Ciaras Choreography Blog

In this blog, I will be analysing choreography from 'The Seasons' Canon' by Crystal Pite, in particular, the Spring section.  (You Tube, 2018) After watching the choreography a few times, I've interpreted the movement to portray the migration of birds and the awakening of a swarm of insects and other animals after a cold winter. In the beginning Pite positioned a group of dancers in a huddle slowly rising to face a glimmering golden light which shines brighter as the performance continues, which I think could represent animals coming out of hibernation. The dancers then proceed to rise, fall and swerve in unison which gave me the impression the Pite could possibly have used starlings as her stimulus for this section. It also reminded me of the almost  hivemind that animals seem to adopt when in migration patterns. The unnatural contorted and sharp movements Pite used in the second section is what reminded me of a swarm of insects. The stance the dancers take almost se...

The choreographer whose work I have chosen to analyse is  Anne Teresa De Keersmaker and in particular an extract from her work 'Rosa'. The choreography performed by Keersmaker and Michele Anne De Mey consisted of repeated synchronised swinging of the arms, shifting foot positions, turning of the body, spotting of the head, and walking. I was first struck by how mesmerising and trance-like the choreography was and came to the conclusion that it's due to how musical the movement is. Each movement seemed to correspond with every underlying beat and accent of the music (Steve Reich - 'Come Out'). When choreographing this piece, I imagine Keersmaker thoroughly studied the music before beginning the choreographic process. This attention to detail provided a mesmerising and trance-like experience when watching.  (You Tube, 2009) The costume choice also amplifies this effect as the short hair and plain white dresses create little to no movement themselves so as not to distr...

When choreographing a piece as a group or alone issues might arise which will have to be worked through. In our most recent choreography class, some obstacles we faced were issues with spacing, time management, pathways, and transitions between sections. Seeing these issues being resolved also helped me identify potential roadblocks I might encounter when teaching my choreography and got me thinking about how I might avoid them. Issues with pathways arose when staging the negative memory section for the first time. Olivia was colliding with Taylor to get into her space when travelling between the diagonal line into the 3,4,2 formation. To combat this, Olivia and Taylor swapped places which allowed them both to get to their positions for the next section without colliding. A similar issue of transitions came up when linking the positive memory section and the negative memory diagonal line formation. As these two sections of the piece were choreographed separately and went straight from ...

The section of the piece that I'm responsible for represents the subject trying to seek help/treatment after coming to accept that their DID had flared up again. There is a slight build in the music with a sense of urgency and desperation and I tried to create movement that reflects this. For example, I included a hand crawling up the side of the body and swirling around the head to convey negative thought patterns and behaviours creeping back into the subjects mentality I also included lots of urgent reaching with the arms to represent trying to get help and these movements are often followed by a drop in levels to represent falling back into a dissociation or perhaps feelings of shame surrounding their condition.  I began choreographing by filming myself improvising to the music. I focused on the context of the piece, but overall I tried not to overthink what I was doing. Then after watching back the footage, I picked out sections that I liked or wanted to develop. I then assembl...

In the classes leading up to starting our piece, we were set short choreography tasks to help introduce us to choreographic devices. Choreographic devices are tools that can be used to help create or develop movement. I found this immensely helpful in learning how to bring ideas to a group and getting out of my comfort zone with the style of music used. Since starting to develop our piece, we have begun to experiment with the use of choreographic devices.  The first choreographic device used in our piece is imagery. In the beginning, we are huddled in a clump like formation representing the brain as depicted in our stimulus. The brain imagery also ties back to one of the main themes, mental health. Following this, we used a choreographic device called split focus. This split focus begins when one by one, we break away from the beginning structure using set pathways in the character of different emotions. This movement creates a split focus for the audience. In addition to this, we ...

This week we worked on the structure of the piece in relation to the music and how it tied back to the theme of mental health and DID. To decide on the structure we first listened to the music (Tokio Myers - Bloodstream) and made note of  where there were significant shifts in the mood of the piece. Secondly we brainstormed what those sections could represent and resulted with a timeline of a DID affected persons struggle with everyday life . Finally we chose sections that we would individually like to be responsible for organising. This is our final structure as of now: 1- Brain imagery- beginning as a group 2- Everyone representing different emotions 3- Nostalgic memories 4- Negative memories 5- Negative memories trigger a divide in personality 6- A moment of calm before clash with inner self 7- clash/resistance with inner self 8- Realisation that something was wrong 9- Seeking help 10- Fight with inner self 11- Regained sense of normality but the disorder is still present The se...