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Show EXPERIMENTAL CHOREOGRAPHY; USING ELEMENTS OF CHANCE Rebecca S. Dean, (Barbara Hamblin) Department of Ballet Merce Cunningham, a famous choreographer whose innovative choreographic methods emerged in the 1950s, found a solution to personal movement habits inhibiting choreography. He developed a method known as chance composition which uses arbitrary mechanisms to structure a dance. These mechanisms determine fundamental elements such as movement phrases, the order, the spacing, and the timing. I discovered chance composition in my high school choreography class. As a ballet major with a modern background, studying Cunningham's experimental choreography was appealing because I wanted to explore a new way to choreograph. For my experiment with chance composition, I conceived, structured, and choreographed a dance titled 'Yahtzee'. For my experiment I selected written movement phrases at random on paper out of a bowl to determine the order of the dance. I used dice to determine the number of dancers and spacing on the stage. Using choreographic devices to manipulate each phrase, I changed the timing, spacing, and levels of the movement. For the musical accompaniment I created a composition on a computer program called Garage Band. I discovered that chance composition avoids personal movement preferences and allows one to see possibilities of movement that would have been impossible to otherwise conceive. Dept. of Ballet Faculty Sponsor Barbara Hamblin {101} |