Physical Education Clip Response Essay: Gloria- the Celebration of Life (1991)

The main performer, Douglas Wright was born in Taukau, South Auckland in 1956. He trained locally in New Zealand and gymnastics and in 1980 joined New Zealand’s Limbs Dance Company. He toured New Zealand, Australia, United States, and Europe for his chorography career. Between 1983 and 1987 he danced with Paul Taylor’s Company and in 1988 with DV8 Physical Theater (London). In 1984, he officially formed that he has his own company in New York. Four years later, he established in Wellington, New Zealand as the Douglas Wright Dance Company. He has choreographed a lot of dances throughout the years until 2007. One of his choreographs works called Gloria, a dance for Deirdre Mummery in celebration of her life. The music also called Gloria RV589 by Vivaldi. The dance was performed in 1991. Finally he officially announced retired in 2008 with his last performance called With the Launch of Laughing Mirror. Apart from choreographer, Wright also known as a homosexual or gay dancer. Which viewers of his some performances could understand, some parts of his dance with same sex seem to be a little uncomfortable to watch.

The stage was large that fitted about seven or more dancers, the setting of stage was dark and the camera and spotlight were only showing the movements of dancers. The dancers or performers were wearing simple outfits in yellow. The dance begin with performers lying facing the ceiling then slowly rises up with some basic dynamic movements then they were four people dancing at the back row, and three people were dancing in front row. The dancers were male and females. Some gestures were repetitive, but not in a boring way. The movement patterns was easy to follow, it is kind of modern dance and perhaps mixed with ballet. It does not seem to content hip-hop or cultural dance moves. The movements were some simple like walking, running, bending then rise up sort of movement at the beginning. The movements are not technically challenging for the dancers, but the piece draws from this simplicity to create a powerfully dark, focused atmosphere. There was a moment where all the dancers had to support one of the female dancers from letting her walk on top of their bodies and heads. They have created an image of a lady was climbing from steps to steps somewhere up high. There was stillness too, where they dance and they suddenly just move slowly and stay there. In the middle of the dance, some of the man dancers were topless. It could make the viewers curious, what was the actual meaning of it. Their bodies also were arrowed into dead-straight lines that subtly alter our perceptions of recognizable steps like crawling movements. The dancers also curved around one another, so that bodies meld and mesh into sculptural forms, and then send them shooting unexpectedly into the air, limbs unfurling with tight-coiled energy. They did not use any object or material for dance, simply using their bodies to express or to tell a story. It seemed to tell a story, but it could hardly get viewers to understand without knowing the topic. The topic was Gloria as well as the song, I like how the running and jumping during the chorus of the song because it feels like they were happy or were celebrating something. The music fitted the dance, and so the dance fitted the music.

There were quite a few moments that I noticed from the dance clips. Firstly, a male dancer was running and jumped over to another side just like other dancers. However, he failed to do that and fell on the ground. Then he slowly stood up and raised his both hands up. It was such an emotional moment that would makes viewers willing to know what would happen next. Secondly, it was very interesting to watch that the dancers were hand in hand and dancing in circles for quite a few times. The movements were repetitive, and seems like they were showing the happiness as well.

Once again, the costumes were simple and the use of the topless is part of the performance was a question. However I noticed that the chorographer himself, as one of the dancers did not take off his Yellow top. It sort of let us notice that who was the main character, or choreographer. Between the man and man, woman and woman’s dance part was not understandable. However, symmetry movements appeared often. Perhaps contemporary dance has always gravitated towards showing dance with more focus on the skilled controlled movements of the human body, without the distraction of an elaborate production that can occur in a ballet. Somehow the choreographer was showing his work itself but nothing else. In my opinion contemporary dancing is completely high technologic, but same time it is against technology, it 's a like technology that falls into human body and then soul. This dance style is always a conflict. It is a modern worry, an unknown question for unknown answer.

References:
Wilcox, Leonard (2006) Dancing Dissent: Douglas Wright’s Black Milk Landfall: New Zealand Arts & Letters #212, Spring, 2006:145-151. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Wright_%28New_Zealand_dancer%29 A.East (2010), Elements of Dance- Various Reading, pg71

References: Wilcox, Leonard (2006) Dancing Dissent: Douglas Wright’s Black Milk Landfall: New Zealand Arts & Letters #212, Spring, 2006:145-151. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Wright_%28New_Zealand_dancer%29 A.East (2010), Elements of Dance- Various Reading, pg71