Ciara Doogan Jones, Advanced Independent Choreography (MU60362O)

Over the course of this choreography module, I have been given the opportunity to develop my choreographic skills further, identify my weaknesses as well as enable me to learn and experiment with other choreographers' techniques and processes.  Something I built upon over the course of this project was creating a more vital link in the choreography to the stimuli using imagery, as well as creating a narrative link using motifs. Generating choreography in this way helped me move away from relying so heavily on improvisation and also allowed me to feel more connected to the piece and stimuli. With regard to my chosen choreographer, Crystal Piet, I immensely enjoyed observing her work and gaining deeper insight into her choreographic process. I found how Pite clearly and respectfully conveys modern-day issues through contemporary dance to be impactful on my piece; even though my piece does not have as strong a nar rative, I still took great inspiration from her work. Moving forward, I...

I am now at a stage in my process where I am cleaning and modifying my choreography. An issue I ran into leading up to this point was that I would go to clean a section of choreography and end up removing it from the piece entirely. While this is a normal part of creating choreography, I was doing this repeatedly and not making any progress on finishing the piece. This set me behind my timeline of where I would like to be in terms of cleaning and refining the choreography.  A concept Pite mentions is ensuring to include moments of pause and clarity within choreography ( Pite, 2022). This stood out to me as while I have been cleaning my piece, I have sometimes noticed that it appears 'mushy' and too consistent. Initially, to combat this, I had adjusted certain movements to have a sharper dynamic, and while this helped, it didn't fully resolve the issue for me. Including these moments of pause, I feel, really did add clarity and shape to the piece, and it is something I will ...

In this blog post, I will critique the trailer of Crystal Pite and Jonathon Young's "The Revisor". After watching the trailer initially, the central aspect that stood out to me was the intense and emotional atmosphere created by both the performers and Owen Belton's composition. Through the extract, dancers almost constantly portrayed extremes or exaggerated emotions on their faces, whether it be anger, joy, grief or jealousy.  (Slobodian, 2020) As the trailer progressed, I got the impression the piece may have an underlying theme of war or conflict in a historical setting. I concluded that quite a few dancers wore military uniforms or period-influenced costumes. In contrast, there were some dancers in modern contemporary costumes. Regarding props, Pite has incorporated many furniture pieces, such as a couch, desk, candles, and free-standing doors. Pite's use of props and dim lighting helps shift the focus inwards and onto the dancers and the message they're t...

At this point in my choreographic process, I have finalized the music for my piece and have created around three solid minutes of choreography in this blog; I will be reflecting on what has worked well for me throughout these last few sessions and where I feel there is a need for improvement. One area I feel has hindered my progress in producing choreography so far is finalizing the music for the piece. While it was my intention to have my music chosen and edited by the second week, I found myself overwhelmed by the idea of choosing just one or two songs when there were so many others that would suit the theme of the piece well. This dilemma led to me flipping between music choices and mainly focusing on choreographic motifs in the practical sessions, as I needed music on which to base my choreography. Had I made a decision earlier, I would be a lot further along with my choreography than I am at present, and it is a valuable lesson learned. An area that I received feedback on during t...

In this blog post, I will analyse an excerpt from Crystal Pite's 2012 work 'Solo Echo', which she created for Nederlands Dans Theater.   Immediately, what first struck me about the piece was the staging; dark shadowy lighting with a single dim spotlight illuminating centre stage, along with the absence of props, created a strong focus on the dances. The piece also featured a strip light highlighting a fluttery snow effect, which adds to the already bleak and wintery atmosphere of Pite's work. The dancers featured in the extract are masculine-presenting and are all costumed in the same full-length black pants, socks, and matching black tank tops. This was an interesting costume choice as, to me, coupled with the dim lighting and dark backdrop, the costume is only just perceivable, and an emphasis on the head and arms is created.  The choreography was mainly performed in duets and consisted of a myriad of fluid partner work showcasing a variety of dynamics and levels. I ...

Based on my initial thoughts, feelings, and research, I created improvisation tasks using imagery to help circulate ideas (Preston-Dunlop, 2014). I began this process by creating a mind map of words, textures and concepts that I associated with the moon and ocean. This process helped me have a clear image in my mind of what I wanted my movement to represent. For example, for the second section of moon choreography, the concepts derived were round circular movements, lack of gravity, and phases. Extracting a few movements from my improv that I liked, I still felt they appeared one-dimensional and flat. I then implemented 'embellishment', a choreographic device Crystal Pite uses when building phrases (O'Neill, 2018). Overall, this process resulted in a phrase that was a lot more intricate and nuanced to look at. It also made me focus on connecting words describing my stimuli to movement.  (Doogan Jones, 2024) While improvising to create the ocean motif, I tried to centre my m...

  Wh en creating choreography, drawing inspiration from other practitioners' work can be helpful. Often, choreographers who have been in the industry have years' worth of knowledge and experience behind their creative process, so I find watching interviews is a valuable tool for learning different devices and how they choose to convey their stimuli in the movement. I also enjoy seeing other industry trends and what makes them so popular with the public. It can also be interesting to observe aspects similar to my work and how the differences between them affect the impact of the piece. (Randle, 2013) Crystal Pite is a Canadian choreographer and the director of her dance company, Kidd Pivot, which she founded in 2002. In her career, Pite has created more than 50 works for various companies such as Nederlands Dans Theater, The Royal Ballet, and Paris Opera Ballet (Crystal, et al.). From the few pieces I've watched online thus far, Pite's work has a strong contemporary t...

In this blog post, I will talk about my final choice of stimulus for my choreography piece as well as an in-depth explanation of why I selected it. When exploring possible stimuli to base my piece around, I was discussing different elements of nature. I was torn between creating it around the different biomes of the natural world or on how humanity's relationship and perspective with the moon has shifted through history. After brainstorming my first option, I found I was mainly keen and inspired to do the section focused on the ocean and from there, I decided to combine the two concepts.  I have chosen to base my piece around the relationship between the ocean and the moon. My aim for the choreography is to guide the audience through this world. It begins with a first impression/judgement of the ocean, where it appears calm and serene, then spiralling down beneath the surface where you can physically feel the turmoil of the ocean's currents and see that it is bustling and full ...

During our first practical choreography lesson, we explored several different creative tasks to help generate movement.  Within the initial choreography lesson, our first task involved using renowned dancer and choreographer Merce Cunningham's 'chance method' of choreography. Within Cunningham's method, movements, placements, repetition and even music are selected randomly through actions such as dice rolling, coin flipping or a random number generator. After splitting into groups, we were each tasked with choosing a random number between one and twenty. Then, given a book, one person would hold the book and flip through the pages while another would randomly say when they were to stop flipping. We would then use one of the numbers from earlier to count to a corresponding word on the page, which I then noted. After repeating this process several times, we came to a completely random list of words. As a group, we then discussed different ideas or movement dynamics these ...