The dance i chose for this Act I (Yellow) of Triadisches Ballett (Triadic Ballet). The overall feeling it gave me was weird, playful, quirky, slightly restricted and geometric.
Repetition and Restriction
The first characteristic displayed by the dance is repetition. In the dance, there were many repetitive dance moves like the dancers spinning, doing the same hand movements, switching directions in a pattern. I thought that the best way to represent repetition is through lines of the same length and direction displayed neatly in rows. At the same time, I wanted to represent a geometric restriction. In the dance, the dance moves are very subtle and small, it is almost as if something is restricting the dancer preventing the dancer from making big movements like those of the dancer in AMA. In the end, I decided that the most effective way of presenting a restrictive geometric shape is through a cube which forms the outer shell to contain the strings. With the characteristic of restriction and repetition, I came up with the following design.
Lightness
In the dance, there were a lot of tip toeing and jumping in the dance which made the overall dance look very light and airy. This motif adds on to my idea of using strings to show the repetitive lines. From one angle, the stings can be seen to show repetition. From another angle, the lines form straight rows with gaps at every interval. From the angle seen below, the inside of the cube looks almost empty which signifies lightness.
For this project, we are required to have a curved plane. I decided to have spheres sticking out of the cube to contrast with the straight lines of the cube and to add on to the quirkiness and weirdness of the sculpture to fit the dance concept. I started experimenting with ways to put the styrofoam balls with the cube. I also experimented with the size and number of balls used.
I came up with several designs to see which colour combination would be most suitable to convey my idea.
In the end, I decided to go with a black frame, multi-coloured strings and spotted balls which looks like Yoshi eggs from Mario. The black frame makes the restrictive characteristic of the cube more obvious than a white frame. I used primary colours as the colours of the strings because I wanted the sculpture to convey playfulness due to the bright colours used and also the quirkiness because all primary colours are used. Also, the coloured strings when looked from one angle have similar coloured strings lined together, forming rows of individual colours. This adds on to the idea of repetition. I chose for the balls to be in white and spotted colour(primary colours). The polka dots adds on the quirky look. The white base of the balls contrast nicely with the black cube frame and the colours used is to relate back to the colours used for the strings.
Process
Final
The final sculpture conveys the idea of quirky, playfulness, weird, lightness and restriction. The various elements in the sculpture above helps to bring out the characteristics shown in the dance piece. Even though the piece is meant to look weird and out of place, the recurring colours and contrasting colours help to balance out each element, allowing the whole sculpture to come together to look as a whole and not just some cube with messy colours and random balls stuck to it.