Mental Health

This whole dance is based around a psychotherapist who goes into a hospital and everyone is his ward claim to be from Alice in Wonderland. This theme of mental health is meant to teach the audience that just because someone is deemed ‘different’ doesn’t mean they should be frowned upon by society. The dance style of hip hop reflects this as it makes light out of mental health and the issues that come along with it. Also just because you aren’t ‘normal’ in society doesn’t mean you can’t be happy or still live your life. This dance celebrates people’s differences and what makes an individual themselves, no matter what it is.

Normality

When Ernest arrives in the ‘institute for extremely normal behaviour’ he realised that all the patients in his ward aren’t deemed as ‘normal’ in society. The more time he spends there the more he is being drawn into going crazy. This is shown through Ernest’s movements as in the beginning he seems to be restricting himself by keeping his head in on place and focusing on not being drawn. He is always asking himself what’s so great about being normal and so in the end he has given into the craziness and he is smiling to show he is happy.

Plot

In Zoonations Mad Hatter Tea Party they used the Alice books by Lewis Carroll as inspiration for the upbeat hip hop dance and the choreography is created by Kate Price . A qualified doctor arrives at the Institution for Extremely Normal Behaviour and is overwhelmed by his patients who all claim to be characters in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

First Impressions

I really loved watching the piece as the dancing was at such a fast pace and they still managed to perform elaborate footwork and movements to an amazing standard.

One thing I noticed while watching was at the start Ernest (the doctor) was trying to not give into the craziness of the institution. You can see the resistance in his head as it doesn’t move along with the rest of his body which has been taken over by the rhythm. Despite trying to resist, in the end his whole body has been completely taken over and he gives into the madness and joins in with his patients.

I was intrigued to find out what the message(s) behind the Hip Hop dance were as it comes across so happy and upbeat so I couldn’t imagine there being a deep meaning behind the dance but I later discovered there was.

 

 

Who are they ?

They are a company who was co-founded by ex ballet dancers Michael Nunn and William Trevitt in 2000. They work with leading dancers, choreographers and designers to perform world wide and they have won various awards for their work as a company. Eight young male dancers were selected from different backgrounds and then coached and trained to create a company of first class contemporary ballet performers. Over the last 18 years they have regularly toured around the world and expanded to 10 dancers.

Choreographer & his work

The main choreographer for Young Men is called Iván Pérez. He was very interested with the emotional psychology and human behaviour that effected the soldier’s behaviour of war so he knew he wanted to focus on soldiers experience during the war. This meant that on the one hundredth anniversary of World War 1 we are invited to look back on the war and reflect on the history.

The choreographers of Youngmen express the story through the style of contemporary and different techniques within that. When showing the effects of PTSD on the soldiers,  Pérez seemed to harness the dancers athletic side so they could perform movements that required strength as the moves often appeared in random bursts to surprise the audience like it would have done to the soldiers. Dancers also needed stamina to maintain the position or balance they were in for a period of time so that they could make the audience truly believe that they had no control over their mind or body anymore.

 

 

 

Dancer

• The main responsibility of a dancer is to use movement, body gestures and facial expressions to portray a story to the audience. They follow the ideas of a choreographer and tries to portray their visions into the performance and their job is to entertain the audience by portraying their character clearly.
• To get a job dancers need to attend many auditions and castings sessions which are often long and take a lot of energy and patience to get through as there can be many people going for one role. But regardless of the waiting a dancer will go through it to prove to the casting directors that they are fit and perfect for the job.
• After passing auditions, dancers need to put in hours and hours of work so at the end the dances are ready. Preparing for the performance includes studying your pieces and interpreting it to make it your own, cardio and fitness sessions so you are capable to perform to a high standard and rehearsing your dances to the point of having no doubts of being under-rehearsed.

Choreographer

• The job of a choreographer is to create a routine in the fitted style for a performance of any kind. To make the routine the choreographer will meet with the director to find out about the performance so they can come up with ideas for the piece.
• After researching the performance they will put their ideas together and come up with the routine or edit an existing piece. Once that is done the choreographer teaches these steps to the performers and often performs the routine to them so they have a better understanding of the steps. While learning the steps the choreographer will try make it look perfect and they may make changes to the steps   they think should be changed.
• Because the choreographer is often performing the dance to performers they are expected to stay in good health, they attend classes so their skill and technique stay strong and sharp

Designers

Stage

A set/stage designer in dance will create and decide what appears on stage for a performance. This role involves communicating to the directors, producers, dancers and all the designers so they can know that what they put on stage will work well with the performers and the performance.  A stage designer has to have creativity, enthusiasm and be able to work under pressure as their job involves : reading scripts, managing budgets, making drawings, plans and models of sets, attending rehearsals and much more.

Costume

A costume designer will come up with outfits and costumes for a performance. This person will need to think carefully about what they choose to get made as a costume needs to balance out well with the whole performance and enhance the performs personality. This designer will usually work alongside the rest of the designers and makeup team so the outfits work to their best ability.

Lighting

A lighting designer will control all aspects of lighting for a production, their job is to create the right mood so the audience feels drawn in. They will often work with producers so the lighting will work to their advantage. Often they need to think about budgets and how it can be used for lights and also special affects but it also has to be safe.

Producers

A producer is the person who makes the directors vision come to life and they oversee the pre-production and the production. They control loads of aspects over the whole performance and there are different lines of producers who do different jobs as there are so many things to control. They have a very important role in a production as they have to keep everything under control and make sure the whole performance fits into the directors artistic ideas.

 

 

Balletboyz explore different themes throughout the performance. In the performance there were different themes e.g: War, struggle, friendship, survival, love and loss.

Friendship

In the performance the theme friendship is shown whether they’re positive or negative friendships. Friendship is shown through the movements and facial expressions of the dancers. In the scene about PTSD, contact improvisation was used to support one another which shows that during the war friendships were so important to everyone because people need support during their struggles. Contact improvisation is built on using each others body to hold their own which furthermore shows that friendship isn’t only important mentally but physically. Negative friendships were seen throughout the performance and were portrayed through the feelings of fear, anger and sadness. In the scene below the men were afraid of the sergeant as he has more power and control over all of them. I could tell they felt intimidated because the movements from the men need strength and stamina so they put up a front of being strong when there facial expressions show fear.

Love

This theme is shown specifically in the scene when the women and man are dancing together. The moves are performed very close together and it includes contact improvisation so it gives off an impression of a romantic relationship. When he goes off to war they miss one another and they get into trouble for meeting each other, the woman knows it is risky and can land them in trouble but she disguises herself and goes to him anyway because she misses him and doesn’t know if she will see him again. The movements in this scene were really calm and flowed so nicely which contrasted well with the rest of the film as its chaotic. In this scene it was focused on one relationship but it wasn’t just couples who were split apart because of the war, it was: brothers, fathers, cousins, uncles and friends and many more. People daily worried for their loved ones who had gone to war to fight for their country but this scene was just one example of the strong love bond that carried on even though people were separated.

Survival and Struggle

Throughout this movie the theme struggle and survival were both demonstrated. When the sergeant and the man fight each other near the end even though they were on the same side (country) they were fighting with each other and struggled to survive in the harsh environment of the war. The movements in this section required power as they needed to portray a real fight and they showed this through contact improvisation and lifts together. In this scene the men were fighting so their movements were violent and it included both men being strong but in the end the man is stronger. He has struggled to be strong previously but then the pain and fear he once had towards the sergeant turned into power. The sergeant is getting tired and is dying because he slowly gets weaker and he no longer can perform to the same standard as the man and his movement is very repressed and he is struggling to keep up, so in the end the sergeant dies. This scene was included because men fighting for their life is something that very common the war.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Contact Improvisation

Contact Improvisation is a form of improvised dancing which was developed and has been growing worldwide since 1972. It involves using and exploring each others body by using the fundamentals of sharing weight, touch and movement awareness.

This style of dance was created by Steve Paxton by drawing from his past experiences with martial arts and the main factor was he wanted to explore and push boundaries of his students and colleges. This form of improvisation plays with falling-off balance, counterbalance, breathing techniques, learning the mechanics of the body to be able to handle someones body weight or lift them and finding the shelves of the body to do this.

Contact Improvisation Workshop

Before the workshop we watched videos of contact improvisation and I was not really comfortable with the whole concept of putting your whole body weight onto someone else’s. We experimented with different moves that came from a task called ‘jungle playground’ with included rolling over each other, climb on each other and roll off. At first I was quite hesitant to do it but once we did some moves together I began to like doing something different that consisted of trusting each other. I did feel scared of being dropped because a big part of contact improvisation is making the moves flow nicely while you are holding someones body weight but after messing around with moves my confidence did seem to build.

After doing the workshop I learnt that it was a style of dance that included loads of balance and strength so to perform this style well, takes patience to get to know your partner or group. At the beginning of the workshop I thought it would be a bit of a laugh doing contact improvisation but in the end, after trying myself, I had a lot of respect for dancers who can perform contact improvisation because it takes physical strength and a level of mental strength as it takes a lot of courage to get over the awkwardness and fear of trusting someone with your body weight.

Characterisation

When I was told I had to pick any emotion and create a piece of movement based around that emotion I felt that I would struggle to do it. This is because if I am not feeling that emotion in the moment I thought I would find it difficult to convince people that’s how I felt as I’m not an actor and struggle being expressive with my emotions through dance. Also I found it difficult to think of what movements could portray different emotions so I decided to pick the feeling of being ‘lost’. This prevented me from limiting my style of dance and movements as it is quite a broad idea and can be interpreted in different ways.

When coming up with moves I tried to think of what it felt like to be ‘lost’ physically as well as mentally and it occurred to me that every person reacts to it differently. Personally, I get stressed out and upset so the style of dance that would allow me to show this well would be contemporary as it will get across the dramatic and chaotic element of being lost. Movements that I thought would express the anxious aspect of being ‘lost’ could be shown in big bursts of energy through leaps and turns and finishing it off with being still in a certain position for a few seconds to show to realisation of being alone. Then I was going to focus on moves that were low to the ground or ground level in one certain area e.g. : floor work, rolls to the ground and finishing off a movement with reaching in different directions to try and convince the audience I was upset and needed help to escape or be found.

As I watched other peoples dances it made me realise that you create so many emotions with just one single move, this is because most people slightly enhance a movement to make it their own so they can show the emotion. So although many of us used similar or the same moves it came across to the audience differently as we had all put our own twist in to make it match our emotion or character.

Contemporary dance is a style of expressive dance that combines elements of several dance genres including modern, jazz, lyrical and classical ballet. Contemporary dancers tend to combine the strong but controlled legwork of ballet and modern with stresses on the torso. Dancer’s work hard to connect the mind and the body through fluid dance movements. It was developed in the mid twentieth century and has grown to become one of the most dominant dance styles performed around the world.

In contemporary their are different techniques but there are four main techniques that influenced the creation of contemporary. These four technique styles are the Limon technique, Gaga technique, Release technique, Cunningham technique and contact improvisation.

Gaga Technique

This a style that helps gain knowledge about your weaknesses and strengths, it helps discover and strengthen your body improving flexibility, stamina and agility. It allows for an experience of freedom in a simple way letting people be themselves and connecting to the music.

Cunningham Technique

This technique was a way of creating a routine ‘by chance’ and it includes using random selection e.g: flipping a coin. By using this method meant that his dances were abstract and frequently changed and contrasted with the last movement.

These techniques and others are used to develop different areas of their technique and strength. This is important for contemporary dancer as they need to make their performances or dance look very aesthetically pleasing to people watching.

 

The Balletboyz are a group of male dancers in a London-based company, the Balletboyz educate and showcase dance in the best possible ways, touring the world to bring their creations to as wide of an audience as possible.

This performance by Balletboyz was about war. It covered how men had to struggle to maintain their humanity in the brutal war and that in the end if you couldn’t keep your humanity then you will be stuck in a cycle of loss and death and the cycle could completely change who you were mentally and physically.

Throughout the piece there were different themes including: strength, death, sadness, romance, struggle and sympathy and these were all represented in the movements through the style of contemporary. The movements were very dependent on and reflected the scene. For example: while showing PTSD the movements were unexpected and were a mixture of soft and sharp to show there is no way to control yourself or predict what will happen when you’re suffering. While watching the performance I was quite overwhelmed and amazed by the men’s strength and agility. For all the movements whether they are quick or slow the dancers all need to have strength and a strong core to make the moves come across seamless rather than choreographed.

Overall my opinion on Young Men was that it’s very insightful around the whole topic and it was very moving to watch. I found it very difficult to look away as every section of the piece was filled with interesting and unusual moves which were always dramatic. The movements in the Young Men piece were from different styles e.g: contemporary and contact improvisation. I enjoyed watching this piece because as a young dancer you are usually shown and presented with  pieces with no or little educational purposes, they are simply shown to entertain. Whereas whilst watching this performance it raised awareness about the World War and even though I was not alive for it, it made me quite emotional because the movements were very carefully picked and reflected the scene well and the facial expressions of the dancers did that as well.