Digital @ The Arts Unit Creative Teachers
Broken creature
Teacher secondary dance resource developed by
The Arts Unit
Digital @ The Arts Unit Creative Teachers
Teacher secondary dance resource developed by
The Arts Unit
Watch the video Sequence B - Broken presented by Rebecca Hytting, L-E-V Company Dancer
Observe the visual language used.
Record the descriptions used by Rebecca in the footage.
Discuss the reflections with your class.
Sequence B - Broken presented by Rebecca Hytting, L-E-V Company
Duration: 00:00angular
broken
creature
pushing away
punching
pulling
Learn the movement from Sequence B - Broken.
Discuss how the description helps the dancers understand how to execute the movement.
Perform the movement as a class and have students record the way they feel when performing the sequence.
Research ideas, images, poems, photos, artwork and film about birds, crabs, insects and mythical creatures for inspiration.
You may like to use this image gallery for some examples.
Devise a series of movement tasks based on line, angles and broken shapes.
Form 3 clear motifs from the improvisation tasks that reflect the intent based on the idea of angular creatures.
Develop each motif into 3 phrases exploring the elements of space in dance:
levels
geometry of space – line, direction, dimension, plane
shape
floor pattern.
Experiment with the element of dynamics to enrich your phrases:
release of energy
weight
force.
Explore ways to manipulate the movement using the concepts below to form 3 distinctive passages of movement that can be repeated and taught to others:
Use the 16 ways to manipulate a motif in the dropdown box below to help you.
A suggested time of at least one minute per phrase.
Explore the examples in this dropdown box as an excellent way to springboard your motif into phrases of movement.
Repetition: repeat exactly the same
Retrograde: perform it backward, start at the end and follow it back through space-like a movie run backward.
Inversion: upside-down ( v become ^) or lateral ( / becomes \ ). For upside-down inversion, you may have to lie onthe floor or stand on your head. (This can be tricky and often impossible but don’t dismiss it on those grounds)
Size: Condense/expand. Take the motif and do it as small as you can. Try even smaller. Now take the movement and make it bigger, as big as you can.
Tempo: for example: fast, slow, stop. Take the motif and do it as fast as possible. Try again, even faster. Be careful not to let it get smaller. Do it as slowly as you can. Remember to keep the space constant, the same size it was originally. Find places for stillness in it.
Rhythm: vary the rhythm but not the tempo. The variety and pattern of the beats should be altered, not the speed or the length of time it takes to accomplish. If, for example, the original rhythm was I I try doing it I I I I.
Quality: vary the movement quality. For examply try the same movement quivery, drifting, with erratic tension.
Instrumentation: perform the movement with a different body part; try several different parts of the body. Let another performer do it. Have a whole group do it.
Force: vary the amount of force you use in producing the movement. Do it with a great deal of strength, from beginning to end. Now repeat it again, with very little force, gently, weakly. Carefully try to keep the change in the force only.
Background: change the design of the rest of the body from its original position and repeat the motif. Let the rest of the body be doing something while the motif is going on. Sit instead of stand. Try perhaps twisting all the rest of you into a knot while still performing the regular motif. Add another person (maybe have them wrap around you). Add to or change the set or lighting.
Staging: perform it at a different place on the stage and/or with a different facing to the audience, sideways or in a diagonal.
Embellishment (ornamentation): the movement itself can have embellishment (for example, little loops or zig zagsoccurring along the path of the movement), or a part of the body can be embellished as it is involved in the movement (as the arm moves, wiggle the fingers or make a fist). Try to embellish both the body and the path of movement at the same time.
Change of planes/levels: change the motif to a different plane: the horizontal, the vertical, the sagittal plane, or any other slice of space. do it on a different level. Trace the path of the gesture and use it as a floor pattern. Move along that.
Addictive/incorporative: additive: While doing the original motif, simultaneously execute any kind of jump, turn, or locomotor pattern (triplet, run, slide). Incorporative: Make the original motif into a jump, turn or locomotor pattern. Although this can be tough or impossible with some motifs, approach it with a sense of 'how can x (original motif) be jumped, turned, moved from place to place?' A series of chassés would be an example of the way an arc could be realised as a locomotor pattern.
Fragmentation: use only a part of the motif, any part. Use it as an entity on itself. Use it to attend to a detail, a part worth isolating that might otherwise be overlooked. Or use several parts of it, but not the while things-such as the beginning third, a tiny piece of halfway through, and the very, very end.
Combination: Combine any of the above so that they happen at the same time. This lets you combine affinities (faster with smaller) or antagonists (faster with larger) for choreographic interest and technical challenge. Fragmentation is particularly effective when combined with others. You may combine 3 or 4 manipulations at the same time (fragmentation, inversion and embellishment, or inversion,retrograde, slower and different background). Variety and complexity grows as you combine more and more manipulations.
Adapted from: Blom, L. &. (1982). Sixteen Ways to Manipulate a Motif. In L. &. Blom, The Intimate Act of Choreography (pp. 102-104). University of Pittsberg Press.
Develop the creative work into a class dance referring to the information and processes in The Arts Unit - A choreographic journey resource as a guide.
Record your work on film.
Evaluate your process as you develop the work.
Refine as you proceed to stay truly connected to the intent of the piece.
Max Richter - Sarajevo, Mercy
Hans Zimmer - The Dark Night Orchestra Suite
Woodkid - Run Boy Run (Instumental)
Lorn- Anvil
Steve Reich - Phases
Phillip Glass
Zoe Keating
Julia Kent
Heinali
Thom Willems - In the Middle Somewhat Elevated
Kronos Quartet
"Dragon" by wili_hybrid is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.
"Mythical Creature" by rubyblossom is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.
"'house finch' bird wings" by Anne Davis 773 is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.
"Giant Crab at Manila Ocean Park Philippines" by Charlie V. Antonio is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.
"I have a lesson for you Grasshopper" by MrClean1982 is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.
"wing surfing" by PamLink is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0
"bird wing" by BotheredByBees is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
"Japanese Burrowing Cricket, U, Side, Upper Marlboro_2013-08-02-15.06.24 ZS PMaxj" by Sam Droege is licensed under CC PDM 1.0.
State Dance Festival images 1-9, photographer: Anna Warr.
Dance 7-10 Syllabus, © NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA) for and on behalf of the Crown in right of the State of New South Wales, 2003, copied under s113P, accessed 27 September 2021.