The choreographic elements in our dance piece all help to create the war like atmosphere and texture that we wanted our piece to have. As a group we looked at actions and dynamics .We looked at different qualities, and how our choice of movement would give differing effects. We decided to use a number of different styles, like fast and strong to show a battle scene with slow, gentle movements showing death and destruction. In terms of dynamics, we used the music and went against it. We also went against the tempo which created an interesting contrast.
We also looked at the relationship between us and the audience and how are spacing on stage would create an effect on our audience, and how the tone of our performance would be put across. We wanted to create a big impacted on our audience, so we decided to use all of the stage and as many levels as we could. This would symbolize a battle field, being so spread out at some points and so close together as well. We also used very close movements as part of a big group to show a battle, and symbolize what devastation war can do.
Phrasing was also a large part that we had to consider. We needed to maintain the audiences interest by using phrases of varying lengths and complexity. One phrase would be very slow with pauses to create pictures in the audiences minds, ( Flowing motion ) and other phrases would be fast with no pauses to show rage within are piece. Another device we used was Canon. In our dance piece as a group we decided to use Flexible Cumulative form. The Flexible Cumulative form re-creates a lost moment in our dance piece and helps the audience to recall what happens at the start. Canon creates texture and complexity “as it has unity and variety built into it.” (Blom, L.A&Tarin Caplin,L, 1989, Page111.) We also found Unison a very strong choreographic element to use in our piece. It symbolizes the solders training and getting ready for war . Unison gave a piece a military feel to it, which is what we where trying to create. Our motif developed through out the piece in order to achieve coherence and emphases on the relationship between us as we portrayed the solider getting ready and actually in a war. It created an impact as it was showing the bond between all the soilders, the one thing they had in common. We also used fragmentation at times to show the separation that war can bring. (Being incomplete.)
All in all, we have an original angle on the piece. We interpreted the poem as being about war and the music we used was totally original so there was no previous associations with it. We used each other for support and paid great attention to detail, so we thought about our costume and how this worked in pairs. There seemed to be problems at the beginning with understanding the work, but the final piece turned out well.
