Lost in Translation

Blog 2: Lost in Translation 

The first task given by our tutor was quite an interesting one. We got into small groups and lined up, one person facing the front and the rest facing the back. The person at the front was given a word and thirty seconds to produce a count of eight before the person behind them turned around and they had to show it to them. We were only given a short amount of time to learn the choreography before the next person would turn around and you would then have to teach it to them. We repeated this process till everyone knew the original persons choreography. Then the first and last person would stand next to each other and perform the phrase, this was interesting to see how it had been slightly changed and interpreted along the line. We continued this process till everyone had picked a word and had gone through the process. The words my group were given include, cold, spikey, sticky and crunchy. I like how this method meant that another persons choreography was sort of up to your interpretation, you have such little time to learn it and sometimes when you don't remember the choreography, you have to fill in the gaps which may not always be the correct pathway etc of the original choreography. 

After this task was completed, we then created a piece that includes aspects from everyone's choreography/words. My group started in a diamond formation facing inward and began with Meg's 'crunchy' choreography in unison. This lead us into a cannon of Ella's 'spikey' choreography starting with Ella and Imogen performing Ella's original choreography, then me and Meg performing the unoriginal choreography. We modified this to turn towards our right shoulder to face outside of the formation. Our reasoning for this was, when thinking of a spikey object, the points of the spikes usually face outwards which inspired us to change our formation. After this, we used fragmentation to focus on the side contraction and shaking of the hand in Imogen's phrase. We all leaned into the centre to reconnect after facing away from each other. Continuing with the method of fragmentation we used the movement of bringing the hands to our head with the elbows wide but embellished this by using different levels determined by our height (for example, the shortest person on the highest level and tallest on the lowest). We decided that by now, the formation should change and we needed to travel. Using our unique words, we travelled into a diagonal line in a way appropriate for our word. Mine being sticky I used the imagery of the floor being a sticky marshmallow to inspire my way of moving. My method helped to create a realistic idea and I feel I could use this in future tasks. Now in a new formation, our group separated into pairs to perform two separate counts of eight using the phrases we have already created to help inspire us. One could of eight included one person being lifted onto the others back and they shook their legs with flexed feet to signify shivering which is what ones body sometimes does when cold. The other count of eight was inspired by Meg's unoriginal crunchy choreography, specifically the upper body circle. We adapted this movement to work as a pair and leaned on each other as we executed the movement. Transporting back into our diagonal line but now facing a different way, myself and Imogen facing the front and Ella and Meg facing back. In these pairs, Imogen and I performed her cold phrase and Ella and Meg performed my unoriginal sticky phrase to finish our piece.

I like this task as we had already got the choreography so could focus on other areas such as formations and levels etc. We could also take our favourite parts or we could adapt others to improve them. I feel that if I was to use this method again, I would prefer to maybe have slightly longer to learn others choreography as sometimes we would just make up parts which we didn't pick up and then they were not true to the original stimulus and didn't link. Saying this, I liked how we had original and unoriginal choreography to add variety to the piece.