Testing Ground

The end the semester is nearing, and Testing Ground is tonight. My piece has changed form considerably since I first thought about doing this, but it’s ended up in a place I like. First off, I couldn’t get as many people as I wanted to do the piece, so a lot of my ideas ended up not being doable. But I ended up with two very hard-working girls who have been very willing to go along with me on this short journey. I decided to start the work by leading the girls through a visualization, in a similar manner to how Anjanette assisted the cast of Performance Ensemble in creating work. I started them on the ground in shavasana, or relaxation pose.  Audibly, I led tried to lead them through a journey based on friendship and betrayal. It was a calming and focusing experience for all of us involved. It got my wheels turning, and let me connect with the girls and the material. Once we finished the journey, I had them recreate it through movement, and this movement has become the basis for the beginning of the piece. While they were a little hesitant at first, both my girls have embraced this organic creation of movement/dance, and have both offered up great ideas to help expand the piece. With the rest of the piece, we’ve played with some ideas of fear and survival to lead into a section where they recreate portions of my choreography from Performance Ensemble, but this time without weapons. It’s actually fascinating to watch because while they’re mimicking sword movements, it’s with their hands and arms, so in a way it looks like hand to hand combat. I’m very excited to present it tonight. What I’m going to ask the audience for tonight is for feedback on how I could proceed from here with the piece, if I would chose to for any reason. How I could make the beginning more dynamic, what could I do to continue the piece after the fight, and how I could I work more on incorporating my combat training into dance. I’m also interested to see what other pieces will be presented. This will probably be one of my final blog posts before the end of the project, but I may continue with this blog as I continue on in my combat training. I’ll also try to post some video soon of Performance Ensemble. Stay tuned.