Contemporary Research, Group Project. Harry, me, Kady.

Contemporary dance began in the mid 20th century, and was inspired by the Modern Dance movement. Contemporary became very popular as it was seen as a combination of many styles - mainly modern and elements of ballet, whilst also incorporating elements of jazz, lyrical, and in some case acro. Many dancers loved the freedom of contemporary, which helped make the style more popular as many more dancers, companies, schools, etc began teaching and performing Contemporary dance.#

Contemporary dance highly focuses on the controlled legwork of Ballet, with elements of Modern, focusing on the contract and release of the body, and changes in speed, direction, levels, and rhythm. It also includes elements of floor work and isolations, as well as techniques which require flexibility, balance, and other technical skills.

Sustainability

Sustainability refers to the ability to sustain or support an ongoing process over time. There are three main pillars to sustainability: social, environmental, and economic. Wellbeing in sustainability includes the idea that individual well-being is linked to the well-being of others in society and the natural world. The data on happiness speaks to a fundamental truth: people are social creatures. Life skills for sustainable development include skills that help people make good decisions, solve problems and think critically and creatively. They also help people communicate effectively and build healthy relationships. These skills can help people make healthy and productive decisions, empathize with people and manage their lives. On the other hand, sustainability isn’t just about the health of the planet, it’s about the health and wellbeing of people. 

Blog One

Week 1 Acting

During this week in acting, we started with brainstorming ideas for what we should do for our sustainability project. Siobhan started by creatively challenging us, presenting devising to. During the task we were set, which involved creating a freeze frame, then making a scene that occurred one minute, one day, one week and one year prior. I found this quite difficult, as I struggled coming up with relevant ideas, and keeping a clear structure to the scene. I think I need to improve upon: becoming more confident in sharing ideas, and having a clearer idea of scenes. During directed study, we chose tech roles, choosing ones we haven’t done prior, so I chose director. I chose this, because I thought it would give me more practice on the aspects I found difficult stated above. We also went over some rough ideas on what we wanted to do with the scenes we devised. We wanted to do all four of the scenes, as they were all strong in their own account.

Week 1 Singing

During this week, we did soundscapes, where we split into two groups. This was a very interesting task, where we were given a random scene, then we got five minutes to discuss among ourselves how we would create this scene with only sounds. This was challenging, as it gave us only a short amount of time to devise this, which I encountered similar issues to acting, so that is one thing I really need to improve upon, but when we were performing our soundscapes, our group was really good at making different recognizable sounds, to present the scenes. Alongside this, we also suggested multiple songs which we could do throughout the performance. We decided to do Stand Tall, after me, Kady and Harry suggested it. We thought the harmonies could be really amazing, after me and Kady played around with them. There are clear harmonies for both male and female singers, and they compliment each other very well. 

Cheryl really liked the song, and wanted to have it as the final song. After this, we put all of the other songs, and the most votes went towards “Creep” by Radiohead, and “What Was I Made For” by Billy Eilish. I didn’t think this was a very good suggestion. I do believe that the vocal range on the Soprano song doesn't fit the vocal abilities and range of our group. 

Week 1 Dancing

During this week in dancing, we started off by being assigned to do a chair duet, following a choreograph by DV8 called “To Be Straight With You” task, where we got in pairs, and picked a segment. Me and Kady did a segment which was very similar to tap dance, and we found it very difficult as there was a lot of thought process on how to move. After this, we added conversation into it. I found this extremely difficult as I am not the most confident dancer, and adding words into it made it difficult to do the actions. Afterwards, we moved onto looking at and recreating, “Cost of Living” By DV8. This was also very difficult as it was tiring, and involved a lot of unusual body movements, which made my legs, and body ache. We had to be very mobile throughout this task, and it was hard to constantly practice what they did, as it was a lot of work and effort.

Research Task - Practitioners

DV8

DV8 is a physical theater company that works with taking risks, aesthetically and physically. They were founded in 1986 by Lloyd Newson and shut down during April 2022, as Newson retired. DV8 included every aspect of people, such as people with disabilities, for example, during “Cost of Living”, they use a crippled dancer during that piece. 

Red Ladder

Red Ladder is a theater company founded in 1968, and was funded by Arts Council England, and Leeds City Council. The founders were: Maggie Lane, John Hoyland, Sheila Rowbotham, Kathleen McCreery, Chris Rawlence, Steve Trafford, Marion Sedley, Richard Stourac. They do a lot of political pieces, such as “We’re not going back”, which is a play about on the Miners Strike back in Thatcher's Britain.

Frantic Assembly

In 1994, Frantic Assembly was founded by Scott Graham, Steven Hoggett and Vicki Middleton. Frantic Assembly uses lifts, and different body parts to convey a story. A popular play is called “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time”. This uses lifts and music in places to convey the mind of an autistic child. A warm-up that Frantic Assembly uses is called “Eye-Missiles” where you stand in a circle, make eye contact with someone in the circle, while walking towards them. This is to make communication better, as it uses non-verbal communication.

Storyboard

Initial Ideas

• Three Group Performances

• One entire group performance

• Recurring Motifs. Newspaper

• Our performance revolves around the mental instability of two teenage boys.

• Eco-Therapy

• Have songs the ensemble will sing throughout.

• Chair-Duets

• Teenage Boys masking their problems because they should “man-up”

Personal Targets

• Acting - Finish the script, this is so people can start learning lines, so the rehersal process is smoother. I will do this by spending time writing the script, and asking people for ideas on what they want their characters to be/act like.

• Singing - Prevent strain while singing, i can do this by relaxing during singing, making sure I use my diagrpah correctly.

• Dancing - Be more fluid with movement

Week 2 Acting

During this week, me and Kady worked on the script for our play, so we could structure our scenes slightly better. I wrote more of our smaller group scene, whereas Kady wrote the entire group scene. I went into an approach where my character has a conscience, and it’s characterized as a person, being played by Kady. We decided to do this, because it gives a character to mental health, so it can be personalized a lot more. 

Blog 2

During dance, on the 26th of January, we were put in our groups, and we worked on Chair Choreo. This was very basic, which just involved us moving our hands around each other, and we didn’t have a clear idea where we would fit this in. We need to improve upon this by finding a suitable location for it, add dialogue, and make it seem like there’s a purpose for it, as we don’t want to just have it in there to tick boxes.

On Wednesday's acting session, we showed Cheryl our performances, so she could see how we’re progressing. This was the script we wrote.

First Script

She gave us feedback on our piece thus far, which included:

• Making the scene focus on one aspect, this is because our previous scene had many different stories in it, which included bullying, mental health, then a consciousness speaking to the different characters. We decided to focus on the last one as we all found this the most interesting.

• Multi-Rolling shouldn’t be apart of our piece, as it gets confusing

• Shorten it

• Include the motif of the newspaper

I found this feedback very helpful, as I found we needed to have a clearer message on what our piece was about, while focusing on the stronger aspects. This however meant we had to cut a very large part of our script, which would be challenging, as something that we might think is good, might be bad, and vice versa. After we received this feedback, we then had a play around with our script, and our scene, and decided to start from scene three, and build on that idea a lot more. I found this to be the most effective idea, as it turned it into a very abstract piece, in contrast to naturalistic, which made it more enjoyable to watch and to perform.

During this lesson as well, me and Harry worked on our Duelog, which was talking about our personal experiences with mental health. This was to give a more personal side to mental health, so we weren’t only playing characters. I can improve upon this, by having a more clear thought of what I want to say, and when to add emotional beats. We wanted there to be an aspect of cross-cutting, as me and Harry discussed, and realized, we share similar experiences in life, so going from me speaking about my difficulties, to Harry speaking about similar things, is a very powerful symbol, and it really shows how everyone has mental health, and people need support.

We then moved onto singing, where it was very brief this week. Cheryl made us sing through, “Stand Tall”. In my opinion, this went horribly. Most people didn’t know the timings, lyrics or harmonies, which I believe was rather unprofessional, seeing as the show is in roughly two weeks. During free periods, such as directed study, me, Kady and Harry, ran through the song, so we could get more used to harmonies, although this was very difficult as not many people got involved in this. I feel like I could improve upon projection while singing, as, at the moment, we’re very quiet as a group. Doing so will improve how the group sounds, as it’ll be more powerful, which is how the song is supposed to sound, as it’s meant to be empowering.

During our first dance lesson, we worked on adding physical theatre elements to our pieces, but this time, with our more concrete script. We added it right at the start, and I think it looked pretty good. One thing I need to improve on all together, is being able to act more naturalistically and seriously, as at the moment, I do feel like I’m not doing that great of a job of portraying my character.

On friday afternoon, the group, minus Harry, who is singing the song, worked on an ensemble dance to “Waves”. Me and Tom were put in a group, and used many physical theatre elements. I found this difficult, as it was mainly tiring. During the Counterweight Lift, we made it so we were going down to 8 counts, and going up for a further 8. I can improve upon this by working on different exercises to strengthen my core muscles, so this feels more natural, smooth, and less painful. I have started doing wall-sits when I can to attempt to help me in this regard.

Blog 3

During Tuesday's lesson, we first started by trying to polish our scenes. Me, Harry and Kady are now very confident in our scene, as we’ve included elements of physical theatre, the motif and made the scene interesting to watch, so we have basically finished now. We ended up showing Olivia the full runthrough and it went rather poorly. Some things that went bad were mostly the scene changes, and transitions. We all had a clear idea and understanding of scenes, we just never worked on anything surrounding it. Things we need to improve upon are:

• Who, and when are people taking off chairs to transition to different scenes.

• Where the chairs were being moved to, so we could get access to them if needed

• Entrances and exits off stage. Which side people come in and off from. 

On Wednesday, we worked on more of the singing aspects in our performance. We started our performance with a soundscape, as this is one of the elements we had to include in our final piece. One of the main issues we faced as a group was timing. As an ensemble, we had to know when to pick up our newspapers, as well as when to start making the sounds to start the scene, which in this case is a sound of a clock. We stopped this issue, by counting to three in our heads after Cheryl gave the signal, and started making the clock noises when we felt everyone had picked up their newspaper. This was very effective and helpful as it made everything look more professional and sound better, however, I still struggled with this, as I realised, listening back at the recording, that I was slightly faster than everyone else, which made it sound off every so slightly.

Production Roll

During this term, I had been given the production role of "Director". This meant I had a big responsibility of making sure everyone knew what they were doing, and I was helping when necessary.