Stimulus: Text

Stimulus

Clare gave us the task of creating a dance piece out of a piece of literature for this weeks lesson. In order to gain a variety of different types of text, Clare gave each of us a different style.

Some people had poems, some had newspaper articles, some had magazine cut outs, some had song lyrics.

oI was the one who was given the task of article.

Here’s the link to the article I chose:

http://www.smh.com.au/national/bad-to-the-bone-20110919-1khts.html

I chose this article due to the types of words used. Words like ‘emotionally hot’ or ‘literally cannot see the love in their mother’s eyes’. I wanted to do a dance that centred around the relationship between children, parents and healthcare professionals.

Who was who?

In the class, there was Dionne, Holly, Luke, Tilly and Clare. If Anthony was there, then I would have liked to have split the class into two groups. Instead, I worked with the change and had the dance be a group piece with two mother, two children and one healthcare professional.

Tilly and Clare were mother and daughter

Dionne and Luke were mother and son

Holly was the healthcare professional

In the dance, the mothers manipulated the healthcare professional. This was done by the healthcare professional's movements becoming robotic and solid as the mothers hit her on different areas of the body. I wanted to do it in this way to show the high pressure on mental health workers.

 This was done to symbolise the stress on mental health care for young people we are currently facing in this country.

 Tilly and Luke were fighting at this time, to show nature VS nurture. They used harsh movements to show the violent nature of the two of them, though the stayed on the floor throughout the dance piece.

How did it go?

I liked the end result of the performance, and if I could have more time, I would have liked to have developed a motif around the literal blindness of the children. It would have been nice to have the mothers do similar moves to the children, becoming literally blind themselves.

I think that I would have also have been interesting to have the healthcare professional saying words from the article as she observed the children, whilst the adults then repeated what she had said as they manipulated her.

Where was RADS used?

Relationships were explored through the piece. I wanted to convey a more twisted version of the parent/child relationship, and then bring something more original into the dance by looking at the strain on healthcare through parents trying to manipulate the system.  

Action was used throughout the piece, especially during the no quite play fight between the two children. It can also be seen when the mothers push the healthcare professional onto the floor.

Dynamics have been mentioned throughout the workshop write-up, but yes, they were used throughout. Most notably, when the healthcare professional was being manipulated.

Space was the most lacking, I felt. The group very much stuck to the same spot in the dance studio. This is something I will like to improve.