Megan Foster L6 Advanced Independent Solo Choreography

  Alexandra Whitley is my chosen practitioner for my independent solo choreography, I have found him a great inspiration with my creative processes as well as the choreography itself. In this blog, I will be critically reviewing his piece ‘The Measures   Taken’  which is named after the way the tracking devices around the stage interact with the shapes made by the dancers.   (Jevons, 2015) The piece varies in dynamics, levels and dancers, which allows the audience to keep engaged, as well as not know what to expect next in the piece. The use of formations was also very intriguing as the dancers could be very close together and doing completely different movements or the opposite where the formation was very spread out and they are all dancing in unison. I also like how he utilised duets, trios, solos and group choreography even when there were multiple people dancing on the stage, as an audience member it makes the piece very exciting to watch especially when some da...

  These past few weeks I have created three minutes out of the ten of my solo, this included a lot of trial and error as well as challenging myself to think outside the box. While choreographing I have used different creative processes, some inspired by my chosen practitioner, Alexandra Whitley.   One creative process that really helped me generate movement was the 'Chance Method' this was thinking of three words to describe the section of my piece, this could vary from feelings, thoughts or just describing the scene. From those three words, I thought of three separate movements and then labelled them one to nine and used a number generation to decide which order I will be performing the movements in. I then connected them all with in-between steps, to help allow the sequence to run smoothly and with ease. I used a mind map, which I have attached below as Figure 1, to think of different words and the three words I chose were: Fear, Isolated, Weak.  (Figure 1)   A cre...

  My chosen practitioner for my independent solo is Alexandra Whitley, who is a contemporary choreographer and the artistic director of Alexandra Whitley Dance company, over the years he has built a reputation for his bold and unique approach to dance with his creativity.   (Whitley, n.d.) When looking at choreographers I came across Whitley’s piece ‘Overflow’ and found it so interesting to watch, it was a very exciting piece as I didn’t know what to expect and the levels, dynamics, the number of dancers as well as the size and speed of the movements were constantly changing throughout, and as an audience member it keeps you engaged and involved with the piece. (Sadler's Wells Theatre, 2020)     Whitley’s creative process is just as unique and bold as his choreography, he starts off by experimenting through the use of tasks, improvisation and open questions with his dancers and this then leads to him offering movement ideas and they respond with using their bodies to...

  In this week’s blog I will be discussing the research needed for my solo and for the past few weeks before even starting to choreograph I have carried out a lot of research, especially as this is a personal piece to me, I found it was very important to get all the details as this will help enhance my performance as well as challenge myself with the choreography and the choreographic devices I choose to use when creating my solo.   Over the past few weeks, I have done a lot of research for my choreography, including watching many different choreographers and learning about their choreographic process as well as looking into managing my time correctly as this is an independent solo task. Nevertheless, I have done a lot of research into my idea as this then allows me to consider my music choices, the order of sections in my piece and the overall affect I want it to have on the audience. A key objective I hope to achieve with my choreographic process is to not rush the process, ...

  For my independent solo choreography I’m going to be performing a piece that is very close to myself and my family. My solo will be about my great grandad who when he was in World War II got stranded at sea in a tiny dinghy for eleven days, after further research I found that this happened so much during the wars and discovered a diary entry which went into great detail about what life was like for them stranded at sea.  (Reynolds, 2016)  On the eleventh day they were rescued and all six of them survived, this story is so inspiring to me and makes me so proud to be his great granddaughter and performing this piece would allow me to convey his story as well as portray what they all went through during this time. (Wordpress, 2016)                                                                      ...