4. Initial motif creation

It was initially an overwhelming task to start creating motifs for my choreography. I used my chosen practitioner, Jonathan Burrows, as inspiration and to help me narrow down my options to start. Jonathan recommends to “start at the beginning and go forwards” (Burrows, 2010 p.3). This allowed me to identify the initial themes I wanted to start my piece with. I decided to use trapped as my initial theme as the beginning of my piece is centred around women being housewives who have no freedom. From this idea, I was drawn to Burrows’ principle of limitation. In his pieces ‘Hands’ and ‘The Sitting Duet’ there is a limitation placed on the movement by being sat down. This meant that only gestural hand and arm movements were possible. Instead of placing a limitation on a specific body part, I decided to put a physical limitation on myself by limiting the amount of space I can use. The thought process behind limiting space reinforces the idea of being ‘trapped’ inside the house and repeating the same tasks day in, day out.

Burrows (2010)

 

I started by improvising in a small area of the studio, not allowing myself to travel. Placing this limitation was challenging as I found I always leaned towards making movements that travelled outside of the ‘box’ I had placed myself in. I also found myself repeating the same movements, but instead of disregarding them, I decided to play around with the repetition and develop it further as it portrays the idea of having repetitive days as a housewife. This is only a small section of what I created, to develop it further I think I could really emphasise the idea of being stuck in a limited area, however, I believe once this is performed in a larger studio, the limitation will be more obvious. I also think I could expand the idea of gestural movements, like how Burrows does in his work as this will exaggerate the themes and help convey my ideas to the audience.

Video of my initial motif creation.

Reference list

Burrows, J. (2010). A choreographer’s handbook. Oxon: Routledge.

Bibliography

Burrows&Fargion (2019). Both Sitting Duet (2002). [online] Vimeo. Available at: https://vimeo.com/361765765 [Accessed 26 Oct. 2021].

Burrows&Fargion (2020). Hands (1995). [online] Vimeo. Available at: https://vimeo.com/388689595.

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