Practice-Based Research

 What am I looking at?

This video was taken at a dance class I went to. His name is Josh Faleatua and he dances for Identity Dance Company. I didnt manage to get myself dancing in his class because I had limited amount of memory but at least I recorded him and the full set.

What do I see?

The class was more of a swag/new school set. There were fast, sharp movements in his set but they use up a lot of energy if you want to execute the set well. Most of the dance movements are shown through the use of his arms and feet, not so much with his core.  There are no body rolls or grooves, except for when he does the 'naynay' which consists of putting your hand up in the air an moving your body in a side to side motion.

 

'Naynay Dance'

How does it relate to my idea of body movement & dance genres?

In contrast to waacking, this swag set is more of a boyish style. I noticed that the way we had to carry ourselves was more like a boy, slouched abit but with a stiff kind of posture. Where as waacking is a very feminine style, making use of hip movements, outstretched arms and arched back. Im not very good at executing a swag set well because my body is not used to the posture and I am not that strong in portaying myself as a boy. If I take more new school classes, my body can adapt to the style and I can become more versatile in my dancing.

Soar Class

Who am I looking at?

I took part in a class at the dance programme I attend which is Soar in Otara, aimed at serving the youth of South Auckland. Tony Pati from the dance crew Dskyz and Dziah 2.0 taught a fun new school set. We are currently preparing for a gig on Saturday afternoon where we will be performing at Barry Curtis Park. This video was taken on my friends iPad and he sent it to me through Facebook so its not very good quality.

 What do I see?

I managed to pick up the set in just under an hour but I noticed that my body movements are very smooth and flowy. The set is supposed to have sharp, strong movements.

How does it relate to my idea?

Im not confident in new school sets as Im weak in that dance genre. Its definitely something I need to upskill on; hence the reason for my lack of execution throughout the set.

Qualitative/Field Research

What am I looking at?

 This is a video taken from the private waacking class I took with a girl named Jayshri. She is a well-known dancer in the street dance community. She is known for her freestyling, being the leader of Epsom Girls Grammar's Bring It On (a secondary school hiphop dance competition) as well as being in the dance crew, Sample. I knew that she had been training in waacking for a few months, with the OG's of waacking over in Los Angeles, so I asked if she could share her knowledge with me and my friend by teaching us the foundations of waacking because I have never learnt proper waacking foundations. Ive only ever seen it on Youtube or in dance sets. In this video, I recorded only segments of the waacking class. She also has alot of knowledge about the style and how it should be executed when dancing, so I got her to speak of what she knows about the style. We both asked her questions at the end of the class. The lady who lended me out the camera, gave me another snapshot camera and again, it couldnt hold more than 5 minutes worth of video. I was so disappointed because Jayshri spoke alot about the foundations of waacking and where it originated from before we started our class. I recorded it but later, had to delete in order to get footage of me actually participating in her class. I took a few notes which are on my phone though. Here are my notes:

- Punking (another dance style) similar to waacking

- Waacking created out of black men imitating white women "beauty" in 70s

- Anna Sanchez: LA based, well-known waacker

- Dallas Zeliga: Youtube him. Well-known waacker

- Came out of an opression. Finding an escape. Expressing yourself.

- Studios teach themselves how to move our own bodies: we should learn how to move them ourselves. Practice practice practice!! Freestyles!!!

- Waacking = very theatrical: costumes, posing, character

What do I see?

In terms of the dance genre and body movement, Jayshri mentioned that I have good posture and the technique of the style on point. I didnt get enough footage of my self dancing and of Jayshri talking for me to fully analyse my body movements or how I did in the class. I was given another snapshot camera and it could only hold a maximum of 5 minutes worth of video so I was quite disappointed. But from what is on the footage, I noticed that my body movements when doing waacking is very flowy. Jayshri describes the style as showing off your femininity but still keeping it very high class. I need to use different drills, or different combinations of waacking moves together so Im not doing the same thing over and over.

How does it relate to my idea?

 While taking this class, I noticed that I need to develop on my own style. This was my first time freestyling and it was completely out of my comfort zone. I am what Jayshri calls, "a choreo kid". A choreo kid is someone who does strictly choreography. They take dance classes, dance in groups, dance for gigs and competitions with set movements but it is someone who is not capable of freestyling. As a dancer, I think it is important to be able to know your own body and the limits it has and what you are able to do with it. Not being able to freestyle is a little disappointing for me as it is a way of expressing yourself through movement and it is something I want to be able to develop on. Freestyling is not something that can be learnt in a classroom though. If I want to develop on my freestyling, I need to spend time at home to work on it.

Field Research

Battlegrounds Performance

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWqkkOAf7aA 

Who am I looking at?

This is a link to my performance with IMDC. In September/October, we travelled to Melbourne Australia because we qualified for World Supremacy Battlegrounds, representing New Zealand.

What do I see?
 
Our dance consists of 4-5 different hiphop dance genres in a 4 minute set; Krump, waacking, new school/swag, new school/naynay and locking. Personally, I think the first half of our performance was the best. Dancing in the krump required hard, fast, strong body movements. When I was dancing the krump set, the thoughts in my head were "buck, loud, angry, confident, agressive" and thats what I was trying to get across to the audience. In the waacking segment, our movements were quite feminine.


Parris Goebel's Moon Child

 
Who am I looking at?

Here are some snapshots and short videos of the Parris Goebel's "Moonchild" showcase. I could only get small snippets of the show because we werent allowed to film but overall, it was a pretty good show. It was about a man and a woman who come from two completely different worlds and fall in love. Their worlds end up tearing them both apart and ultimately they end up dying trying to stay together - so a Romeo and Juliet type story. Im really disappointed I wasn't able to capture any more footage or shots than I would have liked to. I also didn't have alot of memory on my camera because I was using the snapshot camera, and the battery was running flat as well.

What do I see?

I'd noticed that in their sets, they had quite alot of contrast in their body movements depending on the type of feel they were trying to get across for a specific scene. There were soft, flowy, smooth movements used in the contemporary, slow jam & couple set pieces alongside slow and intense, heart-felt music. These movements were contrasted with more energetic, powerful, sharp and strong movements in the dancehall/reggaeton and waacking pieces. I think they were used to show power and combined with fast, upbeat, loud music. I think my favourite part would have to be when two dancers were using the rope/ribbon hanging from the ceiling to dance. Their body movements were very smooth as they moved gracefully up and down the rope, sealing their performance with a final kiss.

How does this relate to my idea?

I think that the smooth slow movements during the contemporary Throughout their performance, I was thinking that they must have alot of upper body strength to be able to hold soft, smooth movements in mid-air for that long, while also being able to hold their entire body weight on a single piece of cloth hanging from the ceiling. I think for my experiments, I should investigate with slow, smooth movements of waacking alongside slow music and contrast them with hard, fast, strong movements with more up-beat type music.

Practice-Based Research Experiment | Waacking with Shadows

Whats working?

This is an experiment based on shadows and waacking. I tried to take the waacking out of a normal dance context and place it into an art context by using my own art practice - which is photography/video art. I experimented alot with visual effects with the use of bright & vibrant colours, mirror effect. I even slowed & sped up down some parts and reversed the video. I quite like the reversed effect because it helps you focus more on the movement of my body as I waack and takes the focus off the actual dancing.

Whats not working?
 

The shadows aren't clear enough that you can see my arms/body movement. I would like for those to have been clearer and more defined because in the video they are quite blurry.
Whats next?

I think what could have been better about this experiment was the angles I had shot my video and making sure the camera was properly focused. Maybe using some different effects. I always use the same effects when I edit. I could do some research on different video effects.

Experiment: Waacking with Light

I used my camera to capture these images of myself. In this experiment, I held sparklers as I did waacking motions in a dark room and captured it on camera. I set the camera settings to a very long shutter speed in order to capture the light, a low ISO so the picture didn't become too noisy and left the aperture to auto. The top two images are abit out of focus and the camera wasn't properly aligned. The final picture is a good example of what I was trying to achieve. The purpose of this experiment was to take waacking out of a normal dance context. By using light and camera settings, I have put the body movement and waacking dance into an art/photography context. I really like how the images turned out. I want to experiment more with this idea. Maybe I could use coloured lights on my hands next time. Im also thinking of putting these images through Photoshop to create a double-exposed look. But I want to take better photos first. 

This is an image of what was left from the above experiment. A few burnt out sparklers, matches and packaging. I wanted to document how my project had interacted with these objects and what my experiment left behind.

Research: Waacking in different contexts

Imperial House of Waacking. KOREA . 2012 PERFORMANCE OF THE YEAR 

 

This video is of dancers from the Korean 'chapter' of the Imperial House of Waacking. This video puts Waccking in a performance context where they perform on stage with lighting, cotumes and makeup etc. Ive noticed that these woman wear suits with high heels. Their costumes combined with their movements show both strength and femininity giving the feel of female empowerment.

DaShine & Panda (IMPERIAl house of WAACKING Russia) 

This video puts waacking into an everyday context. These girls, also from the Imperial House of Waacking but from the Russia chapter, waack in normal clothes and places like the park, at a rooftop and at somebodys house. I want to experiment with waacking in public spaces of my own.

In- Depth Research | Research

http://vimeo.com/110644438

This video is called 'Rising Dust'. It is a hiphop dance short film taken out of the street dance context and into the historical, rural area of Hokianga. I really like the idea of how its not in your typical dance studio. This video relates well to the idea of how I want to use waacking in everyday life - walking, in bed, at school or home. Maybe I could use the idea of waacking in dirt or using dirt for my experimental work.

In-Depth Research | Body Movement

Shen Wei Dance Arts

I found this video on Youtube of contemporary dancers covered paint and their body movement to create marks on a large sheet of paper. This video closely relates to what I want to experiment with in terms of taking dance out of a dance studio context and putting it into an art context, turning into "performance art". I liked the first dancer who started putting the marks on the page and how the marks she left on the page show through her movements. Both were very smooth and flowy. I want to experiment with something similar to this. Using paint on my body to show the body movement of waacking on paper, in a 2D form.

Hiphop Dance Genres | In-Depth Research: Online Links

Locking

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQWsF4plYFI

A video of the creator of the locking dance genre, Don 'Campbellock' Cambell and his dance crew "The Lockers". Dancers: Don 'Campbellock' Campbell, Bill 'Slim The Robot' Williams, Greg 'Campbellock Jr.' Pope, Leo 'Fluky Luke' Williamson, Toni Basil, Adolpho 'Shabba Doo' Quinones, Fred 'Mr. Penguin' Berry a.k.a. Rerun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lK93CGpCH64

This video is of dancer/judge P-Lock who is well-known throughout the locking community. He began his dance career in the late 1990's starting off with bboying and popping before discovering locking. P-Lock is one of the world's finest Lockers, gaining respect internationally for his vibrant and powerful moves.

Ideas and Responses: Statement

Keywords

 

The two keywords I have chosen to base my ideas, research and responses on are "Hiphop/Urban Dance Genres" and "Body Movement". I chose these words because the majority of my life outside of school revolves around the concept of dance, from classes to video shoots to organising our dance company to our company practices - it has become a big part of my life. Its also easier for me to work with something I am passionate about apart from video art, photography and graphic design at school.