Final Reflection on Movement Pieces

  Overall I really enjoyed working on this movement and emotion work the past couple of weeks. I think my favorite aspect of this type of work is the directing, but I also enjoy the speaking and movement aspects of these projects. I thought it was interesting to compare these pieces to the movement pieces that we put together at the beginning of the year. I know that the intention was a bit different with these pieces given that we were modeling these pieces off of Frantic Assembly’s Things I Know to be True and with song lyrics, but I think that these pieces paid special attention to group movement and creating different dynamics between the people in each piece. I think that because we were trying to relate our pieces to TIKTBT, most of us chose movements and song lyrics that held meaning significant to the show. For example, my movement piece was to the song “Stay Down” by Boygenius, and was meant to represent the character Pip. I chose this song because I thought the lyrics represented the character very well, especially her relationship with her mother Fran. I tried to choose movements that would represent the feelings that Pip expressed in the show but also make them original enough so that the piece could stand on its own and make sense without the context of the show. 

Another thing that I found very interesting regarding the overall process of each piece was that each “director” chose to approach their pieces in different ways. For my piece, I came in with a specific vision for what I wanted it to look like, and specific movements I wanted to try. Of course, I was up for feedback and any ideas from my peers were welcome, but I knew the general direction I wanted the piece to go in. With other pieces, such as Kamden’s or Osajie’s, both directors had general ideas of what the song lyrics meant and which character they were trying to represent and that character’s emotions, but the actual process of putting the piece together was much more trial and error, where we each suggested different movements to try out and then checked to see what everything looked like, so the actual decisions for what the movements would be happened in the moment. I think the director’s choice in how to approach the process made for very different final products that worked really well for each individual piece: In the pieces where the movements were decided on during class, the movements seemed to be more “free form” or flowy, in that they weren’t necessarily strict motions that were specifically choreographed, while in the pieces where the movements were decided on before class, the movements happened to be more rigid and specific.

I also found it very interesting how my initial vision for my piece compared to the final product. I am happy with the final version of my piece, but I am curious to see how the piece would look different or similar with different people in different roles, such as the speaking role, or the person who knocks over the chair. I still think that Millie did a great job reading the lines and everyone else helped to execute my idea! I did notice though that the speaking role could be particularly hard because with a lot of the lyrics, the lines rhymed (because they were usually sung), which sounded a little awkward at times when being read aloud. 

Something that I think ended up being very effective was the use of unconventional spaces for filming, which created interesting levels within each piece. The use of the seating areas in the black box (which are physically at different levels) helped to create different eras or stages in pieces such as Millie’s or Osajie’s that probably would be harder to execute on the flat black box stage. Conversely, I think some of the other pieces, such as mine and Jackson’s, only really made sense on the main stage. Of course, if we had more time it would have been interesting to experiment in different spaces as well. Similarly, I think we could have also experimented with camera angle, like we did in our final piece. 

I think that the hardest part of all of the movement work that we have worked on was the group movement piece. I think this part of the unit was particularly difficult because each of our individual pieces were very different and it was difficult to splice them together despite the overlapping themes and ideas in the pieces. It was also a bit difficult for me because I have a particular interest in directing; I had a lot of ideas for what we could do but I was trying not to take over this project and allow other people to share their ideas and incorporate all of our ideas into the final product. I am actually really happy with our final product, and I know it took some time to get all of our pieces together and decide on movements, as well as quite a lot of trial and error, but I actually think the pieces did end up fitting together well, and I think we created some very interesting stage pictures throughout the movement piece that truly did relate back to Frantic Assembly’s original show. 

Overall I very much enjoyed this movement unit, and I think that in each of the individual pieces as well as the group piece, we were able to effectively incorporate aspects of tension, emotion, theme, meaning, and atmosphere.