This year in dance I will be studying and completing two units; 45- developing contemporary dance techniques and 33- Applying physical theatre. Unit 33 will link into the movement work we will be doing for the musical, We Will Rock You. Unit 45 will be separate from this and involves Kat teaching us some phrases which we will go on to manipulate to develop into full dances based on the subject of the media/censorship.
We created a mind map of all things media related and what comes to mind when we think of the media. A strong theme of lies and not reality came out of this which demonstrates us as teenagers are aware of how the media are able to manipulate and over exaggerate stories we hear on a daily basis. Relating these ideas to movement we came up with using repetition of dance to show the idea that the media reinforce untruthful stories to make them seem believable to the public. Pressure and manipulation were two dance ideas that came out of the idea the media is now a days over dramatised. For example we hear headlines about a celebrity ‘going to the shops’ which is meaningless to most of us. We could use the idea of ‘manipulation’ in our media based dance by dancing in groups and working together as an ensemble to push ideas (movements) on to one another which changes the idea and dynamic of the piece after every person has performed the movement in a slightly differing manor.
Our main stimulus for this unit is the media however it is a broad subject to explore so to help us break it down, our sub stimuli is the idea of secrets in the media. This includes the untruthful, over exaggerated and lies I mentioned earlier in the mind map. This is a sub section which helped us create movement ideas. Following, are some of the ideas we came up with which link to secrets within the media and how we can portray this through the forms of dance and movement:
- Chinese whispers, the idea of setting one motif and performing it a few times however each time, changing it slightly so it becomes over exaggerated. This is a movement metaphor which indicates how the media feed us a story which gets re interpreted therefore developing a new meaning to the original.
- Small movements escalating in to a climax phrase. The use of small movements represents the media keeping the true meaning of a story undercover/ as a secret,, which develops on such a large scale that the secret is eventually told which is shown through the climax/ explosion phrase.
- We thought of some key words which are linked to secrets in the media: combat, conflict, manipulation, hidden, trapped. These words gave us some inspiration to the movements we created in the two videos featured below.
The first video of myself and Luke was based on a movement phrase Kat taught us however our task was to use repetition and fragmentation to make the piece our own. We used a movement to show secrets escaping the mouths of the media by brushing both hands under our chins and all the way down to the floor (as if signalling being sick) to show how easily secrets can be uncovered. Luke and I thought to interpret this ourselves that we would have me using large arm movements sweeping the floor as if collecting the secrets and preventing them from getting out to the public. After this, Luke grabbed hold of me and pulled me up, swinging me back so I was bending over backwards, facing the audience upside down covering my mouth. This showed how Luke (the media) has so much power and control over me (the public) almost demonstrating that whatever I was told to do, I would do and believe.
The second video of myself, Amber, Bryleah and Sam was inspired by the idea of the ‘secret’ being an invisible object which we played around with. I was representing the public, performing different movements and reacting to the other three who were representing the media. I performed two separate movements which I performed for a third time blended together, this conveyed the idea of rumours adding information to the truth (much like Chinese whispers.) This leaves the public with false stories whereas the media know the truth. As our climax phrase Amber Sam and Bryleah surrounded me (the media) and used gestural hand movements to cover my mouth, showing the media stopped the public talking. The finish off our piece from a crouching position I sprung up, taking my head and hands back at the same time. This symbolised the media being over powering on the public and becoming too invasive in our civilian lives.
These two phrases we created today have definitely given us some ideas and inspiration to work with when putting together this unit’s final piece. Everyone worked well together today to come up with some brilliant ideas which we are all looking forward to developing through movement. I feel as though today's lesson was positive and we all worked as a team to produce some good initial ideas which we will develop and explore in depth in lessons to come.
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