Creating my Movement Signature Through Dance

Samantha DeSantis

Period 3

October 14, 2016

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Table of Contents:

I. Part One: Description.......................................Page # 2-3

II. Part Two: Research.......................................Page # 4-7
III. Part Three: Reflection.......................................Page # 7-8
IV. Part Four: Works Cited.......................................Page # 9
V. Part Five: Annotated Bibliography.......................................Page # 10-13
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Senior Project Description

For my senior project I decided that I am going to choreograph a dance to be competed at

the Spotlight dance competition in April of 2017. I plan to use four dancers who are currently

competitive dancers from my studio to perform in my dance. This will be a new experience for

me because as a dancer I am constantly learning and performing but never choreographing. This

time I will be on the opposite side of things, where I will be able to take a step back and not only

choreograph a dance all on my own, but also not be in that dance so that I can see it from a

different perspective.

I plan to rehearse after school at the studio after our normal dance classes, in order to get

all of the hours that I need to complete my senior project. My mentor is going to be my dance

teacher Crystal Zibalese from my dance studio because she has been a huge part of my dance life

growing up and I feel that she will be able to teach me so much. I also would like the dance that

I am choreographing to be a contemporary and modern style, which is one of my mentors

strengths, and also my own. Being that I have never choreographed my own dance for others

before I am nervous but also really excited to learn from this new experience and gain a new

perspective and ideas about dancing that I can apply to my everyday dance life and whats to

come in my future. I plan to have any questions that I will have answered through my research

and also by my mentor.

For the performance, I plan on asking my studios designer, Trinka, to help me design a

costume that I want for my dancers. I could also attain ideas by looking online or in catalogs. It

would be nice to have a simple costume, nothing too flashy, because that goes better with the

idea I want for my piece. Im not sure about colors for the costumes yet, but as I said, Trinka can
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help me brainstorm. The music I have been looking for is an alternative or kind of electric

sound. I want it to be a happy sounding song with intricate beats and a lot of dynamics

throughout. My mentor will assist me in learning how to enter the dance into the competition,

and after learning and practicing for many months, my dancers and I will take this dance to

competition.

I aspire to have a career in the dance field and although I am not entirely sure whether

that is to own my own studio, become a professional choreographer or dancer, or whatever else it

may be, I know that choreographing this dance for my senior project will be a good start to help

me through the rest of my dancing future.

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Part Two: Research

My senior project was to choreograph a dance for a few dancers from my studio, Dance

Creations, and then to compete this dance at one of the dance competitions in early 2017.

Choreographing is a new experience for me because as a dancer I am constantly learning and

performing but never choreographing. This time I will be on the opposite side of things, where I

will be able to take a step back and not only choreograph a dance all on my own, but also not be

in that dance so that I can look at it from a different perspective. I will have my dance teacher

and mentor alongside of me to help guide me through the whole process, and I will hopefully

find out more about who I am as a choreographer. I want to find my style and learn how to enter

and compete one of my own dances at a competition. I hope to gain a better understanding of the

choreographic world and hope that this will be the start of a lifetime of choreographing and

dancing.

Throughout my research, one of my main areas of focus was where to look for inspiration

for creating original choreography. I came across a website that states, The desire to

communicate through motion, the physical and kinetic potential of the human body or the joy of

virtuoso dancing may inspire one choreographer. The desire to explore emotional expression

through dance may be what motivates another to create.(Artsalive.ca) This is such a beautiful

idea of choreographing and it helps to put the choreographing process into a bit of perspective.

Every single person on this planet will have different ideas of what drives and inspires them.

There is no right or wrong answer and one such as myself must explore different ideas and find

what works best for them. The only way to truly find what inspires you is through experience;
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and this goes for more than just dance and can be applied for many other aspects of life. This

website has a lot of good ideas and I will definitely explore it more for new ideas and

perspectives on dance.

Choreographing this dance will be my first real experience of choreographing on my

own. Growing up I have created dances for my sisters and I, but never anything of real

importance, just for fun. As I said previously, the Artsalive.ca website gave me the idea that

the only true way to find what what inspires you is through practice and experience. Because

this dance will be my first real choreographing experience, I must focus on what makes me want

to get up and dance and gives me those Ah ha! moments when I am trying to choreograph. I

could try different methods of finding inspiration such as asking my mentor what she does or

looking online or in a book. I believe that having this knowledge that it is okay to not know

exactly what inspires me yet helps me to be more confident and will make my choreographing

process less stressful and more about finding who I am choreographically.

Everybody has a movement signature with idiosyncratic elements that tells the story of

their experiences and the emotions that are stored in their body, said dance/movement therapist

Suzi Tortora, in the Chicago Tribune. This article is about how a dance/movement therapist

watches his or her patients to come up with choreography, ...based on movements the therapist

picks up from the details of the body language of patients, such as shallow breathing or fidgeting

or a gesture suggested by them. The therapist then develops those movements.

In my case, I do not have patients, but I do have dancers, who are also my friends, who

tell me about their problems and goings on in their lives. I think it would be an interesting idea

to use some of their experiences and emotions to create choreography for my senior project
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dance. For example, if one of my friend is a bit anxious over something, such as a test or a

family matter, and they have a nervous tic of shaking their hands, I could take this movement

and make it bigger and more exaggerated and use it in my dance. This idea can help to make my

choreography more personal for the dancers.

Going back to another article from Artsalive.ca, an interview from Karin Kain, retired

Canadian ballet dancer, and currently the Artistic Director of the National Ballet of Canada,

where she says, Be really clear and really honest with yourself about your abilities and trust

people to give you really honest feedback. Trust people that are experienced and who know

dance. She goes on to talk about how the whole dance world is tough, especially when

competing such as I am going to compete my dance. Having people there to support you and

give good feedback will help tremendously in making one such as myself feel more confident in

themselves, but also learning how to take constructive criticism and apply it.

This statement makes me think of my dance teacher and senior project mentor, Crystal

Zibalese. Although I havent started choreographing yet, she has already helped me with so

much such as picking out a song and who will be in my dance. She also gave me some ideas

about how she looks for inspiration and how the choreographing process works for her. I look

up to her very much because she is a talented, experienced, and successful dancer and

choreographer and I trust her to help me through the entire choreographing process and also the

rest of my senior project.

Reading all these different articles has helped me to feel more confident and excited

about choreographing this dance for my senior project. Choreographing is something that is

different for everyone and it may take time for me to find my style and inspiration but with the
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help of my mentor and everyone else around me, I am sure that I can accomplish this. My hopes

for this senior project is not only to choreograph one dance, but to learn from this experience and

gain new knowledge that I can take out into the world after I graduate. As I continue to research

I am sure that I will continue learning, even after I graduate and grow old, I know that there will

always be more out there for me to learn.

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Part 3: Reflection

Choreographing and competing a dance for my senior project will have its ups and

downs, strengths and weaknesses, just like anything else in life. I definitely expect there to be

times when I get stuck or frustrated with coming up with choreography, but the song I have

chosen is also very inspiring to me and this helps to move the choreographic process along. My

senior project is without a doubt something that I am passionate about, so overall I expect it to

flow nicely and be an enjoyable experience for me and hopefully for everyone else that I will be

working with as well.

Dance has always played a very important role in my life. Incorporating this into my

project will give it the strength to power through to the end. Being passionate about something

makes it a thousand times easier to complete, and that is why I chose to choreograph a dance.

My experience in taking all different types of dance growing up will help me as well as the

dancers I am choreographing for. We have all been taught very similarly and have been friends

for a long time, being that we all grew up dancing at Dance Creations. This will make it easy to

work with them and keep the drama out of the process.

As I said previously, I have never choreographed my own dance before, so this will be a

bit of a struggle for me. I have done my reasearch and found different ways to inspire myself to

create new choreography and have received very useful advice from my mentor, but it will still

be a new experience. It was also a struggle to find what song I wanted to use because there are

so many different options and an endless amount of ways I could go about choreographing this

dance. I have finally settled on a song but there are still so many different stylistic choices that I

need to make. I must also figure out how to design and/or order costumes for my dancers, figure
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out formations, create actual choreography, sign up to compete, meet with my mentor to discuss

all of my plans and ideas, and of course, choreograph the dance. A lot of time and effort is going

to have to be put into this project if it is going to be completed successfully.

Putting in the time to do my research about my project will help to solve some of my

problems by giving me new ideas and ways to solve some of my other problems. It will take

time for me to find my style of dancing that works best for my song but it will come with

practice. The more time I put into choreographing and thinking about what I want the final

product of my dance to look like, the more of my problems will be solved.

Overall I am exceptionally excited to work on and complete my senior project, and I

think I am on a good path. I have a good idea of how I want the finished result to look, and how

I can overcome any problems I will encounter along the way. I am passionate and excited to

work on this and how it will help me in my future. This project will be the start of hopefully a

career in some type of choreographing for professional dancers one day.

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Works Cited:

http://artsalive.ca/en/dan/make/process/inspiration.asp
Author unknown "Making Dance." Home. Date unknown. Web. 22 Sept. 2016.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/health/sc-hlth-0527-dance-therapy-20150521-story.html
Maes, Nancy. "The Most Basic Language, Dance, Brings out the Unutterable."Chicagotribune.com.
Tony W. Hunter, 01 June 2015. Web. 13 Oct. 2016.

http://artsalive.ca/en/dan/make/advice.asp
Author Unknown "Expert Advice." Karen Kain. National Arts Centre. Date unknown. Web. 22 Sept.
2016.
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Annotated Bibliographies:

http://artsalive.ca/en/dan/make/process/inspiration.asp

Author unknown "Making Dance." Home. Date unknown. Web. 22 Sept. 2016.

The main purpose of this article is to inform a choreographer of where to look for

inspiration. It contains ideas about finding inspiration through nature as well as things you are

passionate about. The intended audience would be a choreographer who is also usually a dancer

or some kind of performer. This article comes from a california site and it looks trustworthy and

has no advertisements but there is no author or date information so we can not be sure. Even so,

this article provides many useful tips and ideas for a choreographer such as myself.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/health/sc-hlth-0527-dance-therapy-20150521-story.ht

ml

Maes, Nancy. "The Most Basic Language, Dance, Brings out the

Unutterable."Chicagotribune.com. Tony W. Hunter, 01 June 2015. Web. 13 Oct. 2016.

This article comes from the Chicago Tribune and gives an insight to the purpose of a

dance/movement therapist. The therapist creates dance choreography for her patients based on

their nervous tics or emotional insecurities, so they can then express themselves through that

choreography and learn to feel comfortable with themselves. It can also help people overcome

something such as their anxiety. The dances are used to ..express feelings and to help

people heal.
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http://artsalive.ca/en/dan/make/advice.asp

Author Unknown "Expert Advice." Karen Kain. National Arts Centre. Date unknown. Web.

22 Sept. 2016.

This article comes from the Making a Dance section of this website and includes many

interviews from various successful dancers. This one in particular is written by Karen Kain,

retired Canadian ballet dancer, and currently the Artistic Director of the National Ballet of

Canada. Her advice is to accept constructive criticism from more experienced

dancer/choreographers and to learn by watching them and their works. She also addresses the

idea that one must be truly confident in knowing their strengths and weaknesses in order to take

that criticism and learn how to apply it. This advice can come in handy when I am recieving

advice from my mentor.

https://www.britannica.com/art/choreography

"Choreography." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d. Web. 13 Oct.

2016

The article from the Encyclopedia Britannica talks more about the definitive meaning of

choreography. It briefly talks about how it has evolved throughout the centuries and what it is

today. It also touches upon the composition meaning of choreography and music.
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https://socialdance.stanford.edu/Syllabi/Choreography.htm

"Choreography Suggestions." Choreography Suggestions. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Oct. 2016.

The Suggestions for Choreographing a Dance from Stanford University include a deeper

and more insightful look into how to choreograph a dance. It goes into the purpose of relating to the

intended audience, thinking outside the box, your attitude towards the dance, and so much more.

There is also a section that goes into specifics about where to begin and the steps one must take in

order to have a full and meaningful dance that the audience can relate to.