Mhairi Wallace - First Year Choreography

Genus - Wayne McGregor   ‘Genus’ by Wayne McGregor was created in 2007 and was performed by Paris Opera Ballet. It was inspired from Charles Darwin’s ‘On the origin of species’ and is based around the theories about humankind. (Studio Wayne McGregor, 2019)   “I was interested to see how a ballet vocabulary could morph and mutate through a series of iterations, different kinds of physical attitudes, and all that seemed to coalesce around this idea of what is the origin of something.” (thestar.com, 2019) The piece is a male solo which is contrasting to ‘Infra’ and ‘Woolf Works’ which I have reviewed on my blog as they were a duet and a group piece. The male dancer is wearing a black bike-tard which has a white panel down the centre front and back. This may have been used to show an organism or portray a stage in the evolution of humans. In contrast, dancers in ‘Infra’ and ‘Woolf works’ both wore tight fitting nude leotards so the costumes didn’t particularly add a c...

During our choreography lesson this week I performed the solo I have created based on dementia. The aim of this task was to be able to perform in the space that we will use for our assessment and also the receive feedback for our solo to allow us to make improvements. Our learning outcomes are: 1.        Critically analyse and evaluate a variety of works by a chosen choreographer within the current dance scene. 2.        Demonstrate the application of theories, processes, devices and technical dance skills to choreograph, create and design original dance to pre-selected stimuli. 3.        Critically evaluate and reflect on personal choreographic work and the creative processes used. I personally believe I have fulfilled these as I have analysed and evaluated Wayne McGregor’s works including ‘Infra’ and ‘Woolf Works’, commenting on the movement, lighting, costumes and evaluating why they...

Woolf Works by Wayne McGregor was choreographed in 2015 and was performed by The Royal Ballet. The stimulus of the piece was “ themes from three of Woolf's landmark novels,  Mrs Dalloway ,  Orlando , and  The Waves , with elements of her letters, essays and diaries.” (Studio Wayne McGregor, 2019). Similar to ‘Infra’, the music was composed by Max Richter and the score was specially commissioned for the piece incorporating electronic and orchestral music (Roh.org.uk, 2019). The piece starts with one large white spotlight on the stage with travelling sequences across the spotlight in pairs. The duet work includes jumps such as pas de chats, temps levés and small leaps. There is also travelling lifts with jumps, kicks and slides, also plies and lots of body ripples.  The movement is constantly drifting into and out of the spotlight like an eb and flow. The theme of moving through the spotlight is continued throughout the piece as they increase to 3 spo...

In this week’s choreography lesson, I continued creating my solo based on dementia. So far, I have managed to create the beginning section, part of the middle and a few core motifs which I aim to use choreographic devices to develop within my piece. A challenge I having been facing recently is trying to link my movement to my stimulus and chosen practitioner. To overcome this, I decided to re-watch some of Wayne McGregor work and made notes on different movements that he uses to ensure his influence and processes are clear within my piece. Some movements he frequently uses are leg extensions, body ripples and lots of sharp and precise footwork and arm placements. I have started to show this by doing arabesques, low développé s and kicks with resistance. In the future, I want to add more sharp, angular movements to try and include his stylisation more. I also did further research into the effects that dementia has on someone mentally and physically so I have a deeper understanding of...

In this blog post I will be discussing my research into my stimulus of DNA which will help me explore different ideas in my choreography. From my stimulus of DNA 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.  Dementia is usually diagnosed in people aged 65 and over, but can also affect someone younger in early onset dementia. Although there are 200 types of dementia, there are 5 more common subtypes; Alzheimer’s, vascular dementia, dementia with Lewy bodies, frontotemporal dementia and mixed dementia. The most common cause of dementia is Alzheimer’s Disease. It is caused when an abnormal protein surrounds the brain cells and another protein damages it. This damages the nerve cells meaning that messages cannot be passed from the brain to the body. When the brain cells die, the DNA is broken down meaning it is no longer useful, causing the symptoms of de...