Taylor Vain's Choreography Blog

  I think that the message/stimulus that we were trying to get across with our piece was very clear. First of all, I think that the formation at the very beginning of the dance that was supposed to represent the brain was a success as we were all in this kind of rounded ‘clump’, moving at the same time, thus giving sense of togetherness. Furthermore, the fact that we returned to these exact positions at the end of the dance, really portrayed the idea that everything had gone back to ‘normal’. (whatever normal is). However, 4 people arrived to their positions in the ‘clump’ later than the others, confused, reluctant and flinching. This made clear the fact that although everything seemed to be ‘normal’ on the surface, what we had been fighting throughout the whole piece was still in fact there in the background and it will never fully go away. It will just be suppressed. Something else that was made very clear was the use of split focus. The two groups mirroring each others exact mov...

Justin Peck's 'Rotunda' (excerpt)   (Sadler's Wells, 2020) I have chosen to look at a neo-classical piece choreographed by Justin Peck. Justin Peck is an American ballet dancer and became resident choreographer of the New York City Ballet in 2014 (M. Hanson, 2016). This particular piece I have chosen is 25 minutes long, but the snippet I have been looking at is a small duet. The composer for this piece is Nico Muhly, a neo-minimalist composer who's music is often very busy with “Complex rhythms that bubble along”  (Harss, 2020). This music suits the movement very well because I also found it to be quite busy with no real sense of direction. It almost came across to me as though each dancer is relying on one another, and that without one person nothing would work. This could be linked back to our choreography piece as some of the formations would not fully come across and therefore show the message is as little as one person was missing. This also gives a sense of t...