Practitioner Study

PRACTITIONER STUDY

In this blog, I will be discussing and reviewing 'The Rodin Project' by Russell Maliphant and referring back to resources such as a small excerpt of the piece as well as a dance review posted by Psychology Tomorrow Magazine.

'The Rodin Project' is a 75 minute piece inspired by the work of the French sculptor, August Rodin (1840-1917). The work is seperated into two sections and displays six dancers in total, 3 male and 3 females. With the inspiration from Rodin's sculptures and watercolours as one of the references, Maliphant captures the idea behind Rodin’s ‘Gates of Hell’ and  'The Burghers of Calais' as well as the essence of all of his art works. 

I first watched an 11 minute excerpt of the piece which was only filmed for documentation purposes, to archive any changes to the choreography and as a clear way to watch back for the dancers to discuss. What I found interesting in watching this back, you can hear Maliphant making notes during this performance which is another way he referred back to the dancers for feedback. The dancers wear togas and cloths which is a clear representation of the sculptural form as well as their movements showing how they were once stone to the fluidity of coming to life.

With the choreographic process, the dance review mentions how the "choreography of his project follows the same process of the creation that Rodin used in his work"(Ceccoli, 2003). As stated in my previous blog about my chosen practitioner, Maliphant interest and curiousity for the human movement is clearly displayed through the different angles and how each view of it tells us something about the subject matter. From this, "there is the way that sculpture can capture emotional intensity, containing and representing it physically, an idea that is always present in Maliphant's choreographic style: embodied emotions travelling through the corporeality of his dancers to us, the inside moving to the outside and reaching the inside again"(Ceccoli, 2003).

  Due to my choreography having a simular subject matter, I intend to use simular genre of music as I feel like, in my opinion, it compliments the movement style as well as the overall choreography. 'The Rodin Project' has been identified as a landmark as this his first piece to feature a commissioned score including an original cello and strings by Alexander Zekke. One of my reasons for using simular accompaniment is for a certain section for my choreography about the details of the 'Venus de Milo' statue and that I feel like the smoothness of the strings, for example, can accentuate the texture of the statue and compliment that idea.

Ceccoli, V., 2003. Russell Maliphant and the Rodin Project. Psychology Tomorrow Magazine, [online] Available at: <https://psychologytomorrowmagazine.com/the-rodin-project/> [Accessed 29 October 2021].