So Speaketh Sister Johnson: Solo Body Project

In general, I found this first assignment EXTREMELY exciting. I feel that the lessons learned were vast and monumental in my life as a whole, which is amusing to me because it was only a week long process that this piece came into being. Initially I was apprehensive of choreographing a solo on myself, but I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. My process was very simple and I was lucky enough to find a Dominic Walsh video that was not just inspirational, but also relevant to how I felt about my own choreography.

I did not have a fancy process like I have experienced with other choreographers. When I started my piece I felt that it would be best to start with a gesture that felt good to me selfishly and that was relevant to my concept of self-worth and identity. The gesture was the low lunge where I put my hands against the skin of my neck and face. From here I tried to really get into the sensuality and emotion of it as a means of leading myself kinesthetically to the next step. It was vital for me to keep this kind of mind-set as I believe it took my choreography and performance to a stage-worthy level. My process met a hiccup when I decided to create another separate phrase as the beginning. Upon meeting with Ellie we both discovered that the dynamic of the new phrase was not appropriate as a beginning. The relationship of the two phrases did not make any sense. To solve this problem I switched back to the original phrase as the beginning and I made the transition bigger and more important. I decided to end with my tactile gesture slowly traversing across the floor back to my original spot as my life seems to go in loops; always revisiting familiar areas in different ways and often as a different person.

The solo body has the possibility to be a really important part of an ensemble dance and has the potential to very clearly display a message in a solo piece. Regardless of the perceived quality of the solo body, most audiences will remember the solo before they remember the ensemble, and if they don't remember a solo I think it would be safe to assume that the solo dancer did not earn their pay check. Having said that, a successful solo can completely integrate all parts of a piece. More specifically, in an ensemble work such as Blessed by Bebe Miller there are usually many things happening on stage at one time and then all of the sudden there is a solo (testimonial as Bebe and Sarah Gamblin have called it) that very clearly affirms the lyrics of the music as well as relates it specifically to the experiences and emotions of the dancer. Without these solos, the ensemble would either be dancing ALMOST arbitrarily to what the lyrics are conveying OR the ensemble would be spouting out so many diverse phrases that the "specialness" of the intention created by Bebe would be completely lost and the audience would be overstimulated and later bored.

In a situation like this assignment where the solo is the whole piece it is important that the dancer command the space and I felt really challenged by this as I am often not given the opportunity to have the stage to myself. Something that was just as important to me as keeping true to my intention was taking risks with my movement. The risks I took were mostly related to looking like a fool. For example, during the beginning of my piece I do a lot of off-center movement which is risky because when I push it to the maximum, the likeliness of me falling is very great. This might not be such a big deal to other people. Many dancers say that falling is exciting to do and to watch, but this was my identity piece and as I have confronted my issues with being pretentious in life, I also must confront that pretentiousness in my dancing. I hope that as I grow as a person and as a dancer that I will be able to take more and more risks without fear of looking like a fool as a means of captivating the audience. This will not only show my intention clearly, it will show my intention with a fire under it. This is my main goal as a choreographer.

I understood at the beginning of this project that there would be areas that would need improvement even after the rehearsed and finished product. Areas in which I could improve specifically include my positioning within the space as it relates to the way that the movement is seen from the front by the audience. The example of this was the spinal articulation that I did a few times traveling upstage. The easiest way to fix this would have been to make the movement travel on a shallow diagonal. An alternative way to fix it would be to make the movement's intention different. When watching my video I notice that the spinal wave made my head fling back quickly like the end of a whip. This could have been the true intention of the movement and so I could have just flung my head back as I advanced upstage.
Another area that needs work for me is my phrasing with the music. I get very rigid when I dance and I think that rigidness translated into my choreography as rushing the phrases. I just need to remember that I must first resolve one thing before moving on to the next. Shelley has said to me before to "really make the movement a thing." Which I perceived to mean that every moment has to be a complete 100% moment or else it is thrown in the garbage. This will probably be the primary change from this first project to my next project because it is really starting to make sense to me in all areas of dance and even my outside life.

So i discovered my weaknesses at the end of my performance and as I watched my video I also saw my strengths. I felt that my intention was clearly stated by my motifs and my choices of dynamics. This may not be as clear as I am thinking it is because I cannot watch it as a fresh audience, but I do believe I choreographed very clearly. I also noticed that many of the students in class enjoyed my spatial patterns and felt that they made sense and were exciting to watch.

My inspirational video is posted in the entry below. I admire this Walsh piece because there is not doubt that the movement stems from ballet, but Walsh has this kind of bravery with his movement that says to me ballet can be conceptual just as modern can. The clarity with which Walsh choreographs is precise and exact within his dancers as well which is another reason I was inspired by this piece. There were no parts in the dance that were missed by the dancers and so there was no part of the dance missed by me; the audience. The clarity is so important to me as an audience member and so I hope that I may possess this quality as a choreographer and as a dancer. (this video is posted in the blog post from a couple of days ago)

The challenge with this assignment was making a difference between the like me and "not like me" movement. Just because I put something on a list...does that make it not like me? I've definitely done some of these things before so labeling them as not like me is very difficult. When I got started I finally had to say to hell with it and just get to work. I put movement in my work with which I am normally not comfortable that included fast percussive jabs into the air and flailing movement. As far as not me movement was concerned, this was good enough for me.

Like me:
1. Direct
2. Bound
3. Expansive
4. Light
5. Sustained
6. Flexible
7. Undulations
8. Dense movement followed by vertical stillness
9. Large traversing movements (ex. leaps across stage)
10. Tactile

Not Like me:
1. Free
2. Floppy/flailed/thrown movement
3. Constantly closed in
4. Extremely fast
5. Small/midrange movements
6. Stillness without growth
7. Feminine
8. Movements directed to my front
9. Dense "floor" choreography
10. Uncontrolled movement