Creative Development

 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 creative process I used from my chosen practitioner, Alexandra Whitley was creating more movement than needed, when choreographing I started without the music so when I put the section to music not all of it was needed, but this allowed me to keep the movements not needed and added to my next section meaning adapted the range of dynamics and speed so it went with my second piece of music.

 

The clip I have attached below is my first motif I created with the use of the shirt as a prop, this motif has adapted over the past few sessions of my choreography but this allowed me to make a start with my solo: https://youtu.be/MbWYkRrAugk

 

This isn’t necessarily the start of my piece but this was my most thought out and researched idea, so I wanted to put that knowledge into my piece and it gave me a starting point with my choreography. I found this process allowed me to challenge myself as well as connect more with my chosen music, understanding the beats and creating the characterisation needed for my piece. 

During our academic classes, we have been reading Kate Flatt's book 'Choreography: Creating and Developing for Performance' in Chapter 7 she speaks about how there are no definitive methods or strategies that work for everyone's choreographic process, she also compared choreographing to a film, "it doesn't have have to be shot in order, it will be edited out after."(Flatt, 2020) I found this book really useful for my choreographic process and allowed me to see choreographing and creating in a complete different aspect. 

 

Overall, I feel my research has helped me so much with creating movements and motifs, it has allowed me to portray a character as well as tell a very important and personal story to the audience. A lot of my research came from the diary entry by Eric Hartley, this helped me both theoretically and practically as I could relay what I have researched and learnt about into movements and this allows me to be creative and individual with my choreography. 

References 

Flatt, K., 2020. Choreography : Creating and Developing Dance for Performance. The Crowood Press.