Seven Dealdly Sins

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Seven Deadly Sins was the stimuli that we used during the Dance Festival at Sutton Community Academy - The Dance Festival is a showcase of dance acts from schools and inderpendent peers to show off their talent of dance - We (Sixth Form Performng Arts Group) showcased our dance of the Severn Deadly Sins and below will show you the path on how we put together our dance routine:

In The Beginning

Claire (our wonderful dance teacher who has paiticance like a saint with me) gave the whole group diffrent areas to focous on in order to then relay our ideas back to the group, my job was video or background technical - It was my job to make sure that the special effects were relevent to the whole piece - The effects on which I had put together was that of a spiral effcet mixed in with a elderly man laughing, I used this to make the audiance unnerved by the actions on the screen and the flashers of the man smiling really puts them on edge, everything reflected to the movements on stage as well:

Jessica's Stimuli was Literature, and as we all know she makes amazing poems,

"They say seven devils own the seven seas

They’re the reason many sailors do not return
We, on our island, are isolated in greed:
The taste of power corrupts those in need.

She tells me seven devils own the seven seas

Between the swigs of mead and forks of meat she feeds me
Gluttony cannot find me whilst on land
Safe between by parapets of sand.

She simpers ‘seven devils own the seven seas’.
Beautiful lady! Stories to amuse.
She beckons me again, lust eyes wide and inviting
How do you refuse a creature of pure beauty, so enticing?

Servants whisper that I have been corrupted by the seven devils who own the seven seas
HAHA! Fools that they are! Who dares to claim their King is corrupt!
I keep them protected with my power and pride
They’re lucky that they’re allied.

Mother once told me that seven devils own the seven seas.
I slept through the day and watched the ceiling through the night
She calls me sloth, but a must disagree.

Why work when sleeping is free?

Seven devils own the seven seas?
I want to own the seven seas!
Devils don’t scare me; I want what I want NOW!
Envy is nothing, compared to me, what to see how?

Father told me as he died that seven devils own the seven seas.
It does not matter who own them; they all lead to his killer
Revenge, I am told, is never correct...
.... But how can I sit here when I can kill the only suspect?

Seven devils own the seven seas
Please please, mercy on me?
I have no place for lust or gluttony or envy or pride
What good is revenge or sloth or greed?

Please spare my mortal soul

How many sins can one man uphold?"

My Design

What I wanted is to have a complex lighting sequester which enabled the dances to be lit up in different spots to highlight certain points. I wanted multiple colors to represent different connertations of the dances and what they represented. The team then consolidate all of our ideas onto one massive page and then took the pros and cons of everyone ideas however I somehow managed to persuade the rest of the group to have my idea, how did I do that, anyway I did it, I made the video, put everything together then told the group where I got the videos from. Talk about throwing a spanner in the works. Before we go any further I should probably mention that I love Alton Towers, especially The Smiler! To the point where even if I mention it people just think "Here we go again" but once I sat down, had a cup of tea and told the group why I have chosen it and successfully it worked!

Worries?

 

 The day of the show, 

I have attempted to think of any way I could get out of this dance performance, it would break Claire's heart to see this but I really do hate to dance - In school productions its fine as I am on stage with other characters and I am with people who I am comfortable with, but when im dancing on stage just for that reason everyone will be judging and commenting on how you move so this made me worry, the secondary fact my body isn't well shaped that also made feel insecure. The day of the show I was being sick every hour, had head ache and stomach ache, I felt dissy every time I moved however I realized that due to many students dropping out, I had to go on and support my team!

Final Performance 

Can we all take a minute please to take note that my job was to sort the technical screen for the performance and that include knowing how to use basic slide show equipment, anyway back to the show - Everything was going smoothly, I ran off minutes before I was due on stage our dance routine to be sick, I came back and walked straight on stage, good start, the group performed their piece which was lovely, nothing went wrong, arms extended perfectly. Jumps were all in time. However on reflection some IDIOT (me) set the video so it played then paused on the random guy looking very weirdly at the audience for the remainder of the whole performance!

Dance Stimuli Workshop

Dance Stimuli Workshop

Stimuli – The aim of the lesson was to of researched a Stimuli to create a brief dance workshop, this then was produced and used within the class session to  create iconic dance pieces.

With not being in the lesson before hand, I was unable to annotate and to prepare for this workshop idea, however I did have a stimuli on which I wanted to pursue to enhance the disabilities of dance. My Stimuli was that of an article from the Smiler Accident – This article focused on the event on where the 16 million pound attraction finally got re-opened after the accident back in 2013

The Smiler in June 2013 was closed after one of the ride carriages collided with a stationary train halfway round the track. The two transit trains collided on due course round the batwing element of the ride. The Smiler Cost of 16 Million Pounds, after safety issue arises after the opened back In 2013, guide wheels and Blots holding the ride together have been reported to fall off. Upon the 9 Month investigation by the Health and Safety Executive to understand the issue of why the ride crashed and how the correct positions did nothing to report the issue. It was apparent that the lack of CCTV Cameras and the lack of training from the operating team which allowed a fifth train to go round the track all added to the possibilities why the attraction came to a gruesome ending which injured 16 passengers, 5 of which had to have their legs amputated.

The Stimuli of my dance – I wanted to focus more on the ‘Rollercoaster’ of emotion to which built up around the whole fascination of The Smiler, to when the ride crashed then the fascination of the ride re-opening. I wanted my workshop to not only focus on the tragedy of the event but to also I wanted to focus on how people with walking disabilities would adapt a dance routine to suit the song.

I split the 6 people into 3 groups of two – By which they partnered up and I allocated a disability to each of them. Some had no use of ANY of their legs, Some had ue of one leg and some had use of everything but one arm. It was their job then to come up with a motif of dance which could tell a story but then be adapted to suit people with needs.

The Graph shows the rate of happiness which the dances need to portray to the audience. This is show through facial expressions and how they move – The rate of speed on which they do certain dance move to show a symbolic signifier that this certain move could reflect of the tragedy of The Smiler, where as a large happy motion would signify that fellow riders are happy for the rollercoaster to be re-opened to the public.

In Conclusion, the dance routines showed a personal opinion of the dances whilst also taking into consideration the controversial subject which reflected in the work. Dances reacted well to the disabilities given to them. At first the dances were laughing and experimenting with the disabilities, some tucked their arm into their trousers while some dragged their leg across the floor. This is the type of controversial choreography that I want to focus on.

More Photos

Laben

Laban was a Hungarian dancer, director a theorist. He was born into a rich family that governed provinces within the Austro-Hungarian empire. He originally moved to Paris in order to study architecture, but then gained an interest in the relationship between human movement and space, as you do. It wasn't until Laban was 30 that he began to study the art of movement, known as Ausdruckstanz,

Labanotation is a systematic way of noting down movements. So, as all great minds do, he created his own method. Unlike using stick figures and words, he used a series of shapes and shades, as shown in the above picture, lovingly displayed by Laban himself. 

Laban used his notation for the following:

• To show the direction and level of the movement
• Which part of the body was actually doing the movement
• How long the movement occurred for
• The Dynamic quality of the movement

Changing The Scene Of Dance

Rudolf Laben Changed the way that dance was recorded on paper by adding complex diagrams and structures to his pieces. Degrees were put in place to encompass the being of the notation. Larben dedicated 20 years on finding ways to translate movements into diagrams.

Labennotoation diagrams constructed the foundations of a piece of choreography, the diagrams also included the Speed of an action - Whether this movement was to be made quickly or slowly - Space, how much space is required to ensure this movement is done safely

Laben used his notation to ensure the following:

To Show the Direction and Level of the movement, How long the movement occurred for, Which part of the body was actually doing the movement and finally the dynamic of quality of the movement.

Motif

Motif

We had two lessons on Motif, 

On Day one we looked at several Motifs. We also learnt that Motifs are a small sequence of dance moves put together that transitions into one another.

As we made our own Motif, this included 24 beats, Claire then brought each student to the whiteboard and gave us a Motif to study. 

Below is the video (In 2 parts) of the whole group putting their dance Motifs together.

Part 1

Part 2

Dance Relationship

The following video shows a clear judgment of relationship; this is by the eye contact, the close movement, the intimate proxemics are clearly visible. Taken from the hit Film/Musical 'Dirty Dancing'. The video shows a conventional dancing love story and can be viewed Here.

However, too challenge myself I looked into the relationship of abuse. So I used Sia, Elastic Heart

Comparison

During this lesson, we put into groups from last week. In my group was; Dionne, Keavey, Tilly and obviously me. Our dance routine was to dramatic piece of music

The following post will be about the comparison to the different moments:

This was the movement focusing on the music, The moves were in time with the music and showed true passion within each and every move. Contrasting to the video below the moves were reversed, slow points were turned into fast, soft transitions turned into a jagged and shocking movement. Please see the next issue.

The reason for these two videos is to show the original ideas and how the piece of music influenced the dance routine. From a choreographer point of view I would study the music first. I would picture the staging then adapt dance routine to the stage and the music. I would make sure that my dances are in time and beat with the music, the different dynamics I will use will show the power through the piece and show the proxemics between the dances on stage. Lighting will provide a big part as well. The lighting will show whether a dances is isolated from other dances, or if they are seen all as one.

8TH OF NOVEMBER

Carmel: I've always imagined what you're like in dance?

Summer: Its Amusing

Ant: Well... You've seen  Billy Elliot?

Carmel: Yeah

Ant: Yeah It's nothing like that!

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Lesson

In the lesson we learnt about different Dynamics of multiple dance routines. We looked at 'Nutcracker' (No Innuendo intended) and also looked at Edward Scissor Hands and how the dynamics of the dancers showed passion towards each other. This opened my eyes on how dance can show different levels of authority through proxemics and through facial expressions.

In my dance group the level of experience really shows me up, here I am surrounded by people who have experience of dancing since they were 3, or go to dancing classes out of school then theirs me when the closest thing to dancing is when I'm in bed and I have to wiggle around to find a comfortable position in bed. Dancing in this environment is quite daunting, so when our teacher, whom I don't give much credit to although I should because without her I would of broken down by now, she then takes these long complicated words and difficult dance moves and helps the less able of us to dance efficiently even with our lack of knowledge.

Another thing that Claire has told us to do is to write about the different subjects of dance.

When we first looked at this I again through "What the hell is she talking about?" However with her time and dedication to the subject and to us as students, she made it clear to me that although I didn't take this subject in GCSE, that I can an understand everything, and with that I made a spider diagram.

The diagram below WAS NOT created by me, however I do have one of these on my wall at home. But below is very similar: