Daisy Stonier - First Year Choreography

'In Countenance of Kings' by Justin Peck presents timeless classical technique, with dynamic, electric and vibrant execution. The combination of the military precision of the corps de ballet and unique, melting transitions, allows each phrase of movement to become an explosion of energy and passion in this freeing piece. Peck's innovative choice of dancing in trainers, in contrast to the decaying setting of the grand, abandoned building, gives his choreography a modern and current feel, leaving the viewer feeling inspired and exhilarated. The opening of the piece is powerful and engaging, with only the breath of a female dancer lying on the floor, however this is quickly interrupted by a sudden eruption of the joyful and electrifying music, building up to the compelling choreography that awaits. The piece can be seen as a story of freedom, escapism and finding yourself, as the dancer who is alone, breathless and deflated in the opening, becomes driven and ex...

In this lesson, we watched a video about Justin Peck's choreographic process (Spotlight on ... Justin Peck). The key things that he mentioned in this video were: His pieces are created based on his personal ideas and how he feels in that moment He enjoys working with a larger cast, as there are more possibilities He listens to his music over and over again, picking out highlights and small moments to capture He draws out his patterns and formations We focused on his idea about creating patterns and passed a piece of paper around the room, each drawing a shape on it. This is what we created: This then became our starting point for our choreography, as we were set the task of creating movements based on these shapes. For example, the piece of paper could be used as a map, with each shape being a different movement, or we could imagine each shape in a different way - maybe climbing over the shape or actually recreating the curves and lines of the shapes with our bodies....

In this lesson, we started by getting into pairs and combining either our name or number sequences from last week. However, we developed these by adding four choreographic devices to our pieces to make them more dynamic and exciting. Storm and I chose to add canon, retrograde, fragmentation and embellishment, which gave our sequences more contrast and energy, due to the changes in execution, speed and space used. At first, we struggled to know which elements of our choreography to enhance, so we started by running through our sequence and added embellishments such as shoulder and head rolls which quickly transformed our simpler movements into something more unique and interesting. Choreographic Devices Duet Video: We were then given some information about what our characteristics are according to our star signs, and as a Leo my personality traits are charitable, proud, reflective, loyal, arrogant, vainglorious, indulgent and wasteful. Using this information, we had to c...

This week we explored different improvisation techniques to help us create a series of fluid movements using something as simple as our name and phone number.  To help us get engaged in our first lesson, we improvised across the room going from low levels on the ground to standing and increasing our energy as we did so. I felt challenged in this task, as I haven't experienced improvisation much before and I would like to work on increasing my floor work abilities, for example learning different types of rolls or travelling lunges. We then spelt out our names in the air using our fingers and then with other body parts, such as our knees and head, which quickly transformed this simple task into a more interesting and creative series of movements. After this, we were given a movement for each number of our phone numbers, for example 7 was a kick/leg extension. Once we had created our sequence, we were given three adjectives to help develop our expression and dynamics of our c...