This investigation is a choreographic exploration between the body, its relationship to objects within the environment and how their connectivity manifests expression. The research this semester aims to examine various modalities a choreographer can engage with to set bodies in motion through the manipulation of sensory stimuli in order to reveal movement possibilities free from technical habits. It is through this exploration that new movement patterns will be explored in and through the body.

Dance is a way of studying ourselves it is something we do to create form and function in the material world while creating movement in space. Dancers strive for years to perfect their technique, so why is it I have become interested in fracturing this movement language embedded in one's body? As a child, raised in a studio with specific structured training which allowed students to participate in competitions, I noticed everyone performing the same steps, turns and tricks in a different order on stage. As I was introduced to the dialect of Modern and Post Modern Dance as a young adult in college, I could see how dancers were dependent on their technique, and in turn, limited in their movement vocabulary.

In this research, I will examine how a dancer may be able to surrender to these deep-rooted practices while seeking new movement possibilities. Utilizing various modalities as one manipulates objects to propel the body into action in order to create a choreographic score, is a sense of releasing technique within the body as it allows the stimuli to guide the assimilation of movement.

Task 2

Task 4

Building a Collage

Four panels of canvas were on the ground and I asked the participants to put all their pictures on individual canvas. I then asked the dancers to walk around and look at the picture as a whole, acknowledge each person, in this space, in an experience together. What do we have in common, what do we share? I asked if they felt compelled to move any of the pictures or share them across panels. This changed the aesthetics of the canvas, transforming it to look like one picture verses four as well as added diversity of voice to the experience. As a group, they shared their thoughts in regards to the pictures from their clipping and how each picture connected to one other. Then I had the dancers glue the pictures down and add paint to the canvas, giving them the freedom to add paint to any of the canvases. Building with others creates a collaborative culture leading to the following task.

Dancers Response to Exploration

• This exercise was therapeutic and unique. It gave us each a voice individually and collaboratively as a group. Once we placed our own pictures on the canvas, we had the opportunity to come together to create one work. After a strenuous day, this had a soothing effect that brought me closer to my cohorts and the people involved in the piece.
• I thought it was interesting to see what images each person selected and especially how each of us approached painting on the canvas after placing the images down. I thought we worked well together in creating shared spaces with the images we all selected and working together to execute the paint splatter effect by blowing on it. The whole task felt like an art therapy experience; it was relaxing and enjoyable, and I think it was a great bonding experience for the cast to be able to create an art piece together.
• I thoroughly enjoyed creating the collage collectively. It was interesting to see what everyone else had on their collage based on a magazine that they enjoy. I found it interesting how timid we all were to paint on others canvases. It seemed that after one person initiated a collaboration of sorts, I feel like the fun truly began. Once we all started to collaborate, we were then able to connect and find similarities within all of our collages.

Additional Tasks Which Informed Research

Painting on Canvas--Drip Method

Inspired by Jackson Pollock, instead of using conventional artist brushes he dipped, drizzled, poured or splashed paint on the canvas below him. Painting with fluid paint, he designed in space, so that drawing elements would happen in the air before falling down to the canvas below, sometimes thick, sometimes, thin. With a canvas on the floor, I was not in physical contact with the painting, yet viewing the act of moving from an ariel perspective. In the act of creating the painting, a rhythm of poured paint developed across the surface of the painting. “Technique is just a means of arriving at a statement...when I am painting I have a general notion as to what I am about” (Pollack n.d.). Thinking on the physical activity that went into the making of this type of painting is as if it was trance-like or hypnotic. The motion and movement as I created this picture were as if my feet were dancing around the painting, the circular motion of the shoulder, elbow, and wrists when they slowly drizzled or launched paint onto the canvas below was itself the act of choreography.

Painting on Body

I wanted to experience what it would feel like to be the canvas. How would my body reacts to the paint when it made contact with my skin? “Our skin organ where the brain begins connects us to a large world of aesthetic possibilities beyond its boundaries” (Fraleigh & Hanstein 190). At times I embraced the fluidity of the paint and moved with it as if we were dancing a duet together. At other times I felt like the paint was a part of me, breathing with me, we were one. Then I noticed that it shaped and colored me, it manipulated my skin, and together we created a picture together through unpredictable movement.

Project Discovery

Analyzing artistic ways of making meaning contributed to the value of creating visual images as part of the research process in order to understand how the experience could inform the inquiry to prompt interconnectivity. “Unanticipated connections can be discovered as an image creates relationships among diverse elements of form and experience bring, which these into a new wholeness” (Leavy 2015). This connects creative thinking adding conditions for multiple approaches and perspectives in the process of manipulating objects. Visual images add a reflexive response dialogue between the senses and body adding a layer of texture to stimulate movement within and through the body when exploring the practice of choreography.

A developing theme through the research is our imagination takes shape from the things we see and know, from our experiences with ourselves and with others. Visual arts, both two and three-dimensional turn questions into physical understanding making room for more questions in a search to understand structure and form. Impressions and reflections enable new perspectives and insight to be considered shaping our thoughts and actions in an inventive place where art is created. The meaning is in the fabrication and the content is held within the connections of where they materialize. Meaning can come from anywhere, from association, from information accessed during process or from something previously learned. Meaning steams from intuition, realization from interactions with others or from within the environment. Experience evokes creative choice where connections are made and new forms of understanding emerge while the method of inquiry is located within the practice and aesthetics emerge through the artwork.

The motivational force in relation to the aesthetic value of my choreography and how it connects to my research is through the body capturing the essence of the manipulation of materials and how the experience is able to be translated through individual and collective movement qualities. Therefore while the theme can be considered as an embodied interpretation of experiences, “movement is interrelation of action, quality and space and no one aspect can exist without the others in the motifs, but one or two can be more emphasized” (Smith-Autard 40). There is an interconnected relationship the body makes with things and other people within the environment which crafts the choreography. The body becomes an instrument, which is influenced by stimulus and imagination which motives the work and guides its process.