, exploding showing the underlying discomfort, dissatisfaction and the fatigue of trying that had been beneath the surface the whole time. as we regain composure we start to leave the space, ending our time as temporary companions to help each other. as we go our separate ways minnie falls showing the cycle continuing.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1doQKeWWQ2fMC3MLAPcxXEqS-yXK00fNE

what is dance?

aldenwong — 2021-01-19 06:07:59 UTC

movements with the intention to convey expressions

how do you want your dance education to be

aldenwong — 2021-01-26 04:58:18 UTC

I feel like i’m more of a linguistic learner as i often find myself focusing on the words itself and the weight it carries so i usually find more focus and accuracy when the moves are explained as they are shown so that i can embody the feeling of the moves and how that feeling resides in my body.

my question for the dance community

aldenwong — 2021-01-26 14:21:04 UTC

How do gendered ballet forms affect the self esteem of ballet dancers that don’t fall neatly into a specific gender binary?

part1abstraction&motifs;fromup

aldenwong — 2021-01-27 05:07:37 UTC

for the following week we were then tasked to create our own motif. something that we feel represents us, for me i decided to represent myself with the moon being far from the earth to represent my crippling lonesome. where it’s close but so far away and no one can ever see all sides of me. and i used motion to depict myself looking far at things close to me

part2paintingselection

aldenwong — 2021-02-03 06:31:27 UTC

for the second part of the project where we learnt about Wasslly Kadinsky and his works where he would partake in abstraction and recreate existing life and art into new art with his motifs. Kadinsky was also a person that was diagnosed with synesthesia, a form of joined perception, and in his case he could hear the paintings he made and could see colors when he heard music.

I decided to choose this painting as the colors and lines seemed to be leading me in this diagonal and there were motifs visible in the shapes and the overlapping of them seemed to be be a recurring motif as well and it added a lot of depth

“Diagonal” by Wasslly Kadinsky

part1genre.presentation

aldenwong — 2021-04-16 08:08:12 UTC

for this project the team consisted of myself, syae and evelyn

there were four teams and we each chose a genre, it ended up being jazz, disco, ambience and bollywood. our team had chosen disco music.

from our research, disco is categorised as dance music popularised in the 1970s of the United States urban nightlife scene, with artists such as Donna Summer and the Bee Gees gaining popularity within said genre. the most notable piece of pop culture that pushed disco into the mainstream, would indisputably be the movie sensation “Saturday Night Fever” which propelled John Travolta’s career.

music experts consider that a pioneer of disco music was Tom Moulton, he loved dancing in clubs in New York city where people would be dancing improvisation-ally to hit songs back then. he decided to create songs that can be played in clubs as he was unhappy with the club tracks that were only three to four minutes. through the process of blending tracks and to create extended versions of songs he thereby invented the concept of a “remix” that as a music form exist till today.

the dance form of disco is not technical, coming from trendy dances from the Afro American, Latin and Caribbean dances, to include dances such as the Hustle, the Cha-Cha and “Touch Dancing”

part2genre.swap

aldenwong — 2021-04-23 11:40:05 UTC

for the second part of this project we were tasked to choose a different genre from our own group to come up with a structured improvisation/choreography.

our team chose ambience music as it felt to be the furthest removed from disco. but it was interesting that within the ambience music team’s presentation we found out that house was also technically classified under ambience and house music was also popular in nightclubs adjacent to disco music. but house music isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when thinking of ambience.

this made us think about which type of ambience music to choose going for the final outcome. we chose a song called “1/1 - Remastered 2004” by Brian Eno from the “Ambient 1/Music for Airports” album. we used the first 3 minutes of this song.

part1.5

aldenwong — 2021-04-23 12:59:34 UTC

afterwards we were tasked to learn about dynamic graphs and how they worked, it was interesting to see how this can be used in choreography.

with the graph you can plot points of association to go with the music, perhaps when the music changes to a soft portion that can be labelled as bells and such. doing so you can plot the dynamic changes to music and apply that to your work to create more visually appealing choreographies or even with improvisation to make it appear choreographed. this can be achieved by changing the movement quality with the change of the music.

part3ambiencedynamicgraph

aldenwong — 2021-04-23 13:13:44 UTC

afterward it was to then combine and create a dynamic graph to the song we chose for ambience music, this is the graph we drafted together.

part5finaldraft

aldenwong — 2021-04-23 16:14:47 UTC

this was our last draft, where we experimented with using cannons to represent bells rather than a solo bell but a slew of consecutive bells. and we also experimented with the ball represented by less flowing movements but with a lot of changing directions to show the back and forth of marbles rolling. we also had steam represented by the final action a fast sequence of motion.

part3dancemotifs

aldenwong — 2021-04-23 16:30:02 UTC

from there we were tasked to create 3 or more movement motifs derived from the paintings and then we were grouped and performed said motifs together, the following week we were to show what we had as a group when we had time to make changes here and there and to combine motifs if we wanted to, the video below shows that process

part4firstdraft

aldenwong — 2021-04-23 16:30:30 UTC

This is the first draft we made mostly improvisational