Seminar Review November 2013

Seminar group presentations consist of a grouping of fourth year students and two tutors. This presentation required each individual student to present one piece of work that represented the current state of research, the point of which individual students had reached since the beginning of the semester. The brief required each artist to present the work in with the same attention to detail that would be assumed in a gallery structure.

I personally presented my most recent investigation which was made up of a 4 minute film clip of a performance in a dark space. In my continuing research I am aiming to communicate a sense of the alternate personality that is present within the mind of the performing body. Both the current physical state and the ego become present within the piece though.

The convergence is illustrated through technique. In a classical dance practice a very precise and technical technique is exercised of which is featured with the inclination of the embodiment of the present and physical entity. The more expressive and contemporary movement that is carried forward thereafter envisages the alternate.

There is also a strong theme of identity that travels through my current research. Looking at the struggle of ones development and that of their physical and mental state. The face is the primary focus one would acknowledge when communicating, when this is removed you are forced to look elsewhere. With the adaptation of a black body suit, I remove the identity of the performer which triggers the voyeur to search elsewhere.

Response from the seminar group was all-in-all positive and constructive. The employment of a professional dancer became one of the key general consensus. The methodology and structure was positively responsive. It was suggested that I would become the director as opposed to the performer as one with a pure classical background would communicate the conceptual language greater.