This project came about because our Professor had some important meetings to attend and gave us two free days to work on personal stuff. As a cohort, we decided to use those days to create a group piece that we could present as a class. It was a great idea, which was well received by the entire group, so we immediately got to work. We paired ourselves into three different groups and began developing phrases that were to be viewed at the end of class.
One of my colleagues, Forrest, was fully online for the entire semester so he always joined the class on zoom. I was paired with him and Q so we developed our phrase together. We danced in front of the laptop the entire time so he could see us vice versa. Each group presented their phrases, and we knew we had solid material to work on. We met the second free day to experiment with how each group’s phrase related to others and the possibilities of pairing people from different groups. We knew this project needed time to complete so we each checked our schedules and realized we could meet every Thursday.
The people creating “Our Story” piece (it’s in my previous posts so you can check that out if you haven’t) had 2 hours of space reserved so we decided to split the time up and let the entire group meet for the last hour of that time to rehearse (mind you Forrest will still be online). I spoke to the group that I had composed music during the lockdown period and I think will be perfect for the piece, they listened to it and agreed so we had music that we started rehearsing with. We rehearsed for about 4 weeks and we were making great progress and we started planning on when we were to show the piece. We knew we wanted to show it in person so we spoke to Forrest about a week that will be free for him to drive to Columbus (he was in West Virginia).
We all picked a day and started planning towards and also planned to have a separate time to perform and shoot the dance, so we have a recorded version of it. Also, the piece we had was longer than the music I created so I was always building on the music, making additions, making some parts light, heavy, vamps, bridges, transitions, and others as we moved on with the choreography. The actual music was already created but the syncopation with the dance and extra build-up was done side by side, so I had to double up as a dancer and always run to my laptop to make changes and transitions.
It was a great experience to collectively work with my colleagues and to hold a common space to share ideas and develop this beautiful work of art that represents all of us as artists. I look forward to keeping and developing this bond with my cohort and to continue working as a group. Enjoy our piece below;
The Creative Process 