Reflection- using a prop as a stimulus:

During the beginning of our lesson, we all had to choose a prop based off our own instincts as we were yet to know what we were using the props for. Our first task was to write a note of all the words we would link to or describe our prop with and create a few movements based on theses notes. Developing this further, we then produced a sequence like piece of us just moving with our prop; imagining a scene in our head and how we would illustrate that. The prop that I chose was a little hand fan and I think my initial reasoning on why I chose that prop was because it would be easy to create a character with. For instance, immediately I thought of a higher class woman and all of the ways the fan would be used. Once we had played around with a few sequences, we then partnered up with one of our peers. I worked with Honey, who’s prop was a torch and I think we managed to combine our two pieces together competently. Within Honey’s piece of work was implementing a lost girl in the forest who discovered a footprint or some form of evidence to acknowledge that there was something going wrong/ unsafe. Whereas my piece was more of a higher class women using her fan with confidence towards someone else. The idea of a fan can also be used for heat purposes which is how we linked the two as we set the scene in a rainforest rather than a forest so it was hotter. Again I remained a higher class woman, who was slightly more unsatisfied than the lost girl in the forest.

After break, there was a photo on the board, which was our stimulus, the image was of four pairs of shoes in front of a puddle with the shadows of bodies behind each of the different shoes. As a class we all looked at it and came up with a range of different descriptions and imaginary scenarios and concepts we could gather from the picture. Each of us held a different interpretation of what the image was suggesting however we all could understand that somewhere in the image there was this theme of loss. After decided on a range of notes, we were split into groups and had to come up with a piece based on what we thought the story behind the image was trying to convey. However our group had to create this using only voiced and no movement- whether we were using recorded sounds or music or just verbal commands. Actually trying to put a piece together without any movement was actually quite interesting as we as a class are so used to incorporating some form of dance or movement into almost everything we put together. Using a song that I like to listen to, we borrowed the very beginning before the actual song started as it has this news announcement/ police report with sirens and noises in the background, which we thought was a strong start so then we could move on to how we would use our voices. Once my group had decided of the layout and how we would all stand (as we couldn’t move) we then focused on our own voices as if we were different characters within the image and how each of their thoughts on the situation were contrasting. 

The next activity was very similar, we were using the same stimulus of the four pairs of shoes behind the puddle, however this time we swapped around and my group, consisting of Rudi, Chloe, Beth & myself were focusing on only movement rather than using any sound like before. I think generally we found this a lot more enjoyable than working on the piece without movement as we found so many of ideas could develop off of one another. For instance, the chaos we wanted to illustrate from the piece only worked because we all had to advance our movements from each other. I think exploring the stimulus in both only movement and only sound was very helpful because by experimenting with both it was made so clear to us what we need to incorporate more for our Unit 33 Original Performance Piece