Both the first and last time I presented my work to someone, was before the Christmas holidays in 2019. It’s January now, a new year has started. I am full of energy because I have filled 2020 with some interesting plans. Among others, the presentation of my solo. Exciting, because it’s a presentation of both me as a dancer and as a choreographer. 

The last time in the studio was with Shailesh where we made a blueprint of the piece. Furthermore we experimented with some music of an earlier piece that he created named Ignite. We found out that some parts of this music really fitted my solo and it’s message. So he gave me the music for further use. With this I crafted my own mix with which I could work… for now. Knowing, and looking forward to, that in the near future I can sit down with Rik Ronner. The producer of this music. Then there will be time to go deeper inside the music and express my wishes to make this a whole. 

To prepare yesterdays session I continued working on the blueprint from where we left off. Aiming to find fitting ways of connecting my work to the music that was chosen. I also tried to formulate my solo into words to improve and practice my communication about my work. With questions such as;
– What is my dramaturgical line?
– Which message do I want to communicate?
– How do I want to end? 
– What is my relationship with the audience?
We took some time to chat about this and to reflect on his experience with these subjects. Where his inspiration to create comes from, how he does his research, what the connection is in his pieces and his working method. Additionally which questions could help deepen a research. It was inspiring and gave me new insights, from which I can continue to build now and in the future. 

I performed my piece 2 times. After each time I received some notes, respectively for its own reasons. Either to improve dynamics, to make my message more clear or to understand what works and what doesn’t. As a result I get a clearer understanding of how it is perceived and how to better communicate with the audience. Helping them to digest what they are seeing, by taking my time.  

It’s beautiful to work on my solo and witnessing it’s growth alongside my own. There still is lots of work to do, but it is really satisfying to see everything come together. I can continue building, adding details, question choices, adding moves or concepts and think about the use of lights. I am enjoying the artistic process and am grateful for this opportunity and the support I am receiving. 

Some snippets of this day’s rehearsal. I also wrote a blog about the topic that fuels the inspiration for making this solo piece.