Blog Post Eleven - Further Creative Development

My Starting objectives for creating choreography first came from my interpretation of the image stimulus. I analysed the contrasting elements of the harsh lines and the fluidity of the water, as well as looking further into themes of perception influenced by the two contrasting images of the woman in the image; the 'normal image' and the 'distorted image' seen through the reflection. To communicate these feelings of not being happy with the way we look and perceive ourselves I used a significant mirror motif to emphasize the symbolism of mirrors and reflections in the choreography. I made sure to incorporate this motif and used motif development throughout the piece beginning to end as an overarching theme running throughout the choreography.

As the choreographic process developed I began to research further into perceptions and came
across the mental disorder of body dysmorphia. I feel this topic fit well with the themes I had already
been exploring through the choreography and was a good topic to bring more awareness to.
Therefore to communicate this more clearly I began to implement and embellish gestures onto the
existing choreography. For example the use of hands clenched around the head to highlight the chaos
of thoughts controlling the mind. From further research I discovered how the face is the most common
part of the body a person with this disorder struggles with, therefore I made sure to incorporate more
use of trying to morph the face. However the biggest piece of feedback I received was the dance looked
too 'pretty' instead of being more literal to really bring the message across.
For instance instead of using a traditional ballet arms coming through fifth position I adapted this
to involve a contraction with the hands clenching the stomach, these comparisons can be viewed
in the links below. 

8 November 2021 - YouTube

6 December 2021 - YouTube 

Something I found difficult throughout the process was fitting counts of the choreography to the music. As I started the process using the Chance method of using the music separately to the choreography there were moments in which the choreography went against the tempo and rhythm of the music. However I decided to keep working like this as I liked how sometimes it didn't always go together and helped communicate the distortion of thoughts in the mind. Symbolic of how we think we look in contrast to what our mind may distort the image of ourselves to look like and this was reflected in the relationship between the choreography and music.

1 December 2021 - YouTube

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