Solo reflection

 

As I composed SILK, I learned a lot from this process. In class, we talked about the methods of communication, feedback, and explored several prompts that helped me cultivate this narrative solo. As I reflect on all of it, I am learning that ideas can be very clear in your head but if that idea is not communicated effectively, it can be confusing to your cast. In my process, I was interested in the objectification of black women and the damaging effects of the male gaze. This is especially important to me because I have experienced it myself. Being reduced to just my body made me feel like I had to physically hide and walk on eggshells to appease others. In order to generate this material, I had to go to a vulnerable place and it was reflected in my limited use of space. 

 

I focused on sensuality in the confines of a patriarchal society. I feel my intentions are often misunderstood by my family and my mentors because as I explore this area of scholarship, they are concerned with my reputation and I am concerned about the process. Originally, I wanted to cast a black dancer to add that component of race but due to limited resources I wasn’t able to fulfill that. In my effort to be racially sensitive to my cast,  I wasn't honest all the time when they did not execute something correctly or to my personal aesthetic. 

 

Phrase 6 influenced the work not only because I didn’t change much about it but because it was an important moment for my audience to witness. In this phrase, as the dancer is in a pike, her back side is highlighted and not to objectify her but to challenge a lot of heterosexual, cisgender, men. It was supposed to make you uncomfortable and question how you view a woman's body. As far as I am concerned, movement is movement and a body is a body but at what point does it stop being a body innocently moving in space to then sexualizing it? At the time when I created the phrase, the prompt had nothing to do with sensuality, female objectification and the male gaze but everything to do with the way me and my colleagues drew a tree and a sun in class. I said all that to say that you can generate movement from mundane things and objects and give them meaning. I know sometimes I get straight to the meaning of the work and I try to generate movement from the meaning but sometimes you have to step outside of the meaning in order to generate and manipulate material and then put the meaning back.

 

My biggest takeaway was to be less of a perfectionist and be more process-oriented. I think that's one of my favorite parts about the graduate level because currently where I am in life, it is a process. I am learning new methods while also clarifying my ideas of what I value and what I stand for. 

 

​