Mhairi Wallace - First Year Choreography

The duet from ‘Infra’ choreographed by Wayne McGregor in 2008 was performed by The Royal Ballet. The word ‘Infra’ comes from the Latin word of ‘below’ (Roh.org.uk, 2019) , the stimulus is meant to show ‘emotions beneath the surface of human interaction’ and ‘explores the feelings we keep hidden from those around us’. Another stimulus was the 2007 London Bombings as people’s behaviour in London changed from being busy and ignoring people to showing a sense of empathy and care. (Spexe.org, 2016) This idea is shown within the duet as there are instances of love and affection shown. For example, the male dancer kisses the female dancer’s hand, they are seen to be hugging and holding hands amongst the chaos of the choreography. This may suggest that love and happiness is always around even in the most chaotic and busy times, such as in London. This also establishes a romantic emotion and relationship between the dancers. The use of pench é s and turns within the duet could suggest ...

Bibliography McGregor, W. (2019).  A choreographer's creative process in real time . [online] Ted.com. Available at: https://www.ted.com/talks/wayne_mcgregor_a_choreographer_s_creative_process_in_real_time [Accessed 25 Oct. 2019]. Youtu.be. (2019).  Max Richter and Wayne McGregor on the secrets of their creative process (The Royal Ballet) . [online] Available at: https://youtu.be/FV4CZCrs1Ew [Accessed 25 Oct. 2019].

I have chosen to use the DNA stimulus for my choreography solo. A lot of different factors influenced me to use this, one reason was that I have quite a lot of knowledge on DNA due to taking A Level Biology and have a lot of interest in DNA. Additionally, I liked the idea of creating a solo around the DNA stimulus because there was multiple pathways for narratives and creative processes. I’ve decided to create my solo based around the idea of dementia which is primarily caused from Alzheimer’s Disease, a neurodegenerative disease causing brain cells to die. When the brain cells die, the DNA is broken down which means they are no longer useful, causing the symptoms related to dementia. These include memory loss, disorientation, low control of emotions, language problems and decreased judgement due to damage to nerve cells within the brain. I have a few initial movement ideas, stemming from my biological knowledge on DNA which can link to choreographic devices withi...

In Lesson 5, we started to look at our stimuli and analyse them to help us come to a decision which stimuli we would use for our solo. We went into pairs and made notes on each of the 8 photos, commenting on different ideas and themes shown in the photo and different ways they could be interpreted.   The stimuli that interested me the most was the DNA photo. This interested me as shows the double helix, A human made up of lots of different structures and fade out into structures of DNA molecules linked. I liked this because you could link it to the idea of degenerate diseases or genetic diseases, or the idea of DNA breaking down due to the way the photo fades out. Also coming from a scientific background, I could use my understanding of DNA replication and structure to influence my choreography and motifs. For example, the structure of the DNA double helix is a spiral so that could influence circular movements and turns but the two DNA strands are reversed in order which ...

In our 4 th choreography lesson we started to watch work of Wayne McGregor and Crystal Pite, to give us inspiration for choreographic techniques. Pite listens to music first to help aid her choreography whereas McGregor’s movements come from visualisation and is more research based, so he makes the movement and then puts it to music. We used this method in our next creative task. We watched a video of raindrops falling on a window and how the droplets crash into each other causing another droplet to move, the stillness of some droplets but the knowledge that as water is a liquid even if it seems still, the particles are constantly moving and flowing. We were challenged to an improvisation task in which we were to make movement as if we were a raindrop. I did small movements to begin with by stayed constantly moving and then increased the speed and height of my movements. I also used the idea of rise and fall/release to show the idea of another droplet bumping into me causing me to m...

Justin Peck ‘In countenance of kings’ We watched ‘In Countenance of Kings’ and made notes based on questions on observations made throughout. Thoughts and feelings towards the piece I thought the piece was really interesting due to the shapes and pathways used such as circles which gave quite a mechanical feel, like cogs turning. The way the dancers change from being in groups to duets and solos make it seem quite chaotic but it is also neat and well-rehearsed, like an organised mess. Also, the fact that the dancers were doing classical dancing in trainers rather than ballet shoes or pointe shoes gave the piece a more modern day feel. I enjoyed the fact that it kept me on the edge of my seat as I was never sure what would happen next and particularly liked when suspense built as the dance never pauses making it seem busy and when the dancers repeated the same movements several times at the end with more dancers joining in each time. The camera angle really intensifies t...