Coming together
In this lesson, we had the whole session to work on our choreography. We began by sitting down together and finalising our music for each section. This was really helpful as we could then begin choreographing each section. Below is the list of music we’ve chosen and why.
Section 1: a 120 beats per minute metronome for our march. The average soldiers march is 120bpm and we want to create a realistic effect. This is especially important because it’s the first thing the audience will see and we need it to be powerful.
Section 2: Vivaldi, The Four Seasons. This is our coming together section so we needed something more uplifting where we can show the personality and fun side of each solider. This will show contrast from the robotic section before.
Section 3: 1976 by Hans Zimmer. This is the countdown section so the music needed to be intense as we are about to head into war. Once again this will show contrast from the light and happy section before.
Section 4: Halo Theme. This is our chaos section therefore the music is dramatic and allows us to choreograph in a way that will emphasis being in war.
Section 5: Moonlight Sonata by Arthur White. This is for the PTSD section. This piece of music was perfect because it has a strong melody to create sharper movements as well as a bass to create fluid movements. .
Section 6: a trumpet sound. This is our final section and we are ending with a minutes silence with the symbolic war trumpets in the back ground. This will give the audience time to reflect on our piece and feel the emotions of the story we performed.
After discussing the music, we worked hard to choreograph our coming together section. We used the motif that Erin and Lucy created in a previous lesson and developed it into a group piece of choreography. We wanted to show the soldiers in their training for war, having fun together and showing their individuality. We incorporated playful floor work in this section, mimicking an army crawl. In this section, we have three people sat on the floor together as friends (Lucy, Ella and Louisa) whilst the other three are dancing in unison with jumps and sharp movements to portray army boot camp training. Then we decided that Lucy would shout at the three people stood up and we would do one of our gestures, a salute, thinking we were called to attention. We then laugh it off and swap places with the people sat on the floor. The video below shows this section.
At the end of the lesson we showed this to our classmates who then gave us feedback. One student actually started crying as she said our piece was so emotional, especially as we are showing the soldiers as people with personalities. This is exactly how we wanted this section to come across to the audience. Our main correction was to make sure we keep in character during the acting sections and keep it up throughout the whole piece.
Very detailed blog post caitlin! I really enjoyed reading this. Why is it important to get feedback from your classmates? Do you find it useful to get feedback from them?
ReplyDeleteIt is very important to get feedback from other classmates who aren’t part of my group choreography. This is because they can watch from an outsiders perspective and be really critical and honest with what they see. We can see if the choreography is coming across how we want it to by asking the classmates the emotions they felt whilst watching the piece.
DeleteI found that this blog was laid out in a brilliant way, discussing in-depth the music choice and why. I specifically like how you are ending with trumpets to allow the audience to reflect on your dance. I think this will be incredibly effective for the overall outcome of your piece. I enjoy how you have incorporated your feedback into the blog. You mentioned that an audience member was brought to tears, how did that effect you as a group? Did it give your group confidence that your choreographic intension was evident throughout this phrase?
ReplyDeleteThank you for your great feedback Storm! We were really happy with the emotional feedback of a classmate crying as this is exactly how we wanted to come across to the audience. It let us know that we are on the right lines with our choreography and that our intention for the piece was coming across clearly.
DeleteI admire the fact that you have selected so many pieces of music. You have thought about your choices carefully and described them in a way that makes it clear to understand the relevance of each one. However, do you anticipate that it will be a challenge to choreograph to such a variety of sounds?
ReplyDeleteThank you for your feedback! Most of the sounds are all so different. For example, the marching, the coming together and the PTSD that it should hopefully inspire many choreographic ideas. It may be challenging towards the end with the pieces of music from countdown, chaos and fear all sounding very similar however we do plan to make one of these sections quite small to hopefully help make it less challenging.
Delete