Where We Are:

          This dance is practically complete.  All that remains are little pieces of work here and there.  We need few edits in the music, which will be done by Kaitlyn, a few alterations in the choreography, finalizing the exact ways each step will be done, lighting (when the lights flicker and don't), costumes, making the steps look better, and each of our emotions.  The bulk of this project is done, but all of those details will take time to be worked on and are a major aspect of what can make this a great success of a dance or a terrible flop.  Let's do this.

It's Coming Together

          The dance is almost complete.  All that's left is the lingering ideas of how to end the dance.  Choreographing the beginning is done.  The middle is set, and the end is already decided when it comes to its ideas.  All it needs now is the moves to portrait it.  Finally, we will be able to touch it up and pay close attention to the counts for each step and where they will fit in the best.  This is where Kaitlyn can help a lot.  She edited the song a little, leaving some space for it to be comedic and for where it will take after the Broadway show, "Gypsy".   Besides the choreography to the ending and the little touch ups, this dance is almost ready to hit the road (or the stage).  Since it is all about my dream of what I have and could have gone through with my training to become a great dancer,  at one point I decided a ghost should come through.  This character will be played by Sarah Robinson and has a very simple role of playing the craziness that happens in dreams and plays the part of the trickster.  The ghost twirls Jessica around so Kaitlyn can capture me and use me for her own purposes which she decided to be for money.  With purposes to every character, the dance gained more meaning and depth.  It also gave us a plethora of ideas to work from, since we had a story on our minds.

Tear It Up, Switch It Up

          I kept putting more and more choreography together.  To be honest, it bored me.  I knew I had to do something, but I had no clue what.  I asked if I could stand on a girl's legs (Emily's) that were stretched out as she was leaning on the wall.   Yes, it was very bizarre, but it lead me to the ideas I needed.  I balanced on one leg, bending my right leg behind me in what is known as "back attitude" in ballet.  I grabbed her hands telling her to keep her arms tight.

          "Do you want to be in my dance," I asked her while still standing on her legs. 

          "Sure," she replied.

and we began...

          I had ideas racing through my head (finally).  We spun and twirled, made her into what would be presented as my "dance teacher."  We did flips and all of my favorite steps.  She learned so much, having no former dance experience.  I had a dance.  It was perfect.

Community

          I was completely stuck and felt like I was getting nowhere.  I needed ideas, so I asked Sabrina who can dance like their is no tomorrow to help me out.  The two of us managed to come up with how I will portray my story and what I could do with it to make it more interesting.  We collaborated until we thought of me being awkward at the beginning and not knowing how to dance.  She showed me some steps that were  her least favorite of what she was taught and said how awkward and weird they both felt and look.  Then I would improve after showing how much effort and practice I have done by doing the same steps till it appears that they are right.  After that, I would go crazy from all the hard work.  This would be displayed by having pillows and sheets thrown at me.  I would dance with them, calming down a little and going to sleep.  I've done all I could to practice and be great, but now I need to rest.  Let me see if I made it when you "Wake Me Up When September Ends."

          I've been coming up some ideas for steps including Fosse, but in a played down kind of way, less isolation of most of the body and more movement.  I also had some ideas of using other people in my dances.  Perhaps a line dance as Luke suggested could be really cool behind me.  Then I started getting into the ides of simple props that could be used in many ways as we did with sheets in Metamorphoses.  Maybe they could line dance behind they main steps and story told through my movements.
          Ways of recording my ideas:  My mind and My computer.  I took a video of steps i came up with so I wouldn't forget them, a very useful way of remembering my past ideas.  (Only have my slow beginning, but it will definitely pick its pace up.)
file://localhost/Users/jsh/Pictures/Photo%20Booth/Movie%20on%202012-05-09%20at%2014.03.mov

Influences

     I'm not sure which direction I'm going in with this dance.  I've tried out putting classical modern steps to "Wake me up when September Ends,"  but it seemed too dull and ordinary.  That's when the research came in.  I  looked up some choreographers to see their steps and some could have potential to work in my choreography.  I found some great people and videos:

Cathy Roe:  (dance techniques)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_pTEMaMUxM&feature=relmfu      

Christopher Bruce:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBvX7zG71SI

Jiri Kylian:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFcJ0a3aBJs&feature=related

It's All In The Research

          It is obvious that in order to do something, you need to know how.  If you want to play a game, you need to know the rules.  If you want to do a math problem, you need to learn the steps.  In the dance Me Verses Myself, I decided to make it lyrical, a kind of dance that I haven't had much training in.  Since I want to do this style, I need to learn how.  I have an idea and a little bit of experience, including a major dance background, but I still need to learn more.  Today I was looking up videos of how to do lyrical steps.  I found a person online that teaches steps for jazz and lyrical dance, so I began to go along with her exercises.  Her name is Cathy Roe and is excellent at both dancing and making great educational dance videos.  Another way that I found I could become a better lyrical dancer is by practicing the replication of other people's lyrical dance routines.  From this, I will be able to add many kinds of steps into my portfolio of knowledge, which I will be able to pull from when putting together the dance; Me Verses Myself.

Me Verses Myself

            Why do I always feel the need to do and be the best at everything?  Is this a problem or a gift?  I believe that this comes to show the way I am.  It can be a big problem, being a perfectionist and being ambitious to achieve more than what’s practical.  It can often lead to disappointment, major stress, and not being as good as I could if I simply focused on one field.  The plus of course is that I have some great skills that open many doors for me in my future. 

            I chose to choreograph and perform a Dance to Green Day’s song, “Wake Me Up When September Ends,” as my major project for STAC for the forth quarter.  In this, not only will I learn more about dance, different styles of dance, and choreography, but I will all discover a lot about myself; the impossible struggles of being the best, causing fights dealing with me and against me, meaning figuring out what is the best for me and if I am hurting myself or helping myself more.  Am I wasting my time, or following my dreams to end in success?  These struggles will be what I will portray in the dance of me verses myself.

A major reason why I choose to dance to the song “Wake Me Up When September Ends,” is because I feel so much passion in that song and it makes me want to dance, but that is just the skin of my reasons.  The deeper reason is that the message in the lyrics isn’t what Green Day was talking about, but it still fits my situation perfectly.  Green Day was talking about the hardships of a young couple’s pain of being separated by the boy going off to the army.  That is why he is singing to wake him up once his hardships are over.  I see my message to fit even better to the lyrics, as strange as that may be.  I aimed for success by putting all my time and energy into what I love to do, mostly relating to the performing arts.  I spent nearly my whole life training my voice, dancing abilities and acting skills.  With the song “Wake Me Up When September Ends,” I get to express my feelings towards the struggle of being the best, even though I started training later than many others in the same field, due to youthful ignorance of not knowing to start as a very little girl, in dance classes especially.  Many others had a huge head start, pushing them into a much more likely road to success.  How do I keep up?  I need to work at least twice as hard.  In the song, two of the bold lines are “20 years have gone so fast” and “wake me up, when September ends.”   These lines represent how I am behind in my training and how time is running out quickly to get much better at my passion.  These are the “20 years” that “have gone so fast.”  When my training ends (being sung as September or the end of those 20 years), That is when it is finally time to see if all my efforts were worth it.  That is when I will be either woken up to the success or proven to have put in my efforts so strongly, but not to get that outcome I dreamed of.  This goes back to causing a battle within myself.  Am I doing what’s right for myself, or only forming damage by putting in all my efforts to see my dreams fail.  I love what I do.  Right now, that and my dedication is what I’m leaning on.  This dance will show my mixed feeling of the stress I am putting on myself, while telling every last bit of me to keep going, that I will shine.  This is the dance of me verses myself.  My practice is my dreaming time, “so wake me up when September ends”.  

Expressionism: The Mystery

          Expressionism is the displaying of one's inner feeling, emotions, and methods of coping through art.  This is created when a person digs deeply into their preferred form of art to let their emotions out.  Some dance, whether it be choppy and full of anger, or smooth and full of love or sadness, is a powerful way of releasing all that seems ready to explode in the that person's mind.  It usually comes from being overwhelmed, hurt, surprised, or inspired.  Others may write a poem as a form of expressionism. 

          I often do this, but only when I'm in "the mode."  I have to either be feeling strong emotions of confusion or become inspired by over-thinking.  This often happens with me when I'm overly tired.  I would let the words pour out of my mind and onto the paper without any thought.  

          It is this kind of art that displays the deepest of feelings, this kind of art that accurately shows one's inner-self if interpreted correctly, and it is this kind of art that one can express in almost any way, whether in; painting, drawing, taking photos at certain angles to capture the artist's mood, improvisation in singing while in a deep mood, or it can be expressed in almost anything that could be considered art.  Expressionism is the kind of art that digs down and finds the deepest, most honest feelings and qualities in a person.

Guggenheim Vs. Me on the meaning of Monochrome

          I walked in wondering where the exhibit was.  A large decoration which covered every topic and emotion imaginable dangled from the celling, but the walls were white and blank, leaving my past memories of the color-filled walls drained.  Baffled, I started wandering the museum's grounds, swirling steadily up, with finally an apparent entrance way, leading somewhere other than in the direction of the common twist.  It was a spacey, little room called "Monochrome," which was deceiving at first, seeing that all the art was only one color each and not just black and white.
          This term of monochrome is often used by meaning solids, but its technical meaning is just the shades of black and white.  What I find very interesting is that when you dig into what white is, it is every color combined, so maybe the Guggenheim's meaning of monochrome could also be correct.  That would mean that a multicolored object would also be monochromatic and that the world and everything we know is monochromatic, taken as dull and lifeless, but this again has its issues.  What does black and white make; everything, or gray?  Does it make both?
          I take monochrome to be the part that is gray.  Although both are made at a certain point,  monochrome is the appearance to the human eye, the lack of our ability to see every color at once.  We look at black and see darkness.  We look at white and see it as light.  The human eye is not complex enough, leading to new experiments; how to erase the white, how to eliminate a monochromatic factor, and to see the details of color.  I don't see any accomplishment here, but this is the truth of what could lie ahead in research, due to our nature of curiosity. Basically, what I took from all this is that monochrome is the definition of what we see as black and white.  Was the Guggenheim wrong?  I believe that a mistake was made since they were talking about beyond the human eye instead of what we see when mixing paints together (such as black and white, making gray), but it all depends on one's definition of the meaning of monochromatic.