Art as a Political Statement

In this week's choreography class, we split into groups of four, reflected on one of five different stimuli, engaged in group discussion, and explored a creative task to facilitate movement. 

  

Within the initial practical choreography lesson, we were presented with five unique sources of artistic stimuli in the form of different artworks ranging from portraits and performance art to architecture, all of which we had no background knowledge of. After being split into groups of four, we were allowed the opportunity to collaborate, discuss and note the different initial interpretations and concepts that we would later explore. We noted the emotions these works evoked and movement ideas related to the image, words, context, descriptions and questions on each stimulus.


My group was paired with Adrian Brandon's work' Stolen - Portrait of Breonna Taylor'. (Brandon, n.d.)

(Brandon, n.d.)


As we did not yet know the intended message of the image, our spider diagram of ideas mainly gravitated back to a theme of feeling incomplete and possibly not feeling comfortable or safe to express yourself honestly. We also discussed being made feel embarrassed or ashamed of your origin, either on a personal or cultural level.


Tasked with creating a short movement sequence to reflect the stimulus, we chose several choreographic devices to communicate what we believed to be the piece's meaning. For example, with the dancers standing at the back of the formation, we would switch between mirrored and cannoned movements to portray the concept of having to reserve or hide parts of yourself either for personal safety or due to being self-conscious. We also blended soft-flowing movements with contrasting, sharp, precise arrangements throughout the piece. We did this to reflect the contrast between the harsh sketch lines of the portrait with the softly blended watercolour at the centre of the Photo.

(video)





 We then came together as a class to collaborate and further develop our ideas, stimuli and discuss the images as a group; this helped me view the various interpretations, perspectives, and topics my classmates saw in the stimulus. For example, some of my classmates saw the portrait to represent a new beginning or journey to be undertaken with excitement about the prospect of a blank canvas and more of a focus on expanding outwards rather than our focus on what was lacking. At this point, Miss Evans revealed the actual intended meaning behind the photos to us with the additional context that brought.


Our image was titled 'Portrait of Breonna Taylor' by Adrian Brandon as part of his portrait series 'Stolen', dedicated to the many black people robbed of their lives at the hands of police brutality. Brandon used time as a form of medium in this series to determine how long he would colour in a portrait; one year of life = one minute of colour. Breonna Taylor was just 26 years old when police killed her in her home in March 2020 (A. Oppel Jr, Bryson Taylor and Bogel-Burroughs, 2022). This layer of context completely shifted how I saw the piece. Brandon's use of timed colouring greatly impacted the piece's delivery, with the glaring amount of space left blank as a stark reminder of how much of Breonna's story was stolen from her.


"This emptiness represents holes in their families and our community, who will be forever stuck with the question, "who were they becoming?" This series touches on grief and the unknown.​"

- Adrian Brandon  (Brandon, n.d.)


In conclusion, I found this task to be a helpful reintroduction to working collaboratively. As our group was small, there was no challenge to ensure everyone's voice/opinion has heard, and I enjoyed discussing the stimulus and developing off of everyone's ideas. Moving forward with this choreography module, this exercise proved to be a reminder that to create a well-rounded analysis of a stimulus; it is helpful to research the original intention of the piece and develop interpretations individually and as a group.


 Bibliography:

A. Oppel Jr, R., Bryson Taylor, D. and Bogel-Burroughs, N., 2022. What to Know About Breonna Taylor’s Death. The New York Times, [online] Available at: <https://www.nytimes.com/article/breonna-taylor-police.html> [Accessed 2 October 2022].

Banksy, 2017. Scar of Bethlehem. [Graffiti].

Brandon, A., 2019. Stolen - Portrait of Breonna Taylor. [Ink and graphite on paper].

Brandon, A., 2019. WORK. [online] adrianbrandon.com. Available at: <https://www.adrianbrandon.com/work> [Accessed 2 October 2022].

Las Tesis, 2019. Un Violador en Tu Camino. [Public Performance Art].


San Fratello, R., 2022. See Saws. [Architecture].


Scaife, A., 2011. Human Cost. [Public Performance Art].






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