Choreographic Devices and Motif Development

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 movement around the idea of smooth-flowing spiralling qualities that I based the ocean section around. One theme I repeated through this improvisation section was moving through various attitude positions. As this captures the smooth and spiralling qualities I was looking for, this made perfect sense to be my ocean motif. First shown in the 'ocean surface' section, I use this motif to signify to the audience when referencing the ocean in my piece.



Bibliography:

Doogan Jones, ciara (2024) motif notes.

O’Neill, S. (2018) How Crystal Pite builds her striking choreographic phrases, CBCnews. Available at https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.4846069 (Accessed: 25 November 2023).


Preston-Dunlop, V. (2014) Looking at dances: A choreological perspective on choreography. 4th edn. Hampshire: Noverre Press. 




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