During the fall of 2021, SDSU issued that all classes will be held online for the first 2 and a half weeks. This also impacted rehearsals for Senior Capstone. Below is a description of the process of translating and reviewing material generated over zoom rehearsals.
Here is a video of Savanna Torres and Vernice Ednilao in a practice of slowly generating set material over zoom that will later translate over into a quartet with Savanna and a trio with Vernice.
Because we started on zoom, I did not want to give too much set choreography to my dancers because in my own personal experience, learning from a small screen on your phone, computer, tablet, etc is very difficult. I already had an idea of what I wanted to start researching my piece within the last year or so, more specifically the binary of masculine and feminine and what that looked and meant in a movement setting.
Here is where the birth of an amazing solo was created. Maria is such a strong dancer and performer that I wanted to give her something more personal and challenging to develop over time.
In this video, I worked with Maria in developing a solo. It first started via zoom with her combining a phrase she created and a phrase another dancer, Kaili Jarmel, created and combined them. The essence of the solo was there was continued development into the studio. Here we worked with combining what masculine and feminine movement looked like, as you can see there is twerking, lots of swaying hips and masculine movement with a ground punch, and big and wide usage of the arms in Maria's movement.
Here is where a lot of the material is altered or scrapped to start building the piece. A lot of the material was generated by groups of 2 or 3 dancers via zoom and either learned or broken down into segments in certain sections of duets, trios, or as a group.
The choreography from Zoom is translated and altered into the studio as the final product.
Here, Savanna's phrase is altered and moved into a quartet section consisting of: Maria Sulaiman, Savanna Torres, Julz Fernandez, and Julianna Ayala. Here I added a sound cue to Savanna's stomping movement as well as an elongation and slowing down of a reach with the rest of the dancers in the quartet.
I expanded much more on Maria's solo and it looks quite different. Some things were cut or altered to make the original to what it looks like now.
When taking this solo piece to the studio, I really wanted to add a solo within this section where a duet is going on. I wanted it to stand out yet also not be the only thing happening in the space. Here, I asked Maria to take this dance and make it as masculine as possible. From here, I gave her some examples on how I perceived things to be more masculine, but it was up to her discretion on her own body. For example, I said more masculine movement is sharp, strong, big, and hard hitting whereas feminine movement is more circular, soft, smooth, etc. From this she changed certain movement pathways or the movement itself to change to her perception of what masculinity meant to her. The solo was then put farthest downstage to stage left to also maximize its largeness in comparison to the duet which is based on more feminine qualities, is on the floor, and a lot softer and smoother.
Here is how I shaped the process of the drone section where a duet between Savanna Torres and Julz Fernandez is added, Maria's solo is added, and a score of playing with masculine and feminine movement is added in conjunction layers of the score.
The first iteration of the score I wanted Savanna and Julz to do when starting to create this duet on the floor on their own.
For this duet 1.0 I gave Savanna and Julz the score of creating a contact phrase that only used a limited amount of space as seen in the video with the shoes. I wanted the quality to be smooth and slow - in relation to more feminine like qualities.
The second iteration for this duet between Savanna and Julz. I wanted them to now work without the boundary limitations and to really focus on the movement.
I also wanted them to work with the concept of femininity more specifically with a nurturing and sensual quality with each other in more "maternal" way. This can be seen with how they look at each other and the quality of the Julz hand placed on Savanna's chest.
Here is where I really worked with her solo before in the studio from Zoom.
This is where I introduced more specifically when to add the masculine qualities as mention above in relation to Maria's solo. The music is not what is used in the final product of the piece but used as a tool to help emphasize the masculineness I wanted the movement to have. The artist in the song is FKA twigs ft. Future called "Holy Terrain". Future is a very prevalent and popular rap artist, especially within the male genre of rap in comparison to more feminine artists in the rap genre like Cardi B, Nicki Minaj, and Megan thee Stallion.
The final compilation of everything combined of set material that my dancers and I co created in the studio and over Zoom to create this section. The score was added later in the mix of things to come in and out. More on the score and piecing together everything below.
For this section, I added Maria's solo downstage and stage left. This, as stated earlier, highlights in contrast to a lot of the other movement going on in the space like the duet and score work. The duet, taking part at the same time as the solo, contrasts because of the feminine qualities to Maria's masculine qualities .
Adding in a layer of the score to the whole section, the score first started as experimenting with masculine and feminine which my dancers and I worked with on Zoom in our beginning rehearsals to get in the space and feel what this binary means to me and to the dancers. The score was to go in and out of the space using these and to run off when the dancers felt it was time to reset then go back on stage. This score consisted of first Julianna Ayala and Vernice Ednilao.
Adding a sub layer onto the score, I had Luci Kelman and Kaili Jarmel to also walk around the space to act as witnesses and watchers to what was going on. This acted in contrast to a lot of the movement and layers within the score and section itself. The stillness of the witnesses added a nice balance and another added "binary" into the section.
One last subscore to this score was the dancers going into the transformation score from Leslie Seiters and that I practiced in Performance Forum of Fall 2020 (ie. a score where the movement builds until it is different and constantly evolving or getting faster - in this case) after Maria ends her solo. Once Maria ends her solo, she initiates the transformation score where the dancers in the previous masculine and feminine score converge into a single mass then equally disperse back into the score.
In more specificity, the score for transformation was:
Choose a movement that repeats at least 4 times
The movement can change direction, dynamic, speed, levels, etc. but all in this score must choose the same options
Each time the transformation score is initiated, the score must be started by a different dancer each time
Always watch for who will start, as they will do 2 moves to initiate the group to start as a whole - as a cue
When you end the transformation score, each dancer must establish eye contact with each other then disperse, wether that be walking, running, going off stage, etc.