Monday 14 March 2011

Siobhan Davies Scrapbook

When I registered with Siobhan Davies Replay Archive, I made a scrapbook of her work that stood out to me. Immediately I went to a work that I recognised 'Bird Song.' This was because I had studied it at GCSE and it was nice to see the work that had gone towards it. I looked at the music score, pictures and written notes that I had never seen before. I also looked at the dance from a birds eye view which was very interesting to see as the dance can completely change from what angle you see it. I could now see the very clear patterns in the dancers movements and structure which adds so much more to the dance and my understanding of it.

They asked us to pick out other pieces of her work that related to the pieces we had already chosen however, as I had never seen any more of her work I wanted to look at everything and didn't get time to compare. At the end of the session we got a chance to walk around and look at other peoples scrapbooks to see how similar or different they were. It was really nice to see how many other people chose bird song for their scrap book and how many of them had studied and shared an interest in it like I did.

Nottdance festival 2011

We saw Wendy Houstoun's '50 acts' at nottdance festival. It was a physical theare performance involving:
'Manifestos
Apologies and errors
Random acts
Small dances and big ideas
Ghostly appearances
Invisibility
Stupidity
Inexplicable feats and unexpected turns
Eco soliloquies
Techno idiocy'
I really enjoyed her use of movement, speach, acting, and use of props I would highly reccomend seeings it :)

Chair Duet



We also tried the chair duet with different partners to see how our movements would vary.

Stair/Chair Duet 2



On this Stair/Chair duet we challenged ourselves by going up and down the stairs!

Stair/Chair Duet



Stair Duet

Choreography Workshop 2


This was our finished score :)

Choreography Workshop

We are starting to work on duets so Florence Peake gave us a new and exciting to choreograph. These pictures uploaded are from a lesson a few weeks ago where we worked in partners tracing each others movements on to big pieces of paper. We then attached the paper to the wall and created a short duet using the drawings as a score. I found this a really interesting and effective way of choreographing and having a large score was more helpful as there was so much more to work with.




Skinner Releasing Technique

Skinner Releasing Technique

On Tuesday the 18th January we had a skinner releasing workshop with Florence Peake. It was very interesting and made me think differently about how my body moves and how it can vary by thinking of different images. We focused on different images in different sessions.

The images that stood out and helped me the most were white mist, marionette strings and the string between/tangled in the fingers. These images helped me the most because they helped me connect to the movements I was making.

Marionette Strings- This image helped me with my posture when dancing. It also made me realise I have a lot of tension in my shoulders. However, when moving around I felt lighter and faster when focusing on them and my balance improved.

White Mist- This image helped me with my breathing when moving. I usually find it difficult to concentrate on my breathing so this image really improved my movements and made me feel energised.

String- This image allowed me too feel lighter and focus on delicate and intricate movements. I really got lost in this image and is my favourite to work with as you can really focus on the details of the movements.

Wednesday 9 March 2011

Feedback on Duet


This is feedback from mine and Emily's duet. These are the words and phrases that most stood out and helped us to develop our duet.

B+E Duet 4



SORRY ABOUT THE VIDEO QUALITY!

This is what we performed in front of our class in the work in progress session. The feedback from this session was really helpful and will help us work at the next level. Kayte explained that instead of exploring the conscious and unconscious separately we should explore different levels of the conscious.

B+E Duet 3



SORRY ABOUT THE VIDEO QUALITY!

B+E Duet 2



SORRY ABOUT THE VIDEO QUALITY!

B+E Duet 1



SORRY ABOUT THE VIDEO QUALITY!

This is me (Rebecca Curtis) and Emily Webb. We have started duets in choreography and we want to focus on the practitioner Steve Paxton and his relationship to the conscious and unconscious. We have tried different scores from the book 'body,space and image' and focused on contact improvisation to start us off. We tried different improvisational scores and then see if we could repeat it.

Here our a few videos of us working in the studio, developing work.

Alexander Technique

On Monday 10th and Tuesday 11th January 2011, I participated in an Alexander technique workshop with Lucia Walker.

I found this type of technique really interesting and very helpful towards my dancing. As I have alot of tension in my shoulders and upper back I have never been able to sit or stand comfortably for long periods of time. Lucia explained and helped me find a position for myself that i found comfortable which also provided me with good posture aswell.

The technique relieves tension and teaches you how to put it into your dancing making movements easier. From this workshop I would definitely look into studying this technique further.


This is Me (Rebecca Curtis) and Shannon O'Dowd performing an improvised duet with a chair. This is performed in the studio but we also tried it in a narrow hallway and down and upstairs. I think that when we improvised this in the studio we focused mainly on the chair but when we were somewhere different we could bring our surroundings into the piece aswell. We found that we often struggled with thinking of movement but we repeated it over and over to get passed it.

As I have never improvised around a prop before it really helped me expand my choreography skills and gave me new ideas for future pieces.

Feedback for Dance Phrase 2



This is Shannon O'Dowd Feedbacking on a 'dance phrase 2' we have been working on in class. I found this really helpful and I am now working on my upper body strength and tension in my shoulders.

Feedback On My Solo



This is Shannon O'Dowd feedbacking on my solo that I performed in class. I always find feedback helpful especially on your own piece as you find ways to develop it further. For example, in her feedback she discusses that my emotion in my piece was very strong but it would nice for me to use less obvious body parts such as the knee or core body. Knowing this I can now go and develop in further and it will help future pieces I make.