All Conference Presentations, Performances and Exhibits
Strawberries
Location
Guzman 114
Start Date
4-14-2016 6:30 PM
End Date
4-14-2016 7:00 PM
Student Type
Undergraduate - Honors
Faculty Mentor(s)
Marina Hotchkiss, BFA
Presentation Format
Exhibit
Abstract/Description
With a broadness that referenced the vast nature of consciousness, I divided my cast into two groups. Group A would be the right brain; group B the left. I hoped to investigate how the mind connects sensation and desire to reality and I wanted to challenge communication with my dancers in a way that would encourage them to participate in each stage of construction with heightened attention to what would eventually be the overall statement of the piece. I didn’t know what we would say, and I found that although I was encouraged by the lack of necessity to produce a statement, my sense of time and urgency was simultaneously distorted, leading to many last minute decisions.
From the start I was fueled by an inclination to connect bodies in space. One of the most intriguing aspects of crafting ‘Strawberries’, was the duet work. I was repeatedly inspired by our responses to touch. What excited me most was recognizing the trust that had been established within the group. There was a willingness to explore tactility. We focused on humanizing touch and finding poetic nuance to the ways in which bodies organically intertwine. Although some duets were lengthier than others, it was important to me that each dancer experienced a moment of contact with another onstage. There was an air of darkness that was pervading the mood of the piece and, without wanting to affect that, I felt the best way to move through such a feeling was to establish love within the cast, decisively real, through relationship.
Thinking about what ‘Strawberries’ represented I was struck with the concept of instancy in relation to mortality. In the beginning I was interested in manifestation, how the body explores thought, and if emotions alone can establish connection, but by the end of our journey I had become more in tune with honoring the uniqueness of the present. Realizing the resonance of each moment overwhelmed me with both a feeling of immense gratitude for the constant flux of life and concurrently a tender panic regarding the ungraspable nature of existence. It was a dichotomous moment of melancholy hope for all that can potentially be, and an adjusted perspective on realism, specifically concerning the elusiveness of time.
Witnessing the piece onstage I was grateful for the place we had found. With the understood awareness of the blankness that had been our beginning, the movement that had evolved, without the force of a pre-established blueprint, was an encouraging attainment. What struck me most during the show was how influenced I’ve been by the artists I admire in the Bay Area. Seeing my art onstage I was viewing, in many ways, what had touched me from the work of others. Not only was my movement a collage of other movement-languages but my dancers were performing through bodies that are being continually crafted by the choreographers they respect. It was a beautiful image of interrelatedness. I feel as though if we can practice reading dance as a form of expressive communication, an evolved repertoire of technical vocabulary is an undeniable progression in the advancement of concert dance.
Strawberries
Guzman 114
With a broadness that referenced the vast nature of consciousness, I divided my cast into two groups. Group A would be the right brain; group B the left. I hoped to investigate how the mind connects sensation and desire to reality and I wanted to challenge communication with my dancers in a way that would encourage them to participate in each stage of construction with heightened attention to what would eventually be the overall statement of the piece. I didn’t know what we would say, and I found that although I was encouraged by the lack of necessity to produce a statement, my sense of time and urgency was simultaneously distorted, leading to many last minute decisions.
From the start I was fueled by an inclination to connect bodies in space. One of the most intriguing aspects of crafting ‘Strawberries’, was the duet work. I was repeatedly inspired by our responses to touch. What excited me most was recognizing the trust that had been established within the group. There was a willingness to explore tactility. We focused on humanizing touch and finding poetic nuance to the ways in which bodies organically intertwine. Although some duets were lengthier than others, it was important to me that each dancer experienced a moment of contact with another onstage. There was an air of darkness that was pervading the mood of the piece and, without wanting to affect that, I felt the best way to move through such a feeling was to establish love within the cast, decisively real, through relationship.
Thinking about what ‘Strawberries’ represented I was struck with the concept of instancy in relation to mortality. In the beginning I was interested in manifestation, how the body explores thought, and if emotions alone can establish connection, but by the end of our journey I had become more in tune with honoring the uniqueness of the present. Realizing the resonance of each moment overwhelmed me with both a feeling of immense gratitude for the constant flux of life and concurrently a tender panic regarding the ungraspable nature of existence. It was a dichotomous moment of melancholy hope for all that can potentially be, and an adjusted perspective on realism, specifically concerning the elusiveness of time.
Witnessing the piece onstage I was grateful for the place we had found. With the understood awareness of the blankness that had been our beginning, the movement that had evolved, without the force of a pre-established blueprint, was an encouraging attainment. What struck me most during the show was how influenced I’ve been by the artists I admire in the Bay Area. Seeing my art onstage I was viewing, in many ways, what had touched me from the work of others. Not only was my movement a collage of other movement-languages but my dancers were performing through bodies that are being continually crafted by the choreographers they respect. It was a beautiful image of interrelatedness. I feel as though if we can practice reading dance as a form of expressive communication, an evolved repertoire of technical vocabulary is an undeniable progression in the advancement of concert dance.
Comments
The thesis itself is an 8 minute dance performance to Alberto Ginastera's, String Quartet No. 1, Op. 20: III. Calmo e poetico.