Tim O'Toole Version B

Tim O’Toole Dr. Ferris-Lester DAN 312 – H001 21 April 2020 Junior Choreographic Project The Junior Choreography Project is a unique legacy to the Dance Department of the University of Southern Mississippi (USM), and it essentially marks the beginning of a lifetime journey for young artists to discover their artistic voice. A prerequisite of this course, known as Dance Composition Theory, provides Sophomores with dozens of choreographic tools that allows them to intellectually express themselves in advanced ways that they may have never seen before and encourages them to step far beyond their comfort zone. Before a USM Dance artist reaches their Junior year, they spend a lot of their time outside of class in rehearsals supporting the Juniors before them in their creative processes and marveling at the day they get their chance to engage in this hands-on dream to take part in the creation of a Repertory Dance Company (RDC) Concert. Who could blame them? The Juniors finally take the front seat as they organize their auditions where they pick their cast, schedule rehearsals that facilitate unforgettable breakthroughs, and choose their dream music, lighting, costumes, and makeup. The exciting final product results in a glorious concert that showcases who they are as artists to the rest of the department and the greater Hattiesburg community. These RDC Concerts formally celebrate USM Dancers’ hard work and growth as artists over the years, and it’s all polished with a shiny picture of their dance which is displayed in the hallway of the Theater and Dance Building to remember it all in the end. With all of this, I have no doubt that the Junior class of 2021 will be remembered as the year that COVID-19 cancelled all further RDC rehearsals and concerts for the Spring semester of 2020, and the resilient artists of USM Dance positively fought back to continue sharing their art to the world.

O’Toole 2 My original ideas for this Junior Choreography Project were to simply share a dance with the audience that showed a group of people having a great time in a social party setting. I wanted my dance to emulate hard work while celebrating confidence, diverse beauty, and positive minds. With this, I wanted the audience to feel drawn into the high energy world that I turned the stage into with my choice of music, lighting, and costumes. A minor inspiration for me at this time in the process was artists like Ariana Grande and Lizzo because all of their songs preach self-care, strength, independence, “slaying for the gods”, and confidence all around. Whenever I hear their music, I instantly feel empowered in a way that I can’t explain with words, so I wanted to translate this experience into movement that sparked this incredible emotion in the audience and my cast as they performed. Other ways to describe this feeling to others who may not find this connection when they hear music include having the best “hair day”, getting ready for a New Year’s party with your closest friends, or wearing your favorite outfit. Having all of this in mind, I went into the RDC casting auditions with a strategy to find a diverse group of dancers who made me connect to this experience without me coaching this quality of performance. While I value technique, flexibility, and extension, I was even more observant for dancers who gave me the feeling that they were dancing with those who were watching them instead of for them – artists who have clearly fallen in love with what they do, and it radiantly beams from their limbs in charisma and joy whenever they get to share their passion. Another way I like to explain with artistic phenomenon is when a performer may be facing away from the audience, yet the viewer can still see their body “smiling” even though the face is not visible. This contagious energy simply cannot be taught.

Throughout my creative process, I was doing a sizable amount of research that would assist me in creating a dance that spoke for the human experiences of confidence, beauty, and

O’Toole 3 feminism far beyond my own. As my research progressed, I noticed that the path of my dance was also changing. For the purpose of this paper, I will share a brief summary highlighting a few resources that played a major role in my creative process. Initially, the mystery of the human experience and how we make sense of it has always been something that fascinates me, and I wanted to apply the psychology of this to inspire movement generation. Through my experience studying Abnormal Psychology and Counseling Theory and Practice, among other subjects, I could feel my love for people growing immensely along with my understanding of how we interact with the world around us. Along the way, I came across this super inspiring author and speaker named Alan Watts who shared a lot about this phenomenon in his lifetime and inspired many decisions I made for this dance. As I prepared for this Junior Project, I began to read even more about his life and philosophy. The Alan Watts Organization website’s “Who is Alan Watts?” section shares La Times’ praise, “Perhaps the foremost interpreter of Eastern disciplines for the contemporary West, Alan Watts had the rare gift of ‘writing beautifully the un-writable’.

Watts begins with scholarship and intellect and proceeds with art and eloquence to the frontiers of the spirit. A fascinating entry into the deepest ways of knowing.” For anyone who may be interested in Watts’ philosophy as well, I highly recommend reading his book, The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety. On an additional note, I knew I wanted to emphasize the importance of diverse beauty, feminism, and discovering individuality, and a lot of the sources I came across spoke so powerfully in support of this experience. For example, “Appearance as a Feminist Issue”, an article of the SMU Law Review strongly declares, “[One] cost of our cultural preoccupation with appearance is discrimination. Appearance skews judgements about competence. Resumes and essays get less favorable evaluations when they are thought to belong to less attractive individuals,” (Rhode p. 701). This is a major issue in our

O’Toole 4 society that many people unfortunately relate to, and I personally watched my mother suffer through this aspect of our culture while growing up. Furthermore, a female dancer in my cast shared during a rehearsal about the cultural pressure she felt to look a certain way to be respected growing up, and her frustration that manifested as she knew that her beauty was expressed in a totally different way than the “societal norm for feminine figures”. After hearing this, I just knew I was being called to dedicate a section of my dance to showcase the different ways that my cast expressed their confidence and beauty. As the creative process grew, I let a few psychological theories on personality guide my decisions for grouping, expression, etc., which brings me to the way I structured rehearsals.

At the beginning of my first rehearsal, I asked my cast a series of loosely theoretical questions that would speak volumes to me about who they are and how they perceived themselves. These questions inquired of their zodiac sign, their Meyers-Briggs personality type, their Enneagram personality type, along with a silly, yet insightful question that asked, “If you were a specific type of cheese, what kind would you be and why?” Most people enjoy this question because it seems humorous; however, depending on the specificity and the content of the answer, one can tell a lot about the person being asked and how they perceive themselves.

For example, the first time I was ever asked this question, I gave the popular answer that I would be a pepper-jack cheese because I saw myself as someone with some spice and kick to their personality. These days, my answer has evolved to a smoked gouda cheese because I’m more mellow, relaxed, and I want my welcoming persona to melt people’s hearts. As for the MeyersBriggs and Enneagram personality types, I used this information to help me figure out more about how the individuals in my cast interact in social settings, how they work in projects, and how they react to and overcome obstacles when they’re faced with adversity. Knowing all of this

O’Toole 5 information about my dancers would assist me in creating visible and unique characters for them to portray throughout my dance. I also used this information to help me form contrasting duets.

Initially, my plan was to expand on a group study I created through devices while I was in my Advanced Dance Composition Theory class by picking out content I really liked, applying an intentional message, and performing research. As I continued to generate movement, I used more devices with original phrase work that I created in the comfort of my own home. Although I had a mapped-out plan for each day, I allowed my ideas to be open for change depending on what happened in the studio. During each rehearsal, I had one writing or movement-based activity that was intended to focus my cast’s mind on the work we were doing during our time together, which enhanced my creative process at times. I would like to sincerely thank my cast from the bottom of my heart for their creativity that inspired progression in my dance. Additionally, I led warm-ups that would prepare and condition their bodies for what I would be asking them to do that day. In the end, I was extremely satisfied with what my cast and I were able to create during our time together.

Moving forward with finishing my piece, I initially focused on the essence of Brittany Tolbert and Morgan Goodwin’s duet. This movement was created after I asked my cast a series of questions such as “When do you feel most confident?”, “Who or what gives you permission to feel beautiful in your own skin?”, and “How do you nourish this confidence and your inner divine?” The concept of your “inner divine” can be interpreted in many ways; therefore, I opened this part of the latter question, allowing the individuals in my cast to reflect on how the concept of their inner divine resonated with them. I paired Morgan and Brittany together because their personality types and forms of expression contrasted each other beautifully. After they created movement based on their answers to the previous questions, I coached different qualities,

O’Toole 6 devices, and tempos into their duet. The final product left me speechless, and I knew I wanted their duet to be a stand-alone section in my dance about the concept of the inner divine where the stage lights grew into this bold shade of gold as their expansive movement took over the entire stage. Towards the end of their duet, I would have one dancer run to the center of the stage from each corner all at once to perform a quartet of smooth and sustained movement that responds to Brittany and Morgan’s phrase. A way I would coach this performance is to tell my dancers to move from their heart and express their power in its truest form. During the process of writing this paper, I was inspired to add in a voice-over of my cast talking to each other about their responses to my prompted questions at the beginning of my dance, before the music changed, and at end of my dance. During the voices before the music changed, I would choreograph literal gestures that portrayed day-to-day social interactions that we look forward to along with gestures that interpreted what the voice recording was saying. My cast loved to laugh with each other, so during moments of laughter in the recording, I would prompt my dancers to look at each other and laugh on stage for a brief moment. These short moments would enhance the aura of community that I also wanted for my dance. As my dance finished, I would give each of my dancers a solo moment while their voices were heard as a sort of a “bow” based on their originally made movement that I used for duets. In the end, Brittany would be the only one left on stage, and the lights would fade at the end of her solo.

The production elements I chose for my dance played a major role in driving the overall message of feminism and individual power forward. As for the costumes, I wanted my dancers to be in a simple black sports bra and black high-waisted leggings because I didn’t want this element of the dance to distract from the core of everything else. I was also thinking about putting their hair in a high, slicked back ponytail just because this hairstyle is fierce and powerful

O’Toole 7 to me. As for the lighting, I wanted the theater to begin in a full black-out as the voices of my dancers were heard briefly discussing individuality as a group. Once the music started, and the voice-over of Alan Watts is heard, I wanted a centerstage spotlight to slowly illuminate the triangular clump, which pointed downstage right, with my six dancers in a power stance. The movement that begins with the vocoder in the music in strong, direct, and pressing. I sort of think of this moment as the “birth” of the dance in a way that I can’t explain. I had a dream about this moment, and since I began the Junior Choreography Project, it has been the most important part of the dance to me. As the dancers begin to travel stage right, I wanted the side light to reveal the space in a soft, golden glaze. After this, right at the moment Alan Watts’ speech excerpt finished and the music clashes into a high burst of energy, I wanted the stage to explode into a stunning shade of pastel pink that gives the illusion that the movement you see is happening in large box at the Museum of Modern Art. During my time at USM, I’ve seen dances that used this specific sort of lighting that made me forget about the curtains and light trees on the side, the psyche upstage, and the color of the floor. Everything just becomes this one color, and artists are dancing in a world of high energy that makes the audience want to dance as well. Within my music choice, the artist, Snarky Puppy, proceeds to build up the energy of the music, which eventually meets this satisfying halt where everything stops and the keyboard in the music makes me feel like I’m lightly floating in a pool of water. For this moment, I wanted the pastel pink to grow into this darker blue that reminds me of the ocean at a medium speed. During the voiceover section that transitions to my next music choice, I would like the blue to soften into a pastel shade. As aforementioned, the next section beginning with Brittany and Morgan’s duet would have a bold shade of gold to symbolize the inner divine. To finish the dance off, I would like the

O’Toole 8 stage to have the lighting that is often seen when a cast is bowing while my dancers move through their short solo phrases during their final voice-over.

At the end of my dance, I find that my ultimate satisfaction with the final product of my creative process is watching the movement I created and feeling like I need to move with the dancers I see on stage. That moment when you feel like you can’t sit still because you seem to feel the movement in your own body as you’re watching the performance. I like visibly seeing this moment in the audience members as well, when I can tell that they’re feeling moved by the performing arts. I want the whole auditorium to be filled with wonder, excitement, and joy. By the end of my dance, I want the auditorium to feel that unexplainable emotion that I mentioned before that charges through my veins whenever I hear music. From the beginning of my creative process for this Junior Choreography Project, my intention and original ideas have relatively stayed the same; however, the meaning, depth, and experience dramatically increased as I did more research and presented my findings to my cast each day.

In conclusion, even though our Junior Projects didn’t happen as planned, we still have opportunities at our fingertips to let this art come to fruition, and it’s up to us to take them. I’ve been in touch with my cast up to this point, and we have discussed the possibility of showcasing the finished product of this dance in the Student Dance Organization (SDO) showcase at the end of the Fall semester. If I wanted, I could even convert this piece to a sight-specific form and put on my own concert with the right amount of planning and materials. If I crave more feedback or adjudication, I can reach out to my faculty and greater dance community with questions that will assist my creative process. The possibilities are endless, and I’m thankful for the opportunity to create art freely.

O’Toole 9 Works Cited Deborah L. Rhode, Appearance as a Feminist Issue, 69 SMU L. Rev. 697 (2016) https://scholar.smu.edu/smulr/vol69/iss4/2 “The Life of Alan Watts.” AlanWatts.org, www.alanwatts.org/life-of-alan-watts/.