Composition Paper II

 

Composition II, thus far, is a class that presents itself with many challenges for me. It forces me to think in different ways and further expands my thought process when it comes to dance making. Although my weaknesses have been abundant, I feel as if my strengths have carried me through assignments. An openness to apply constructive criticism from an outside voice and understanding the music and tempo are the strengths I identify with. With the assignments already presented, I feel my strengths have been clear especially in my slow 3’s and my phrase to “Four Thoughts On Marvin Gaye” by Don Byron.

While performing the slow 3’s, I knew my struggles would lay in the quality of the movement. The sense of agility and the feeling of airiness was something I would need to work on. After performing the assignment to the class I received many different tips on how to play with my movement and really incorporate the qualities needed in order to fully understand this assignment. I feel as if I was very open to this process of having others mold my movement which helped me accomplish the assignment. This can translate into being a more pliable dancer for a choreographer to work with.

            While listening to “Four Thoughts On Marvin Gaye” I really made a point to understand the music. My goal was to give the audience the sense that my movement was shaping the sounds. I wanted to make sure that my movement made the audience hear accents they normally would not. Due to this thought process, I feel as if I was successful in showing off my strength of turning music into movement and having them coexist. This strength benefits my want to choreograph and will save me time with thinking of movement. It also benefits me as a performer so that my choreographer does not have to focus on helping me with musicality and can focus their time on doing other things. As a dancer it benefits you to identify your weaknesses so that you can focus on ways to improve them. On the other hand, I feel it is an asset to focus on your strengths. Doing this can set you apart from other dancers and bring forth your individuality.

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This was paper written halfway through the semester based off of my strengths in composition. The video shown above is my final study and I hope there is a clear representation of these strengths throughout the dance.