Composing in Movement and Performance

This was the most shaky subject we learned about. Going into this unit I believed it was supposed to be about dance and acting but I didn't get that at all. For starters the first class that was supposed to be about dance, never happened. For some reason the speaker couldn't show up that day so I didn't get anything. The second day was Dean Wilcox who was the best speaker of the year, but he didn't talk about acting at all, it was more of philosophical discussion dealing with Dada and different experimental art forms. Dean Wilcox's final lecture did a great job of tying everything together and was a great way for the class to go out. What the final lecture did really get at which I wasn't expecting was the idea that everything is a performance.

I was an actor for all of high school and most of middle school, so I had a very good understanding of that art form. Dance I have come to gain a very good understanding of through my "Writing About Dance" class taught by Joe Mills. I wish I had gotten to learn from an actual dance choreographer in class though. While acting in the musicals through high school, I was taught by my Choreographer Jean Sorbera. She was wonderful and taught me everything I know. She also put up with my terrible dancing and worked with me to better me which was a great experience.

One huge thing I learned was the realization that performance doesn't just pertain to a orchestral concert, or a dance, or acting on a stage. It encompasses much much more which I found interesting. Being tasked to do a performance in public in a non traditional way was great assignment that I actually learned a lot from. Watching videos of my colleagues I witnessed a large variety of videos that normally I would not have considered a performance but after further though I realized, yes this is a performance. It has changed the way I look at a lot of things I see now. Seeing my friends just play their guitars in a room now is a performance to me where as before I would usually just think of it as the playing around. In my performance video I sat a top a laundry machine and played a very simple guitar song by Eddy Van Halen. People who were in the room watched and/or listened to me play. I am not a guitarist. I never have been and probably never will be, but it was fun to try and perform on the guitar for the first time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVwrErYNsEo&list=UUpGGMp-gwX7CJzbDxpdDWNw&index=1

I would very much like to learn more about Dada from Dean Wilcox. His whole philosophical ideals were incredibly engaging and made me think a lot. I really loved the whole idea of chance that Dean Wilcox touched upon. The idea that just a second or two could change your life based on the chances of you forgetting your key or taking an extra second to put your coat on. I just loved this whole discussion and want to research it a lot more.

All in all, I learned so much from Dean Wilcox about performance and what defines art. It was very refreshing for me and I enjoyed the simplicity that came from some of this. These basic ideas that when looked at from a new perspective, can completely flip and turn inside out.