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...