After a semester of learning different choreographic techniques and forms of dance I had the opportunity to choreograph and design a piece of my choosing. I was initially inspired by the sound project, which had me record my environment and see what I hear. So for this project I recorded my boyfriend playing one of our favorite video games- Diablo 3, starting with just the clicking of the buttons and then expanded it to the sound on in game. I took these audio clips and combined them with one of the songs on Diablo 3 soundtrack, and edited the track down to fit more of what I wanted (and so the length of the piece was something I could handle performing solo.)
However, I already had a plan before I even started editing the pieces. I wanted my piece to be a girl playing video games, and then she's so into the game that the world of the game starts to appear around her until she is literally fighting the monsters in her bedroom. Personally when I play games I get super into them and am usually very vocal and move a lot while I'm playing. And I've always imagined what it would be like to have the world of the game come to life- that's the reason I've gotten more into cosplay and creating costumes so I can be in the world of the things I love most (be it books, video games, or more.) Regardless, I had never tried this with dance. So this process was new to me.
As I edited the music I planned out the basic structor of the movement. Not specific choreography yet but more what's happening at the beginning, when the world transitions into the game, and I knew I wanted there to be a boss fight so finding where that would go was important to me. My dance starts out before the music does, with the girl sitting in her room bored and wanting something to do. Then she notices her switch (a gaming console and the one I happened to use in the video) and starts to play. Now, I had to go up and turn on the music however I like how that ended up looking in the end, but the idea was that the music comes in then. The music starts out with just the clicking of the buttons, the girl starting up the game. As she plays she gets more and more into it, and the audience starts to hear the sounds of the game in the space. The girl is moving a lot, almost like she's fighting with her body as well and is so into the game that she can't sit still. Then she notices a shift in the air, and starts looking around before putting down the console and looking around. But you still hear the clicking of the controller in the background. The idea here was that in reality, she's still playing the game, but in her mind she's playing in real life. The girl wanders to the windows of her room, how in her mind a little shack she was hiding in, and notices she's surrounded by monsters. She is nervous for a moment, but then knows she's in the game and gets excited. She runs for her bed and pulls out a sword, and immediately starts in on the evil monsters. The audience just sees her fighting the air and sees her room, but the lighting has changed to signify we's somewhere else and she sees all of these things. More on the lighting later. She quickly slaughters all the monsters and jumps up in victory when the music changes and she notices... the boss. If you know the game I decided it was the Skeleton King because it's the first boss you fight in campaign and it's the only boss that fights with a sword. They circle each other and then start in with the swords. The fight is intense, the girl is knocked down, but she's strong and keeps on going. The music is not intense and scary at this time, I specifically chose the softer but still intense music. To me it seemed like it was slow motion to show the intensity and the struggle. In addition, I've always felt that a sword fight/ battle is like a dance. So I really wanted to draw on that while making this piece. After some intense movements and sword slashes, it's clear that the girl has stabbed the boss, and sliced his head off, and thus won the battle. The music dramatically ends. She sees him fall, and stumbles toward her bed as the room shifts back to her room, dropping her sword and picking up the switch again. Finally, she lays down, smiling at her victory, and continues to play.
As far as lights go, I created my ideas with Matt Kizer's Online Light Lab. I wanted the beginning to be light and kinda neutral stage lighting while we're just in the girls room. It kinda looks funky on here but the idea was normal stage lights with a bit of side light and I liked the blue on the cyc to look almost like the wall of the room.
Then as the room transformed I wanted it to have a more sinister feel and the red really captured my goal. I wanted the audience to have an idea of what she was seeing and the red definitely accents the sword fighting/ bad asss-ness.
Then the lighting gets darker and a special comes on for the boss fight. The fighting is focused in the center however the choreography does take her in and out of that light and into just the red and the gobos. This lighting stays until the final hit of the boss fight...
...when it's clear that the girl just won. This is the final stab moment and head roll moment. Also in both of these I raised the foot light levels because I love the silhouette on the cyc that is created by them. I've had that kind of lighting for fighting- based pieces in the past and I felt that it really helped set the tone.
And finally the lights will come back to that neutral of the room (for reference go to image 1) slowly after the girl drops the sword and sits down on the bed, and then after a moment of the girl laying down the lights fade to black.
For costumes I chose to just dress in black. Ideally I would have liked to have some cool armor-like outfit but I don't know how realistic it would be to change in and out of that. Especially since she would come back out of it again at the end. Along those lines if I was doing this again with more people I would make it longer and I would have had other dancers coming in as the monsters and the boss and hose costumes would be more elaborate to look like something you might see in the game. I would also have more jumping and interesting movement with them. I would actually love to expand this movement into a full piece with more people because I think it would look really cool. For the set I had a blanket and a mat as the bed, but having a bed for storage would have been ideal if I was performing this.
For the movement and the choreographic studies we did in class I pulled from the props pretty heavily because I tried the piece without the game and the sword and I could have completed the movement without the console but I felt it looked a bit weird. But without the sword the movement would have been totally different. I didn't feel that the sword fight looked like a sword fight having only one person without a sword fighting. I did play with other fight choreography but I really liked the look of the sword and I felt that it brought the movement to a whole different level that I really liked. I originally wasn't going to use the sword at all because the characters I personally play don't typically fight with swords, they can but it's not their main weapon. But I didn't have a scythe and I didn't feel that the choreography looked as intense with fists and magic so I used the sword since every character can use a sword. Also side note, swords are heavy. Even foam swords. And that choreography was some of the most challenging I've done in a while physically because my body wasn't used to moving that kind of weight around for that long. In addition I was putting real strength and muscle tension into the sword when I would be stuck on the other person's sword and fighting against them, which made my muscles even more tired. Some of the other things I pulled from besides props and the sound project were the abstract concepts. When I completed that choreographic study I pulled a lot from emotion and portraying that through dance and I used that a lot with this movement as well. I feel that my movement really told a story and had a good flow that was easy to understand. The movement was connected but also still had the energy of a young girl playing video games and suddenly it all came to life. which was exactly what I was going for.
At this point you probably want to see the dance... so without further ado: