Personal Development
Following on from my observation of Second Breath by Russell Maliphant, I wanted to create something with the similar intention of having a profound sense of emotion behind the movement. The next section of my piece depicts the moment in which Kya is cruelly assaulted, treated as though she is a wild animal to be taken advantage of as a prize, and left feeling broken and completely vulnerable from the experience. Reading this chapter of 'Where the Crawdads Sing', I highlighted words and phrases which were poignant for me and evoked the heartbreaking feelings of guilt and exploitation that Kya endures.
Creating gestures to represent each of these phrases, I connected them by following the structure of the lines in the book, and by using repetition to reinforce how these feelings linger and persistently return to torment Kya, despite her efforts to move on. Following the waltz style to the music, I expressed Kya's desire to break free from this damaging mindset by 'dancing with the dress' of her mother's which she reminisces about throughout the novel (Owens, 2019, p.79). Developing the motif of her mother to be both my own hand and an imaginary external object, demonstrates how her desire for connection exists both within herself, and within her surroundings, and she feels her mothers warmth and tenderness within the earth, her mind and all she touches.
Throughout this process, I have been confident expressing my theme and stimulus in words, and have felt creatively stimulated and motivated by furthering my research and formulating ideas. Discovering that I sometimes found it hard to physicalise these ideas has led me to realise that I have identified more with my choreographic voice, rather than as a dancer. Putting my knowledge from my practitioner studies into practice has at times been challenging for me, as I sometimes felt as though my ideas and vision was beyond what I could express on my own, and I was critical of my ability to emulate the emotion and atmosphere of 'Where the Crawdads Sing' to someone who had never read it before. However, I feel as though the way I have carefully selected words from the novel and have directly choreographed from these, has meant that I have immersed the audience as much as I can into the beautiful imagery and symbolism within the novel. By ensuring each section is created with purpose and sincere intention, I feel as though I have replicated from what art form to another (literature to dance) in the most effective way of my ability. Furthermore, despite my difficulty in expressing some of the harsher themes of the novel, it has been a fulfilling experience to push myself to explore more intense movement styles and discover more about my possibilities and abilities as a dancer, which is an avenue I wouldn't have taken without my developed research into Kya's striking character and the intriguing themes of the novel.
Performing my piece to an audience before I had completed the last section was a valuable experience for me, alongside reading Katt Flatt's questions on an audience's reaction. Following a novel initially led me to feel the need to provide a resolution to my piece, explain the narrative and allow the audience to understand what the outcome was for Kya's character in the book. However, after receiving such positive feedback about how immersed my audience was in my performance and the emotion created by my work, particularly in my section about Kya's longing for her mother's touch, I realised that I valued the feelings that my audience were left with much greater than them having a clear understanding of the plot. Evaluating the questions below directed me to focus on creating an ending that would leave my audience feeling captivated and inspired, rather than fixated on wondering what happened to Kya, allowing me to feel much more empowered and motivated to created something abstract and emotive, instead of worrying how I would fit the depth of a novel into the final two minutes of my work.
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