Composing in Movement and Performance

In Unit 5 we looked at Composing in Movement and Performance by looking at the contemporary context of these mediums. We looked at these context through by reading Marvin Carlson's Performance: A Critical Introduction and a lecture by Dean Wilcox, Dean of Liberal Arts.

Before this unit I knew a lot about performance and movement. I have worked many dance shows and during The Nutcracker I do most of the dances back stage with the stage crew. In my high school years I was in many smaller theatre shows like The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Abridged and directed other shows like Elephant's Graveyard that had both acting I had to block and dancing I got to choreograph.

From my journals this unit I learned that movement and performance are essential to the work of a stage manager. One of our basic duties is being in charge of managing performance. Without actors, dancers, singers, jugglers, acrobats, performance artists, speakers, poets, or any other type of performer, we would not have a job. The performance of the artist allows us to perform off of them in more subtle but very vital ways. From my online discussion forum I though that Erin Burt's statement, "In my opinion, anyone or anything can perform, however, a certain quality must be present, whether it is music, artistic finesse, rehearsal or improvisation, to be considered a performance," was very accurate. This is why I think UNCSA is so special, we have all these performers who have a special quality to them. From Performance: A Critical Introduction by Marvin Carlson I learned about the two types of performance, one having to do with the display of skills and the other having to do with the display of skills that are less particular than of a recognized and culturally coded pattern. From Dean Wilcox's lecture I took away a lot from his Art History references. Seeing how life influences art which influences life is very important to me as an artist, so to hear how the Dadaist saw the chaos of the world around them in WWI and then created art reflecting that chaos seems very emblematic of the contemporary movement. From my Conversations video (can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3r5N-Y4uCE) I learned more about parallel editing like last week, but I also learned about writing a script and forming two different characters out of the same person, me.

I would like to learn more about composing in movement because we did not get to hear Brenda Daniel's lecture due to conflicts. I can and have been learning more about this throughout my time on The Nutcracker through ballet masters like Jared Reddick, Laura Martin, Dayna Fox, and Jenet Zerbe.

Overall, Composing in Movement and Performance is a very complex topic that has to do with the ideas of performance and all of it's facets.