Lea Anderson

Edits

Edits is a piece of imagination, creativity and exploration. Lea Anderson’s Edits is a live performance, with a theme as simple as edits of characters in films. Although the initial theme is rather simple, the actual performance is rather complex giving it a sort of edge that makes the piece more interesting to watch and leaves the imagination wondering and enjoying.

Anderson’s active imagination is explored through the choreography of this piece, allowing different interpretations of the meaning behind the dance. She does this in a way so that the imagination runs free but at the same time every inch of detail, every inch of effort she put in is extremely noticeable and recognised. For example, the link between the fuzziness of the music and the fuzziness style of movement (portraying the fuzzy edit).

The originality in her work comes from her interest and effort that has been put into this piece of art. Her choreography is the main aspect that portrays her originality. She explores aspects that appear minor and creates movements so they them become major aspects and main focuses within her choreography. The movements are developed and developed further in a way that is almost unnoticeable but noticeable enough to portray the meaning so it is recognised. Another thing she focused on without intention to the audience was that of the dancers changing outfits on stage but is classed as “off stage” to the audience.

The originality of this piece is what helps the creativity of this peace. The use of sounds and live music instead of using cd records, and full songs also expresses her creativity in this work. The way in which she uses this is very clever; the sounds and live music portray a very deep meaning on their own, just like the choreography on its own, so when choreography is danced with the sounds and live music, the whole performance has so many interpretations yet still around the same theme.

Anderson’s piece can also be considered as confusing – this is what I felt after watching the live performance. She choreographed it to what she wanted, felt and to what she saw in her research. This allows the audience to interpret the piece how they wish, however it is unlikely their interpretation will match up to the original meaning of the piece. The wrong interpretation.

Edits interested me and inspired me, not just as a dancer but as a choreographer too. This was due to the way in which she exaggerated her meaning and her translation of the conventions of film through the choreography, live music, set and costume. Although the piece had this positive effect on me, I think as a choreographer that if I’d choreographed a dance with such a strong important theme then I'd like the audience watching to fully understand the theme and interpret the piece correctly – this is what Anderson failed on in my opinion.

The piece as a whole was an experience on its own. All the aspects of her piece – music, set, costume, choreographer all worked together to make this piece as effective as it was. It has its downfalls just like other dance works, but it made an impression on me as an audience member and to me that is important.