Week 4 Reflective Task - David Wildridge Choreographic Masterclass (Draft)

Description:

· During this masterclass, we started to look at inclusive and integrated dance and its principles.

· David began the masterclass with a short PowerPoint that looked at StopGap’s ethos and choreographic process.

· These tasks included improvisation, visual interpretation/translation, and gestures.

· We started to look at the language that we should use when working with or discussing inclusive and integrated class.

· The warmup introduced us to the idea of translating movement as well as instructing through a visual stimulus.

· The warmup then led into our first task of interpreting and translating movement for our body. One person was asked to move across the room using one movement and the rest of us would have to translate the movement using the same mechanics of the original movement. (We could not use the same movement as someone else.)

· We then reviewed performance, movement and choreography from StopGap’s Artificial Things and the choreographic process behind it. Writing about what frustrates the dancer and observing the mannerisms and movements of historic dictators, such as Hitler, Mussolini, and Trump and taking inspiration from The Ministry of Silly Walks skit.

· Looking at this process, we began to create our individual gestural phrases, which David then asked us to incorporate specific movements, textures, and scales.

· We then observed these phrases in partners and refined and developed them before we then created a movement phrase inspired by the gestural phrases.

Feelings:

· Before the masterclass started I was feeling lethargic, however I was excited to start the class as I have attended classes and performances by StopGap in the past that I thoroughly enjoyed and gained knowledge from that still informs my practice today.

· During the masterclass, I felt that the class was very well prepared and informative.

· I felt very focused and was actively engaging in discussions and conversation on the choreographic processes and the tasks we participated in.

· I feel that most of the dancers were also feeling the same as this.

· I feel that due to my previous training with Adam Benjamin and engaging with StopGap, I was able to understand the processes and practice of David and StopGap very well.

Evaluation:

What worked?

· The short presentation at the beginning of the class really helped those without previous experience of inclusive and integrated dance, understand the ethos, techniques and choreographic process used by StopGap.

· I really liked how the class began with a warmup that clearly fed into the tasks we were about to participate in.

· The discussions during and after the tasks and warm up really helped us to actively think about and understand the relevance and learning within them.

· David was very engaging, friendly, and approachable which made it easy to ask questions and discuss the learning throughout and after the masterclass.

What didn’t work?

· It would have been better to have the masterclass earlier in the day, when it started to get late people began to get tired and hungry which made them frustrated when learning and refining the gestural phrase and made it easy to make mistakes.

Analysis:

· The way that everything had a very clear through line and clear relevance to the next task or next discussion made it very easy to connect the learning and the aims of the class. Because of this I was able to apply the prior knowledge to every task I partook in.

· Having discussions before, during and after each task really helped me to keep focused and actively process the new knowledge and relevance of the tasks.

· Having the class earlier in the day may have improved morale in the later half as it focused on more cognitive tasks.

Conclusion:

· From this experience, I have gained new knowledge in working inclusively and the techniques that can be applied to my choreographic process to make it more accessible.

· To improve the situation for those involved, I would start the class earlier in the day to avoid frustration towards the latter part of the masterclass.

· The skills that I need to develop to handle the situation better would be the memorization of gestures as this is something that I find challenging.

Action Plan:

· To develop these skills, I plan to use more gestural phrases into my practice and choreographic process using similar tasks to the ones I participated in during this class. I am hoping that over the course of the next month, working towards this goal will improve my movement memory.

(Image depicts Chris Pavia in a performance of Artificial Things - StopGap Dance Company. Photography: N/A)