Rehearsals

Today was our scheduled rehearsal with our chosen dancer. Jacob and I were at the University at around 9:15 to pick up our Sony EX3, Manfrotto and studio keys. By 9:30 we were in B32. As we entered the room we found it at quite a messy state so we spent 9:30-10:00 cleaning up the room which was rather frustrating.

Our dancer arrived at 10:15 and spent until 11:00 warming up. Once she was ready, we showed her the "choreography task sheet" which had the following details for her to improvise with:

Earth:

• ·       Starts lying down under the sand.
• ·       Fetal position opening.
• ·       Emerge from the sand. Kneeling or crouching.
• ·       Breathe. Gesture.
• ·       No quick movement. No height. No fluidity.
• ·       Travel through the space, low grounded.
• ·       Improvise: 2 mins will be low and ground based

Earth to Water:

• ·       Hit the sand. Imagine it turns into water.

Water:

• ·       Hit splash, continue from the transition.
• ·       Constantly fluid movements. Body curves and fluid joints.
• ·       No standing straight. Medium low height.
• ·       Standing and kicking water.
• ·       Improvise: 2 mins
• 
  

Water to Air:

• ·       Travel. Gesture and breathe. Whip the silk.

Air:

• ·       Whip the silk again.
• ·       Jumps. Work with heights.
• ·       Standing allowed.
• ·       Lots of weightlessness. Elegance.
• ·       Exaggerate movements.
• ·       Pretend like the air is pushing around.
• ·       When still, keep the silk moving.  
• ·       Twirl. Imagine cyclone.
• ·       Improvise: 2 mins

Air to Fire:

• ·       Travel, throw the scarf away.
• ·       Gradually slow travel to the middle.
• ·       Crouch. Finger flames. (Smoke rolls in)

Fire:

• ·       Rise from the smoke.
• ·       Candle flame. Eventually escalates to forest fire.
• ·       Whip like, lashing movements. Rapid.
• ·       Excessive arm movements.
• ·       Lots of retracing steps. Unpredictable.
• ·       Improvisation: 2 mins.

Ending:

• ·       Massive gesture.
• ·       Disappear into the smoke.

Our dancer took these suggestions onboard quite well and we progressed rather quickly with her. Jacob would film the session whilst our dancer and I would try structuring the improvisations. At times when we were stuck we referred to some of Jacob's suggestions, which brought forth some interesting variety. At the end of the day we concluded with some of the following notes:

• Earth should have staggered movements. 
• Earth has a lot of contact with the sand. The dancer has been very involved with the ground so we beckoned her to be careful with sand getting into her eyes! She says that she "seems to forget that it will actually be there," but we'll have an eye bath on set in case something does happen. 
• Water should stay closer to the same 1m x 1m spot or else it becomes too easily confused for air. That way our dancer can focus on her arm movement. 
• Air should be free to roam the space in a circular pattern. 
• Fire should start as a still movement, until it breaks out into a very excited and high-energy piece. We made this decision as variation is a good thing for a dance piece. 

We were able to create at least 16 sets of 8 beats, at 60 beats per minute. This meant each Element has approximately two minutes' worth of improvisation, which can be cut down in post-production to 1 minute and 15 seconds. As a group we feel it is better to have shot more rather than to not have shot enough. Especially when there is a slim chance to reshoot with the KN Singh studios being extremely busy.

When Al arrived at 2:00PM (as scheduled, as it wasn't necessary for there to be too many people at the improvisation session) we showed him what we had created in the morning session. He had the following notes:

• If variation is good then more standing up needs to be introduced in the Earth segment, just occasionally. As the piece currently is, it is entirely ground-based. 
• When traveling through the Air segment, traveling diagonally (but in circular movements) will help differentiate Air from Fire. 
• Fire could become more intense if our dancer used her hips to accompany her shoulder movement. 
• Stare directly into the camera for the transition between Water and Air. Al wants to "break the third wall." 

Our dancer then requested that, if possible, we send her the edited footage and notes as a reference for her to practice the night before our shoot. We now aim to compile the footage on Thursday so that we can have it sent out to her by Saturday.