1st Febuary 2011

I am feeling a little lost, I have no idea what I am going to do with this project now. I haven’t even been able to bring myself to look at the footage we took or the questionnaires...not even a peek. I really need to face up to this as it’s not going away, I just feel like I have messed up and I don’t really know how to fix it. I have done all of the work I set out to do practically and this next phase was going to be me getting my nose back in the books and analyzing the data, but I just don’t feel fulfilled enough...

So I went to the group forum and talked this through with Lee (Miller my lecturer), he reassured me that if I wanted to stop now then that was fine as I had done enough work (I had been working on this all over the summer and Christmas after all) but if I wanted to do more that was fine too. This made me feel a bit calmer.

Then strait after I had a meeting with Ruth (Way) and she said the same. I explained that this project feels like it has a life of its own and as much as I would love an easy life and to just stop now and collate my data into a presentation and show some of the edited film...that just didn't feel right anymore and I felt artistically unsatisfied with what I did. 

So basically what I need to do is to make a lecture demonstration to show what  have learnt but taking the Mickey out of myself a bit at the same time, almost creating different characters and personalities for myself and performing my process and research. This is not going to be an easy task, it’s a challenge one I’m not sure I will meet but I’m going to have a dam good go!

So next step is to write up reflections of the whole process, being critical and reflective but also personal and emotional and do the whole dear diary think as this will help me identify my journey and my characters. Then I need to write a script for my presentation inserting everything I have learned from it. Then I need to somehow create some alter egos and mix it all together into a 20 min performance/ presentation....and I also need to edit all of the film together and analyse the data.

Next steps...well I have done the dear diary and I have input all of the data from the questionnaires into a spreadsheet and Jon has done some formulas to analyze it. So I have a meeting with him tomorrow to go through all of this.  Then I will be meeting with my other supervisor Ruth Way to show her my diary and start to talk through some creative ideas, I also need to edit all of the film (and learn how to use final cut pro L) and then I need to do what I do best and get into the studio and start working practically!  

16th January 2011 Controlled audience day

Stress! The tech was late, I had no one to operate the camera, plus a bad back bla bla bla. 

But it ran relatively smoothly. No one turned up to the 1pm show but it meant we could have some lunch which was good.

Points to concider;

After 3 shows I was exhausted!

I improvised a lot so no show was the same

I really felt in character throughout both pieces and connected, however that connection was much deeper with the post modern one than it was with the representational where I flicked in and out and I was a lot more controlled and precise.

I only got to do the post modern one once

Improvisation was a key element in the post modern choreography that I did. Although it was choreographed there was ‘breathing space’ in it, the choreography was more of a structure, there were certain movements that I did in a specific order but the in-between parts were improvised. So on one hand I knew exactly what I was going to do and what I was feeling and thinking (my character) and why I was feeling and thinking those things. Those thoughts were expressed through my movements as choreographed. But I also worked with my senses and as Adam (Benjamin) told me to 'feel it in your center', I didn’t time my movements to the music I timed them to my centre, I relied on my instincts and senses rather than being precise and relying on the music. 

This however did flag up its own issues; because it is so heavily reliant on my connection if I am having a bad day for example that it wouldn’t work... But anyway I didn’t it want fine. I think the main problems really are that it just wasn’t really what I wanted to do and the music I had to dance to was extremely evocative something picked up by my supervisor and that audience members fed back on, so no matter what I danced the music overpowered it.  

I’m a little bit frustrated with myself that I got myself into this situation. If I’d have instead developed my own piece from my own ideas and created the choreography in these two ways using the exact same process it would have been so much easier and less stressful all round! But it is done now so I will just have to see what the results show :)

Working with Emma...Still on the Post-Modern choreo 10th Jan 2011

So from 5th an until now myself and Kevin have been locked away in the studio working on Breathe Me. 

This wan't an easy process, in fact at times it was extremely difficult on both of us as we are very different artistically, I'm probably into the weirder more abstract stuff and I didn't agree on a lot of the creative decision's. My stress levels were pretty high as I knew that is wasn't keen on my choreography and also decided because of this that I couldn't do it at the two professional shows meaning a whole section of my project couldn't be done (In the Wild and all of the post degree work Jon May wanted to do in the Lab) this was a massive disappointment and a big confidence blow. 

So I have been struggling a lot and getting very stressed I now have 5 days to get this finished, its Monday and the showing is on Sunday, GULP! 

So another session in the studio was planned, this time with Emma Mannings who is also on my course and came in with me today to work on my solo with me. We just did an hour, I talked her through my process and put the movement in context (all four of them) she helped me to refine some of the gestural stuff and also map out the second anxiety bit that I had been struggling with. So left today feeling really positive about it which I really needed as I took a complete knock in confidence last week. 

23rd Dec 2010 post modern choreography

So I spent the day in the studio on my own, I found this incredibly difficult. It is the first time I have really created something completely on my own since being at uni...street dance not included! So there were defiantly confidence issues plus it takes a lot more self motivation to stick at it when you’re not really 'feeling it'!

So to try and overcome these potential issues I had a plan. Basically I jotted down a load of exercises from my good old Piná Bausch book and some great ones from Lorna Marshal. The plan being to warm up then to set up my video camera and go through Marshals exercises that get you to embody emotions I did four; anger, loneliness, anxiety and …. 

So basically I stood facing the wall in neutral and then thought about the emotion and what it does to my body etc then once I had it turn into the space and begin to explore moving in this emotional state. So once I had been through all of them and found several gestures and characteristics for each state I jotted them down noting how my body felt.

Next I did some free writing, I put myself into my characters place and began writing how I would feel and what I would do. From this I was able to come up with a strong narrative for the piece. I then mapped out spatially my journey whilst speaking out loud the words I have written also adding in how I felt in that moment eg anger abandonment... I continued to work in this way gradually removing the text and layering movement in gradually being careful not to move to fast losing the connection. 

By the end of the day (6 hours) I had created 2.5 mins worth of movement, just the first section. The second section I found really difficult, mainly as I couldn't really relate to why my character would have a panic attack in the same room as her partner and not either seek help from him or for him not to offer it...After hitting a brick wall for a hour I called it a day!

By his point I was very stressed! Because of Christmas and bad weather I only ended up getting into the studio for 1 day instead of the planned 3 so I was very behind with my choreography. Plus I really needed an outside eye!

I let my friend watch what I had done...this was quite a big deal for me as up until now I hadn’t shown anyone, nor had I ever done anything like this before and I already have no confidence at all so getting a negative response would really not be good for this! I think I probably realised that it still wasn’t anywhere near finished as to create in this way takes a very long time and can’t be rushed. But she didn’t hate it which was good! She could see a stark difference in the two pieces although be both agreed that more ‘Dance’ needed to be put into this one as it was perhaps too pedestrian and too close to an actual panic attack. So confidence was still low but relatively safe...for now.

update...

Wow so it has been a good while since I have updated so I’m going to do a few entries in retrospect to get this up to date...

Reflections of day two choreography with Sarah Buckingham

So yesterday I worked with Sarah Buckingham another fellow dance student, it was a completely different experience from working with Jess. This was mainly because the process was so different, and much more difficult than I had anticipated!

I put a lot more planning into how we were going to create the movement and so when we got into the studio I had a list of different choreographic tools and exercises. The exercises I chose were from a book on Piná Baush by Climenhaga. I chose these particular exercises because my artistic inspiration comes from the work of Baush, you can’t define her work, it’s not linier or narrative, she makes her audience work, you get an emotional connection to it that is completely individual to the spectator. And this pretty much sums up what I’m trying to achieve with this piece of movement.

So we began by thinking of a vivid memory of a relationship problem, one that caused us great anxiety. We then wrote this memory down, we read it to each other, and then read each other’s out loud. This was very strange for both of us, having someone else read out your personal story was quite uncomfortable and we both found it difficult.

The next step was to map out that story in movement on our own and perform it to each other. When I watched Sarah’s movement I found it really moving and emotional; I knew her story, she was so connected to what she was doing it really translated, I could feel her pain and heartbreak. Both of our sequences were choreographed but still very gestural with a really natural quality to the movement.  Then we taught each other our movement; what really stood out for me was that the way we taught each other instinctively was throughout thought behind the movement rather that describing what we were physically doing. For example I told Sarah; “it’s that feeling when the emotion and feeling really hits you and it gets you strait in the stomach and you just crumble” instead of “do a roll down with the movement lead from a contraction of the centre” which would have been the same movement, but without any emotion behind it. Watching Sarah performing my story made me want to cry, yes it was partly because of my connection to it, but she completely embodied the emotion and made it her own as did I when I did her phrase. Every movement meant something, we didn’t focus on placing or ascetic, we remained true to the emotion. The next step was to mix the two together and it was only at this point did we begin thinking about how we could make this work in the show. I put the music on and we were able to create a very loose structure for I1.

After lunch we did a few different exercises; one working in contact and then recreating the duet as a solo. This also worked really well and when we taught each other our solos we again taught through our emotion and thought process rather than the action we were doing.

What we were able to achieve by the end of the day was a bank of gestures and movements that I/we have a strong emotional connection to. However this is nowhere near complete so I defiantly have learnt a lot about choreographing in this way from today. Firstly working in this was talks a lot out of you and because of this and the importance of staying true to the process and connected to the movement you have to take it slowly. Whenever we started to charge ahead we would have to pull back as we were beginning to make decisions based on aesthetic rather that emotion. So after creating lots of lovely fragments we called it a day!

All of what we did was captured on film and we are going to keep on working on it over the next few weeks. The main things we need to do are develop what we have done, growing it from gesture into something bigger, but keeping that connection. Threading all of the movement together and putting it into the two sections. And we will probably still need some more movement so I need to keep looking for exercises.

I can’t believe that I thought I could do this in a day! It just shows the different in creating work in this way. Last week Jess and I did the whole lot in 5 hours it was so easy and I loved what we did. This week it was so different, it was slow, emotional and made my head spin a bit. I’m excited to keep working with Sarah on it and see where it goes because right now I have no idea what the finished pieces are going to look like!

Planning!

Had a great meeting today with Professor Jon May to come up with a plan to test out the choreography. Its all quite complex and what we want to do is way too much for a Degree, so part of the research and testing will be done after I have finished over the summer.

So to summarise (and this is only a plan noting is set in stone or confirmed yet); The two different choreographic methods are R- representational and I- introspective. And two different levels of anxiety attack 1 and 2 therefore the pieces will be referred to as R1 and R2 and I1 and I2.

There will be three different methods of testing out the two different choreography practices.

Method 1- In the wild

The whole show will be performed on the 27^th January. They will be shown I1 and I2. After the performance we will give a de-brief or post show talk and under each seat will be a one side of A4 questionnaire a pencil a envelop and a sweet.

The whole show will be performed again venue TBC this time with the audience seeing R1 and R2. Once again after the performance we will give a de-brief or post show talk and under each seat will be a one side of A4 questionnaire a pencil a envelop and a sweet.

Method 2- Controlled audience

A audience will be selected and invited to watch the performance (which will run from the start until the second panic attack). Throughout the performance at selected times they will be asked to complete questionnaires about what they are viewing and experiencing.

As well as questionnaires the audience will be filmed by a thermal imaging camera before the level 1 attack, during and after. The same process will be done for the level 2 attack.

Method 3- Judging audience reactions

The audience will be filmed throughout the controlled performances and this film will be isolating the reactions to the attacks, just before, during and after. This film will then be shown to between 7 and 10 judges who will judge the audiences reactions to the performances. The judges can’t know what the audience were watching.

Nb. They can be shown the different dance reactions in lots of different orders.

In the lab (this will be done separately to my PaR after the Easter break)

I will get the whole show filmed from a single long shot which Jon will then use to test out in the Lab. This will include the use of; eye tracker, think out loud-tape record and translate, rating scales...possibility of putting it into the immersive vision theatre so this needs to be taken into account when filming.

What do we think we will find?  

That when watching R1 and R2 they will be very sure of their answers and how they feel about it. Not much of an emotional reaction. Clear thought and articulation of that thought.

When watching I1 and I2 it will be harder to articulate because it will be more emotional and therefore less easy to explain.