Repetition, Manipulation, Motif: Perform in class February 25
Watch this 2.5 minute clip of an excerpt of Bill T. Jones’ choreography performed by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre (Read below “about this dance” before watching) , D-Man in the Waters
ABOUT THIS DANCE:
“D-Man in the Waters is a buoyant celebration of how deep respect for life can manifest in a fighting spirit. Dancers costumed in military fatigues perform feats of athleticism, marked by expansive gestures. Dramatizing the energy, skill and resilience needed to survive the fearsome power of the ocean — or of a potentially fatal virus — D-Man in the Waters is replete with running, jumping and diving, in kinetic elegance.
At the height of the AIDS epidemic, two beloved members of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company passed away from the deadly virus in the space of just two years. Arnie Zane, the dance company’s co-founder, died in 1988 and Demian Acquavella, a uniquely spirited dancer, in 1990.
In early 1989, the company’s other co-founder (and Zane’s life partner), Bill T. Jones, was commissioned to choreograph a work to the first movement of Felix Mendelssohn’s Octet for Strings in E-Flat Major. Jones used the opportunity to address the grief, loss and existential fear shared by many in the dance community at that time, creating a now canonical work, D-Man in the Waters. The D-Man of the title is the affectionate sobriquet bestowed on Acquavella by Jones and the other members of the company.” -Nadine Matthews
Read the full article here:
View several times and identify repetition, movement motifs, and manipulation of those motifs. Framed by Marcia B. Siegel’s “lexicon” discussion. Small group discussion.
Compose:
Come up with a theme.
Brainstorm images, topics, ideas within that theme.
Select one as a motif to re-occur in your study.
Build your study, repeating motif throughout.
A helpful thought about Themes and Motifs: In literature a “Theme” is what something is about; a “Motif” is an image (in our case movement idea, prop, sound, etc) that repeats and develops the “About-ness”. A motif is recognizable every time it appears.
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Motif – Carissa
For this piece, I improvised using a list of words I created on the theme of “rain.” I chose “drip” as a motif. I liked using the motif because it acts as a sort of safety net in the improv – if I don’t know what to do next, I could just insert a “drip” and go from there. I noticed that I did a lot of horizontal pathways, so I need to pay more attention when I’m improvising to keep myself from falling into that habit. On the subject of breaking habits, one of the words on my list was “lightning,” which definitely helped me to add some more sharp and quick movements where I would normally do something slow or curved.
The theme I chose to brainstorm and play with was “Fantasia”, which I connect with as a film, within the word’s definition as a musical piece, and also as a beloved childhood cat. While brainstorming words, I tried to bring concepts form all of my personal connections with the theme, such as “magic” as well as “animate”. I was drawn to “plie” as a way to connect these–the graceful movements of a cat in the settings of ballet and orchestra. While I enjoyed anchoring onto the basic motif of plie, I also really enjoyed trying to adapt certain parts of a plie into other ideas, such as plie-ing into a string instrument solo, or plie-ing into a choreographed bow and focus shift, mimicking the “end” of a performance before “I End” the piece.