Day 24 Collaborative Performance Project. ( Performance Day )
- Yulia Antonov
- Jun 9, 2016
- 7 min read
My role within the creative collaborative performance project: Rehearsal Director/Choreographer and Performer.
Rehearsal Director:
As I mentioned before in my blog I was appointed as a Rehearsal Director by Lucy during the Rehearsal Period for Frankie and Joshua's duet and also for Dirty Diana piece.
Unfortunately Frankie and Joshua's duet wasn't controlled and guided as successful as Dirty Diana piece. There were several problem which made me give up this role.
One of them is that Frankie couldn't work with me as a person who can teach her so that's probably the worst thing that could happen. It also depends on personality and Frankie is persevering, sometimes quite rough and high-minded which is not really nice feature for a dancer. Secondly she didn't want to do a lot of things she thought was hard when they actually wasn't. Thirdly when she was a little bit ill she didn't want to rehearse but we had no time to stop and do nothing so I was dancing with Joshua that time to create something else and she got really jealous so that she wouldn't speak to me. At that point I understood that I probably need to stop helping them and leave it all to them.
To be honest their duet was not organised and had a lot of gaps and didn't have a good transitions although they had times when they did a lot of interesting moves and different dynamics. As a Rehearsal Director I would've helped them to sort that out but they didn't want to accept this help form me, especially Frankie, so I didn't push it because I had a lot of important stuff to do for this show and I didn't want to waste my time and my nerves.
I asked myself what would I change if I had another chance? Perhaps I would've speak to Frankie about this situation and tried to understand more her point of view on this situation. I know that I can not change the person but I would've try to change the way she thinks about something particular or maybe made a deal to make her do something what she doesn't want. I know that in real world in real job no one will do it for her because if you don't want someone else will. I also would've promoted and insisted even more because this time I suggested something, Frankie said no and I agreed because I didn't want to initiate a conflict and make it worse.
I don't really like to speak bad about people but in this situation it's necessary for me to speak out therwise nothing is going to change.
Choreographer
This show was special for me because this time I was a choreographer in about half of the show. Of course I wasn't the only one who was choreographing the show but for the first time I had a chance to add my creative view to the show more then in one section.
Dirty Diana
This choreography was Simona's idea but myself and Simona developed into a a little bit different idea and stimulus. As a choreographer I was doing my best to make it interesting to watch and challenging for us and Simona as a dancer. I never did choreography in this style and especially being sexy in it.
We didn't have much time therefore it wasn't as good as it could be if we had more time, but despite this we did a good job and made very sexy, atmospheric and energetic dance. Which everyone really liked and were a little bit surprised to see.
In this piece i was challenged as a dancer and a choreographer. It was hard for me to open another side of me to everyone else and to show them real me in this piece of work. It also was hard to create something good and exciting to show. We also had to stick to our stimulus of two red riding hoods and two sides of them which was quite hard to do.
Fairies
In the Fairies I didn't do that much of choreography but I still managed to add some parts of floor work and jumping bits. We also used our own solo to develop it into a bigger piece. So I made a pretty nice solo but i had a chance to make it much harder I definitely would've done it. This time I didn't do any jumps or something using flexibility because not everyone like it and can actually do it.
And although Frankie was helping to Lucy to create this choreography and was a Rehearsal Director I feel that I did much more than she did for this piece and cared more to make it better with every move.
Peter Pan and his shadow ( Frankie and Joshua )
This choreography was short but intense. In this duet I was a choreographer and a Rehearsal Director which was also very hard to combine. I started with choreographing their duet which will lead to Joshua's solo. We also had to sit down and think about the stimulus of this duet which was Peter Pan and his shadow where Peter Pan is trying to catch his shadow so we had to try to show that to the audience.
Lucy created a first half of the duet when after I started to make everything else and to clean the first bit because Frankie already changed it into her own style and missed a lot of important details. I was getting worried because she tried to teach that to Joshua as he was busy working on his monologue.
Unfortunately as I mentioned before Frankie didn't accept me as a choreographer and a Rehearsal Director by not listening to my suggestions and rejecting most of a my ideas and corrections.
So I did about half of their dance and then unfortunately I had to stop being their choreographer because I had to make a Dirty Diana piece and I had no time to persuade to do something better then they have now.
Performer
Probably being a performer I liked the least. I noticed that I would rather be behind the stage watching someone then to be on stage. On stage I feel very insecure and usually I'm not doing my best. I don't understand why but I can do much better in the studio then on stage so was this time. I did many mistakes and had to struggle with lighting which was shinning straight to my eyes. I can definitely say that I could do so much better therefore I'm a little bit frustrated and disappointed.
Ornella's choreography
Day of performance and I'm nervous as always but this time justified. We had a Tech Rehearsal yesterday but today we didn't rehearse at all and I feel like I don't remember anything so it makes me anxious.
In Tech Rehearsal Emmeline and Ornella set up the lighting and music but mostly it was Emmeline because Ornella was dancing with us and she wasn't be able to see how it really looked. It took us a while to find the right light and to space the piece. We also decided that we're going to dance with hair half up and half down in order to make it easier for ourselves to dance especially for me as I have very long hair.
So, there were several reasons why I was so nervous today. Firstly, In Tech Rehearsal I noticed that it's very hard for me to dance, I'm going out of balance and sometimes I get confused in space and the reason for that is lighting which is very bright and I can't really see where is stage and where is audience especially when I turn. Secondly, our costumes are dresses and unfortunately I'm self-conscious about my body. I feel uncomfortable to dance in front of people in open dress in short shorts. Lastly, I had a knee injury about a week ago but It still really hurts and some parts in choreography are painful to do.
The performance itself went pretty well and all I was scared and nervous about disappeared as soon as I came on the stage except at one point light shone straight into my eyes and I got a little bit confused In space again but it was all good after.
3 key dance practitioners:
There's also a movie in honor of Pina - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pina_(film)
Pina Bausch changed dance fundamentally by removing the smiling airy ballerina attempting to float above us, replacing her with a fusion of radical interactive theater, surreal imagery and ‘danced body language’. In contemporary dance today the influence of Bausch is seen in its rawness, relative freedom and willingness to explore a variety of forms so as to expose an internal world. Her influence is also seen in the way choreographers work with their dancers – a 2-pronged process where through improvisation ‘tasks’ the choreographer allows the soul of the dancer to enter the process.
Pina Bausch brought dance, theater and German expressionism together – a blend of raw emotionalism, stark movement, earthly pathos and humor.
Evaluation
The performance went pretty well although there were a few moments where I made mistakes in choreography or had problems behind the scene such as: after my song I had to run 2 floors down to dressing rooms and change for the next dance and I hardly managed to do it which was very stressful for me, I also didn't go to the stage on time because I couldn't find an exit between curtains.
However in my opinion we did very well I had a few moments where I have never had problems before but while performance I crashed into Simona when we were going to the clamp in Bangarang, I also nearly crashed into Damian in our trio while I was dong turns which also have never happened with me before.
As a dancer I'm not pleased with my development and in my opinion I could develop even more throughout the year, however I did improve from the first month of the course and I feel more confident and comfortable to dance on stage in front of audience and other dancers. I also know better how to develop stimulus into movement in choreography.
The areas which I need to work on is technical (contemporary, urban dance and ballet), physical strength, physical condition (weight), being more accurate in movements and finish every move.
I'm pleased with our teamwork while the performance but unfortunately I'm displeased about group work while rehearsal period and Tech Rehearsal. In our daily rehearsals a lot of people wouldn't dance or wouldn't participate in tasks which Lucy was giving to us within a group. There also were a lot of disagreements between certain people which knocked us out of track which obviously slows down the process. Sometimes It was hard to work on group dance because people wouldn't care much therefore we had to learn one piece over and over again every day.
In Tech Rehearsal most of dancers were impatient during setting up lighting and music and I think it was an unprofessional conduct. In spite of all these disadvantages, we worked all together, listened to each other carefully, respected opinions of others and made this process fun and productive.
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