As a Dance Performance major at Southern Utah University I often heard about the need to find one’s own voice within their work.  So I decided to create a dance piece entitled Semblance for my EDGE project.  When I began my project I initially strove to create a dance piece that embodied the quality of movement and artistic style of the martial arts movies that I watched as a kid growing up in California.  In these movies actors soared and floated along and above the ground with an ease that could be felt through the screen.  The movement within the use of weapons in these movies also seemed effortless and was organic to each actor instead of having choreography thrust upon them.  I was motivated to create a dance piece that embodied this effortless style of movement and to create something that had not yet been performed at Southern Utah University.

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I was able to accomplish creating my dance piece by devoting a documented 54 hours creating this piece.  For the first 14 hours of my work on this project I kept my attempt to choreograph anything for the piece to a minimum and instead researched as much as I could on movement technique from Chinese Dance Theater and Modern Dance.  I studied the movement technique of Twyla Tharp, Martha Graham, and Paul Taylor to understand my dance lineage in Modern Dance and to understand best practices for choreography through a Modern Dance perspective.  I then compared this with technique from Chinese dance technique.  I specifically studied the movement technique and choreographic notes from Cloud Gate Dance Company to better understand the process itself of choreography.  This not only allowed me to know how to create movement inspired by Chinese Dance Theater but gave me increased knowledge about the best practices of choreographing a piece itself which will help me in my future goals of choreographing for larger companies.

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After researching information about these two worlds of choreography and dance technique, I then delved in to creating movement for the piece when I finally had the opportunity to rehearse with my partner.  I challenged myself every work keeping in mind my goal to create a unique piece that exemplified shape and stillness.  As these movement styles are not native to me it was difficult for me initially to accomplish this.  I then used a challenge recommended by my advisor during my attempts to choreograph my piece.  Every week I would randomly choose between improvising movement with my partner to create set movement and creating set movement for my partner and I before coming to rehearsal.  This not only pushed me to create something unique and organic to both of our bodies but allowed me to utilize the various tools that professional choreographers use when choreographing dance pieces.  Utilizing my research in to the history of choreography and best practices in choreography to create my piece allowed me to succeed in creating my dance piece.

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Though I had initial goals and outcomes for this project, as I began to progress through my initial research for movement I realized my goals and outcomes had changed during my planning.  My goal for this project in the end was to create a dance piece that emphasized the human body to create symbolic shapes and evoke emotion through stillness and movement.  I was able to accomplish this goal in my dance piece because of the way that I choreographed.  As noted in the above paragraph when my partner and I improvised movement we were able to use the movement to manipulate the time taken in each movement and the expansiveness that we used when performing the movement.  This truly allowed us to explore the shape of the human body and accomplish my goal.

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Through utilizing the technique of Chinese dance the outcome for this project evolved to be about something bigger than just my own personal growth.  I wanted to inspire other student choreographers here at SUU to embrace different cultures and different techniques in their choreography besides the technique learned in class just as I learned to do.  I saw this many times after my piece was performed and still see it today within the dance department.  I was able to see the inspiration to utilize different cultures in dance through the underclassmen in the dance department.  I had several sophomore student choreographers approach me and we were able to discuss their choreography.  After seeing my piece one of these choreographers choreographed a dance piece in their Dance Composition 2 class based on Bharatanatyam a dance technique solely developed and practiced in the middle and upper classes of India.  Several of my professors noted that after my piece they had seen new types of choreography stemming from traditions of Butoh (Japanese Dance Theater) dancing and other forms of dance in other classes.  Through my dance piece I was able to inspire future choreographers to push their own style of choreography to utilize different cultural techniques to broaden their choreography.

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Ted Orland said in his book Art & Fear: The Observations and Perils of Artmaking, “For the artist the greatest accomplishment is not the finished work but instead navigating the perilous journey and artistic realizations in creating their art.”  This quote perfectly summarizes the skills that I grew to use and develop while creating this dance piece.  I learned to utilize more effective time management.  In this piece I had to not only be accountable for myself in creating the piece but I also had to accountable for my partner who expected me to have movement prepared for her to learn and to integrate in to her own body.  If I did not have movement or at least a plan of progression, then I was not only being irresponsible but also being disrespectful to her and her valuable time.  I found this project highly developed this skill.  I also found that I used and developed my sense of rhythm.  Before I became a dance performance major I knew that I loved to be physically active and I even when I ran I felt I had to have a steady beat in my stride otherwise something was wrong.  Throughout this piece I was able to develop my sense of time and rhythm because it required such a tremendous familiarity with the rhythm of the movement before my partner and I could manipulate the movement to create the piece using stillness and shape throughout it.

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Through this piece I now understand why this course and the EDGE program is crucial to Southern Utah University students.  Not only are we as students on the edge of heading in to the world where job markets are saturated with cookie cutter applicants but we also need to have skills that not everyone graduates from their university with.  The EDGE metaphor is critical because it shows that we are either about to step out and fall or we step out in to the world with our head held high knowing we are special and extraordinary with legs fully supporting ourselves.  This is why SUU put an experiential learning requirement in place. Southern Utah University students, through this requirement, separate themselves from the rest of the world because of what they learn through their experiences.