Composition tools
Throughout this semester the sophomore class was asked to go and view four different performances by faculties members, classmates, and artists in the community. Through these performances we were able to translate our composition topics from class to a full big picture piece of art. It allowed for a better understanding of the fine nuances of choreography in the beginning stages while simultaneously giving a taste of what it looks like at the final finished project of something.
The Difficulties of Flying choreographed by Crystal Perkins, featured simple all white costumes and bright lighting, however that is where the simplicity stopped. The steps themselves were big and precise, the work that everyone put into the dance was obvious through the dancer’s perfect unison. With the clean white costumes combined with the large group of dancer, the perfect unison was extremely appealing to the eye. In composition we discussed the use of unison in works and the power that can convey to the audience, and how that shifts when you start to break up the movement into different people doing different things. In our final comp studies everyone who had multiple people in their projects had to make the choice of how much unison to put into their project. Crystal moved to have the unison broken up by smaller
solos within the group and by having smaller groups doing different choreography. This allowed the viewer to remain fully engrossed and interested in the story of the dance. There was never too much of one thing, the dancers continuously kept swirling in and out of their formations switching their groups around and switching who synched up with who always staying in motion.
Another work that never ceased to move was Rosas performing A Love Supreme. Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker used the John Coltrane song A Love Supreme as the inspirational foundation of this particular performance. Just as in Crystal Perkins work, Anne’s piece never slowed in movement. A fitting choice as each dancer portrayed an instrument in the song; as long as their instrument was playing they were dancing with the focus on the dancer portraying the saxophone and Coltrane himself. From the very begging of the song to the end he continued to move around the stage occasionally matching up with the drum and the piano, bass, and drums and their dancing counter parts. By the end of the dance I felt drained and worn out from taking it all in for the entirety of the song, even though I had done nothing strenuous the entire time. Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker decided in her process to do away with any pauses or moments of stillness in her dance. Even though the stage wasn’t full of dancers for the entirety of the song there was always movement on the stage in at least one point to take up the attention of the audience. The use of constant movement was imperative for this concept however, in general, a couple moments of lack of motion on the stage is a refreshing touch. It can enhance the meaning of the dance as well as give the viewer a moment to soak everything in.
just as stillness or a lack thereof makes an impact on the way a dance is perceived, the musical choices of a dance are perhaps one of the most important elements of a dance. It creates the mood of a dance, keeps the dancers in a common rhythm, often in commercial dance it helps to tell the story if there is one. On other occasions it can simply create a backdrop for the movement on the stage. I have found a new appreciation for sound scores after the first half of the semester was danced in silence, adding sound of any kind is just as powerful as taking it away sometimes. During Parallel connections, Daniel Roberts and Karen Eliot re –staged a Cunningham work called Reverb. As is tradition in Cunningham the dancers learned and rehearsed the dance in silence the music for the performances were always a surprise and ever changing with different meters and feelings. However, the dancers had so much intense training and feeling for each other they stayed in complete unison and with the same intent and precision regardless of if they are dancing with sound or without sound. This practice makes the sound an unneeded accessory of the dance, its nice for the audience to not sit in silence but as far as the execution of the work the music is completely unnecessary. The dance is purely in the bodies of the movers, the sections fitting together easily no matter what order they are arranged in. it is one of the few styles of movement that doesn’t rely on music for the majority of its cultivation, yet still utilizes sound for the actual performance. To the ignorant observer the music fits perfectly with the movement as though it was rehearsed from that way from the beginning, proving that sound is not necessary to create a dance. Sound then is an added layer to the work itself, something to bring more dimension to the movement, more for the sake of the audience and less so for the dancers. That same theory is employed even in non-Cunningham works, choreographers change their minds frequently on the sound and movement of their dances as they develop them.
The art of composing movement meant is one filled with subtleties, where the smallest change of an accident or an elongated pause can man the audience see a work in an entirely different light. The lens of the dance is always shifting, between audiences, the movers, as well as the choreographers themselves as everyone approaches something with their own life experience and background. The choices in the movement styles and organization of a work are virtually endless and ever changing and dance as a culture grows and shifts. Through this semester we were asked to see four different shows ranging styles techniques and esthetics. No two performances were the same and every work had a different feel to it. All the mechanisms we looked at in class were resent in the array of movement we were asked to see along with many others we didn’t have the time to talk about. Regardless there has been instilled in all of us a better understanding and appreciation for the process of movement making and everything that goes into it
