Assignment #2 Duet
"Through It All"
For our second assignment in class, we were to co-choreograph a duet with a peer. The guidelines for our duet consisted of symmetry in shape and space, asymmetry in shape and space, contact, focus, and simple transitions. Although this may sound very simple, it was a bit of a challenge for my partner and me. To help us understand symmetrical and asymmetrical forms visually, we brought in objects of nature from outside into the classroom and set them out on the floor in a pattern to observe. We were to gather things that were symmetrical and things that were asymmetrical. Some of the objects that were brought into class were leaves, branches, grass, berries, and more. We made a line of all the symmetrical objects and a line of all the asymmetrical objects. Once this was done, we rearranged them to create some unique and beautiful symmetrical and asymmetrical pairings. When we were done with this, everyone took a few steps back and observed what we had created. It was simply beautiful. Within a matter of minutes, we, as a class, created this incredible piece of art. From this in-class task, I learned that it doesn’t take a lot of time and over analyzing to create art with contrasting shapes. As a choreographer, I tend to spend much more time that is needed to come up with material, because I’m always over thinking and analyzing my every move. Working this way can be stressful, unproductive, and not get you very far in your ideas. I was looking forward to working on simplifying my process of composition, and collaborating with a partner.
We drew names in class to see who we would be working with and I chose Christina. I was looking forward to working with her because I thought that we would have similar ideas in choreographing. Once we all had our partners, we did an in-class improvisation with them to get comfortable working and moving together. Because I know Christina well, it didn’t take me long to get comfortable with her at all. We first tuned into each other’s breath and then began moving slowly and first. We stayed in contact for a while, discovering new ways to move together and create shapes. We then shifted into focusing on each other, first, by making eye contact. I’m not the best at keeping my composer when making eye contact with someone, so it took us a little time to get used to that feeling. I then felt comfortable doing this, and we began moving in the space again, but keeping our eyes on each other. Then we discovered different ways of focusing, for instance, focusing on parts of our own bodies and focusing on parts of each other’s bodies, and constantly switching from each option. Once we finished moving, I felt a deeper connection to Christina. We had connected to each other’s breath, bodies, and focus and I found it very comfortable doing so. After discussing with her, we were exciting to begin choreographing together, now that we had these new ideas and tools to work with.
For our music, we were to choose from a composer from the Classical period; Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert to name a few. In the music analysis class I had taken a couple of years ago, I did a study on Schubert’s work. Because I was comfortable with this composer, I knew that I most likely wanted to choose one of his works for our duet. Christina and I browsed through all four of these composers’ works and both agreed to narrow our choices down to some of Schubert’s works. We came across one and immediately fell in love with the idea of working with it. The music selection we chose was performed by Vladimir Horowitz and was the collaboration and Liszt and Schubert titled “Soirees de Vienne: Valse-Caprice No. 6.” We enjoyed the dramatic tone of the piano and thought it would be an interested process to choreograph to this piece of music, so we went for it!
When Christina and I started our process of choreographing, we were over thinking and not coming up with a lot of material to work with. We were frustrated with the guidelines, because we weren’t coming up with very creative ways to by symmetrical, and weren’t sure how to make the shapes appear organic instead of just thrown in the piece. We worked in front of the mirror mostly to make sure the shapes that we did design looked aesthetically pleasing to us. I read in our book Dance Composition that the “relationship of lines and shapes in space should make the dance a pleasure to view – an aesthetic experience. It is like standing back to view a beautiful cathedral” (Smith-Autard 54). We asked our professor to watch our beginning to see if we were off to a good start, and she gave us some feedback as well as suggestions on how to make to more unique, and pleasing to watch. Once we stopped questioning ourselves and just kept on throwing ideas out there, we began to get the hang of it and were working together greatly. We decided to add eye focus to walks around each other throughout the piece to feel a connection with each other when we were dancing. We were playing around with asymmetrical shapes and came up with some interesting counterbalances and shapes to work with. We played off the music and planned on accenting different parts with our shapes. “The dancer’s feeling of shape through kinesthetic sensation of the movement is a very important aspect of presentation of the dance to an audience” (Smith-Autard 42). We reworked some of the shapes and how we moved into them to make sure they had meaning and purpose.
Because our schedules were different, we didn’t have as much time as we would’ve liked to rehearse our duet. On the day of showing, we were a little nervous as to how it was going to turn out when we performed it. Although we had a few memory and timing issues when we were performing, we received some surprising feedback. Some things that were said were that they really enjoyed the shapes we made, our relationship with each other, and our connection to the movement. Although we were unsure of our piece, we seemed to have pleased our audience, which than pleased us! I really enjoyed collaborating with a partner and I look forward to working on duets in the future now that I’ve worked on my choreographic process in a different way.
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