Character Profile- Anne Frank

My chosen character for my solo piece, in my final major project is Anne Frank. I particularly took an interest to her lifestyle, as she was a young girl growing up amongst the most historic period of time. I was intrigued to familiarise myself with some of her diaries and how significant they could be in the development of my creative material and dance. The predominant style of dance of which I used in my creative work was Contemporary, influenced by Limon and Cunningham technique. My solo piece (fifth section in our piece), was quite emotive, and was based on the feelings and emotions of Anne Frank during the period of World War Two.

 

This was reflected through movement that was quite free flowing, and during the creative process of producing a solo, I was considering how the audience, may feel for example sad or intruiged. Another aspect that was studied in more depth were the inward emotions portrayed in comparison to the outward and how this affected the movement of my body whilst performing to an audience. An example of this would be how I begin my solo, as the movement appears to be personal to my emotions and feelings on the inside and is firstly performed within a close space to my body.

I explored my eyeline, and eye contact with both with and without the audience, and allowed this to travel across all areas within the theatre. 

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Thereafter, the movement grew bigger and my body opened to the audience as I travelled across the space. I included a range of body tilts, kicks and floor work to portray a sense of freedom and happiness. This very much reflects the happiness from Anne Frank as she expressed herself through her diaries. 

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Through research one of the two of Frank's extracts I had taken a particular interest to, is as quoted on 9th October, 1942, 'Have you ever heard the term 'hostages'? That's the latest punishment for saboteurs. It's the most horrible thing you can imagine. Leading citizens, innocent people are taken prisoner to await their execution. If the Gestapo can't find the saboteur, they simply grab five hostages and line them up against the wall. You read the announcements of their death in the paper, where they're referred to as 'fatal accidents'.' Whilst reading this particular excerpt I was inspired to create choreography with minimal movement, but more gestures in the space, which very much connects with the words that Anne Frank expresses in the extract. I wanted to express a sense of inferiority and the inhability to feel free to be yourself amongst a time of violence and sadness. Also during this, the solo being performed by one person represented that others were desensitized to fact of what was occurring around them. 

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The second extract very much reflected the latter part of my solo, whereby I travelled further and my body used all of the space around me such as my legs and arms. Frank's exerpt as quoted on 5th April, 1944 'When I write, I can shake off all my cares'  was used as a stimulus for the movement later in my solo. From this quote, I can see that Frank found comfort in writing and and I did just this through my movement.