Creative Development: A Reflection On My Process So Far





The music used for my solo choreography is entitled ‘The Untold’ by Secession Studios. The music utilises classical instruments and begins with a melancholic and soft tone. As the song progresses the pace fastens and the overall atmosphere builds up, ultimately making the music dramatic and gripping. It perfectly fits with the intentions for the choreography, so it was only right that I used this beautiful orchestral accompaniment. The melancholic and ominous tone from the start matches with my intentions of showing vulnerability within the Glam Jail (and that which a psychopath emits), which then progresses and begins to build up with the addition of violins. This matches the spiralling into the deeper secrets within the mind of a psychopath as well as correlating with unravelling their true persona (as the music begins to layer). As the music increases in intensity, the choreography unravels the layers to the mind of a psychopath furthermore.

I have decided to use varying dynamics throughout the choreography. For example, I use soft and gentle dynamics to show a side of vulnerability, which is heavily juxtaposed with sharp, accented and sudden dynamics to show the maniacal and aggressive nature to the character of a psychopath. Additionally, there are frequent motifs utilised to represent the psychopath’s nature. There are developments to these motifs such as embellishments, the scale of the movement and fragmenting the motif to develop how I want to convey their varying personas and traits. The levels constantly (yet seamlessly) shift to convey the spiralling of different personality traits as well as to portray the sporadic yet unpredictable nature of the mind of a psychopath - “A psychopathic personality is one which displays a number of behavioural traits … this is a personality that can blend seamlessly into society.” (Guy, F. 2018).

The process is running smoothly so far. When choreographing, I like to write up what I want to portray in the section / choreography. I then play the music and see what happens naturally, in which I then build upon motifs and what movement material conveys the theme clearly. Akram Khan becomes inspired by the music and narrows down very specifically what he wants to portray when generating material, which I found worked well for me also. Some of my feedback included that one of the sections wasn’t necessarily clear in what I wanted to portray. Moving forward with the choreography hereon, this will impact me to break up the choreography and depict what portrays our intention clearly. I will be filming it to be able to fully reflect upon the choreography, and build material that strengthens my intentions by consistently thinking more about choreographic devices and motif developments when reviewing. Every movement is important which I observed when researching about Akram Khan - “Even if it’s just lines, you’re telling a story.” (Khan, A. 2014).



References 

Fiona Guy. (2018). The Mind of A Psychopath: The Psychopathic Killer. Available at The Mind of a Psychopath: The Psychopathic Killer - Crime Traveller . [Accessed 12th November 2021] 

Jennifer Stahl. (2014). Peek Inside Akram Khan’s Creative Process. Available at Peek Inside Akram Khan's Creative Process - Dance Magazine . [Accessed 4th November 2021]


Bibliography

Fiona Guy. (2018). The Mind of A Psychopath: The Psychopathic Killer. Available at The Mind of a Psychopath: The Psychopathic Killer - Crime Traveller . [Accessed 12th November 2021] 

Jennifer Stahl. (2014). Peek Inside Akram Khan’s Creative Process. Available at Peek Inside Akram Khan's Creative Process - Dance Magazine . [Accessed 4th November 2021]

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Critique 2 - Akram Khan: Dust

Image
Dust is a collaborative piece between renowned choreographer Akram Khan alongside Tamara Rojo and the dancers of the established classical ballet company, The English National Ballet. The piece encapsulates the brutal and horrid nature of World War 1, which Khan states he wanted to explore the “concept of trenches” (Khan, A. 2014) as well as the “huge social shift towards women” (Khan, A. 2014) seen within this period of time. Throughout the piece as a whole, I thought the choreography clearly and effectively demonstrated the themes and starting points of the piece, which ultimately left a much bigger impact on my experience when watching this fantastic piece. (Liotardo, L. 2014) Upon initial reaction of the piece, the opening of the piece successfully enhanced the setting and themes behind the piece. The dancers individually walk on stage gazing down towards the floor, with a sense of shoulders dropped and hunched over. The music was silent to focus
Read more

My Chosen Practitioner

Akram Khan is a globally renowned and established innovative choreographer within the Contemporary Dance Scene. I was particularly drawn to Akram Khan due to his eclectic use of styles and choreographic movement, which is subject to his training and personal experiences / influences from his childhood. Khan’s style is a seamless blend of Kathak (a form of Indian Classical Dance) and Contemporary dance, which I find intriguing as his choreography consists of complex footwork and structures which is complemented with complex musicality and abstract movements. Khan frequently draws upon pop culture and social issues, as well as enquiring the need for dramatic qualities and theatricality within the choreograph (established from some of his influences such as Charlie Chaplin, Fred Astaire and Bruce Lee). Khan frequently collaborates with other artists as well as companies such as the English National Ballet. This is important as it makes his works and choreography more diverse and experimen
Read more

A Critique of Justin Peck's "In the Countenance of Kings"

  “In the Countenance of Kings” is a work choreographed by Justin Peck’s, with the music of the piece composed by Sufjan Stevens. The short film / performance was enjoyable to watch and observe; I thoroughly enjoyed the quick succession of the music, which was accompanied throughout with dynamic choreography that fused contemporary technique with ballet qualities. I found this highly innovative in which I was intrigued to continue watching more of the performance. The opening of the performance sets the initial tone and atmosphere for the performance, where the setting begins in a studio with a dancer leaving in complete silence. The camera pans forwards to reveal a dancer laying on her side (on the floor) where she breathes heavily, filling the previous void sound with live sound effects. Of course this demonstrated the dancers exhaustion and fatigue. I found it rather intriguing to start with live sound effects from the dancer as it made the atmosphere more intimate, almost as if the
Read more