Ciaras Choreography Blog

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...