Choreography for Group Performance (MU503740)

Chance method choreography  is a technique/device created by Merce Cunningham. Chance method refers to choosing material through randomisation. For example, throwing dice to select from an index list of movements is traditional. I find chance method to be a helpful tool when facing a creative block as it is a way of overcoming the limits of imagination at the time and redistributing the predictable choreography. (Preston-Dunlop, 2014) (Barbican Centre, 2019) (Merce Cunningham Trust, 2022)  When making our word motif, we went through our music broken down into sections and the words we associated with those sections. Split into pairs and worked on a short sequence associated with each chosen term. Jessica and I were working with the word Anxiety In relation to the 'Visions of Giaeon' section just before Olivia's solo. When making these 16 counts Jessica and I considered different aspects of experiencing Anxiety that we could incorporate. Due to the sequence being e...

When looking for a suitable stimulus to present to my group, I knew I needed to consider a stimulus that wasn't too complex so that it could be translated to movement and still effectively convey the intended message. A topic that came to mind was the prominent presence of slave labour in the fashion industry. This topic is both something I am personally passionate about as well as a subject I saw a lot of opportunity for movement ideas. (Marla Olivia Photography, 2021) When considering movement ideas, I thought an interesting concept would be weaving together as a group using repetition to explore mimicking the repetitive patterns of sewing/weaving/folding fabric. I also saw an opportunity for group work if we focused on the mass production of garments where we could implement repetition, cannon, and fragmentation. I also thought the use of a hand gesture motif could be effective. Either to depict the sore, worn hands of the worker, using harsh, repetitive movements, or the well-k...

As our first task within our assessment groups, we were each given the word as a form of stimulus to create an individual phrase. My stimulus was the word 'alone', and in order to show this through movement, I incorporated a lack of connection to the front as well as using a gesture that began outwards but travelled back towards the body. Developing this further, we participated in a game, 'lost in translation, in which we lined up facing the back. The second person in line then turns to observe the first person perform their movement sequence; the second person performs it to the third, and so on until the phrase arrives with the final person who performs side by side with the original creator of the phrase. This activity resulted in two movement sequences that barely resembled each other. Personally, I found it interesting which aspects of the movement remained intact; for example, in most cases within our group, the arms remained more faithful to the original than the le...