Final Project for Dance 171
Instructor: Alysia Michelle James
UCSB Theater and Dance
Overall Objective: Create a piece of choreography to an approved song and film a performance of it to present to class during finals week. You will write a corresponding paper in which you will discuss the musical elements of the song and how they coincide with your movement.
The Challenge: Find a new piece of music outside of your comfort zone that speaks to you. All songs will have to be approved by the course instructor. The challenge is not to find your favorite song, but rather a song that is the best fit for what you are creating. The song needs to be innovative and interesting from a musical standpoint meaning a basic pop song simply wont do. You have the option to do more than one song if you want to cut your own music.
Video (60 points)
Video Requirements:
The video must showcase your choreography in sync with the music.
The dancer/s must be clearly visible with enough space around the dancer to see the choreography if necessary.
The video should have few editing cuts if any at all.
The video should be a minimum length of 2 minutes and a maximum length of 5 minutes.
The final draft of your video must be emailed to alysia@ucsb.edu by 7:00pm on Wednesday, March 17th, 2021. The video can be sent as a link to a stream (such as Youtube) or emailed to me as a direct download. All videos will be showcased during our finals exam at 7:30pm on the same day.
Optional: If you want to get creative with the film, you are welcome to. Any use of lighting, props, costuming, et cetera is permitted as long as we can see your movement. This assignment is about the movement in conjunction with the music do not let any auxiliaries overshadow your movement.
Choreography (90 points)
Choreography Requirements:
Your piece must have a story, statement or trajectory.
Examples: The age-old concept of beginning, middle and end; a goal that the dancer/s is/are trying to accomplish; a process that the dancer goes through (such as a palindrome); etc.
Choreography must exhibit an understanding of downbeats and how to divide time.
It is permissible to have a dancer other than yourself dance as long as you have choreographed the piece. Multiple dancers or only a body part performing is also permissible.
Music Requirements:
The music must have multiple instruments and/or multiple time signatures/tempos.
The music must be approved by course instructor.
The Essay (150 point)
You will be writing a narrative-research essay about the piece you have created. Your essay should have a compelling title, be properly formatted and include a Chicago/Turabian style bibliography. The paper should be grammatically correct, flow seamlessly from each idea to the next, begin with an introduction and end with a conclusion about your experience in this course and the creation of your video.
Essay Requirements:
Formatting:
o4-10 pages in length
oTimes New Roman 12-point font
oOne-inch margins
oDouble spaced
oMLA-style header (name, instructors name, course name, and date all on left side, double spaced).
oTitle should be below MLA-style header and in the center
oPage numbers on the bottom in the center of each page
oA single space between each sentence
oSources cited in footnotes
oChicago/Turabian style Bibliography
Must include relevant vocabulary and demonstrate an understanding of concepts from this course.
Must include information about the development of the piece from song selection to choreography experimentation.
Must include research specific to your piece which contributes to your credibility as an artist.
5-15 sources should be cited. These sources cannot all be entries from Oxford Music Online. Videos, reviews, books, newspapers and even interviews that you conduct yourself are all options. We will review Chicago formatting in class.
The final draft of your essay is due Wednesday, March 17th, 2021 at 5pm.
This assignment is worth 300 points total and 25% of your final grade.
The video link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hzS49_pZmwaijVBGt8vVv91YWCD2NP_A/view?usp=sharing
