Final Composition Study
- Avey Jespersen
- May 15
- 3 min read
This final study is a culmination of individual choreographic voices collaborating together to create a piece that represents what we have discovered and used as tools throughout the semester. The title that came forward was Synchrony. We created this as a way to have senses of joy, lightness, and a collective variety of textures. By starting this process, in our community agreements we chose three concepts that felt most authentic and grounded in our choreographic process as a small ensemble:
Not one voice matters, all do, and having a “Try it” mindset.
The growth of development; staying humble and grounded in the work being built.
Sensing the peacefulness in expression.
Of course, the first part of our process was communication and involvement by listening to others’ needs, and allowing a personal sharing of experience. Our bodies love to move authentically, and within that, the simplicity is meaningful and expressive, valuing the human in the work. This brings me to what began in our ensemble choreographic process. As a group, we all agreed that we wanted to keep it simple but layered. Throughout the semester, we played a lot with motif and gesture and how we could make one movement be affected differently; by speed, duration, size, weight, etc. As we explored different gestures and movement, we were able to recall individual choreographies from past studies or scores, aligning with certain textures and imagery that resonated with our vision coming alive in this piece. It was helpful to use the piece of music Spring 1 – 2012 by Max Richter and Daniel Hope (also known as Recomposed or Vivaldi, The Four Seasons) that has lightness/airiness and multiple layers so we could each have a spark of creativity make its way into the dance. This was something that felt incredibly strong in ensemble work and in semester solo work, when there are guidelines given in improvisational scores or compositional tools and descriptors. The motivation and imagery that this dance created for observers and for us was a unified sense of working together as a ‘symphony’ or living statues or mosaics. With use of space and repetition of sculptural motif, the swiftness of our group energy felt dropped in and connected when splitting off into duos and clarity in transitional work. As a group, we stuck with the ‘try it’ headspace and when something didn’t work, we tried something new. Lots of trial and error inevitably comes with creating in an ensemble, and we were able to communicate when we had ideas and when something didn’t feel quite right. What I learned about myself through choreographic compromise, shared space, and co-creation, is that I absolutely love it. I love listening to what others come up with, I love applying those ideas into external movement, and I love when there’s an eventual state of flow reached when qualitative details bounce off of each member. Artistically, my habitual patterns have changed to where I have been able to take risks in doing the uncomfortable bits of creating movement that feels new. I have leaned into my curiosities and into impulses that were bubbling and exciting to execute in discovery. I wanted to remain open in this part of composition, but I also wanted to remain open with feedback from mentors and peers because an outside view can be beneficial for personal growth and compositional growth. My relationship with process, when that is beginning to middle to end, or in complete opposite order has changed by instantly allowing trust to be involved no matter what. This has just started to change my approach, and I think if I keep putting trust into things coming together eventually, can always have opportunities for new threads of learning to emerge. This course has taught me where to start being bold in decision making, and how to bring my whole dancing self into creating. I want to continue developing my artistic abilities and bringing internal ideas into the world, and I want to keep becoming a reliable, trusting, and kind person to collaborate with. The voice of choreography is important for diversifying and expanding this world, and I hope that those I meet and those I work with in future processes aren’t afraid to share their compositional knowledge and confidence in collaboration. I want to keep being curious, take chances and risks, and be my full dancing self in any dance space I am a collaborating in and practicing in.
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