We had to write a proposal for how we intend to approach our projects for Dance Composition 4 next semester, in which we will have a small company of our fellow dance students to work with. Here's what I wrote...
For my Comp 4 projects, I will draw on my background in psychology and my growing personal explorations in emotionality to consider how dance can address and stir up basic emotions. Basic emotions are the most distinguishable emotional experiences, which affect us physically, socially, cognitively, and behaviorally. My interest is in portraying and sharing with the audience the strong, clear impact of this universal experience. Each of us has our idiosyncratic emotional experiences, but the common truth underlying our emotionality is what I seek to draw out in this dance.
This project will be part of my University Scholars Project, and will integrate various theories of emotion and both quantitative and qualitative data on emotional experiences. The quantitative data will come from studies from UF’s Center for the Studies of Emotion and Attention, including text, sound, and images. The qualitative data will be drawn from my own personal experiences with various emotions. As a choreographer, I tend to draw on my personal growth processes; lately focusing on broadening my emotional expressiveness and sensitivity. As I seek to develop such skills towards becoming a therapist, I am discovering more about emotional experiences that can be explored through dance.
The problem I set for myself in this project is to create a series of works which, in their explorations of emotional situations and processes, can bring to the audience the sensations of firsthand emotions and a sense of the universality of experiences such as sadness, happiness, anger, and fear.
