Unravel documents the process of healing from trauma, from the inciting incident to the eventual integration of pain. Suffering from a traumatic event is common, coping with it is uncommon. Unravel illustrates the fact that healing is not linear - the feelings of isolation, repression, and self-hatred are present throughout. This performance uses props, such as rope, to represent the feelings of suffocation, as well as incorporating sound design using the sounds of crashing waves and harsh winds to convey the internal turmoil that a person affected by trauma experiences.

Healing from trauma happens in three phases:

Phase 1 - emotional regulation, avoiding risky behaviors, recognizing your triggers

Phase 2 - acknowledging what has been lost from trauma, integrating your pain

Phase 3 - empowering yourself, realizing you are not your trauma, using your experiences to make an impact

Research

Design Concepts

Choreography

Film!

Video!

The crowd's walking pattern in the first scene is direct, sustained and free. Luca's fall is quick, free, indirect and heavy. This is the first scene where Luca is triggered from the traumatic event.

Emotions

Shock

Confusion

Loss

Normality

Luca's movements in this scene go from sustained and direct to indirect, free and quick as she starts to go against the group's swaying. This is supposed to represent the isolation one feels while coping from a traumatic event.

Emotions

Isolation

Refusal

Imbalance

Avoidance

Emotions

Anger

Pain

Self-Destruction

Defeat

The "mirror scene" represents the pain and the self-destruction involved in trauma. The movements are mainly hard and fast. They are meant to be aggressive and unpredictable to show the volatility of emotions throughout trauma.

Regrowth

Healing

Unity

Peace

The final scene shows the healing process after trauma, with movement meant to match the natural breathe of the dancers. We used slow organic movements to show the process of personal growth. At the end, the dancers come together into a final unified formation with outstretched arms, resembling a blooming flower and all the prosperity to come.

Emotions

Next Steps

• Look into ways to incorporate the audience
• Create wearables to immerse the audience
• Further integrate our set design

Aveen, Lalita, Matthew, Rowan, Silvia

Friendship, Friction, Fracture

The performance focuses on the cultural affects of Spanish colonization in Latin America in the1500's. The dance then continues through 1530, when Spain was able to expand New Spain into the territory.

Ultimately, the viewer should walk away with some understanding of the effects of colonization , and with a curiosity to learn more about specific colonization events in Latin America.

Lali

CORPUS

Kukuli Velarde

Mithkal Alzghair

• The Kʼicheʼ had carved out a powerful kingdom. 

• The Kaqchikel rebelled against their former Kʼicheʼ allies and founded a new kingdom.

• Pedro de Alvarado arrived in Guatemala in 1524.

• The Kaqchikel allied with the Spanish, but excessive demands created tension, and they surrendered to the Spanish in 1530.

Conquistadors viewed the Maya as "infidels" who needed to be forcefully converted, disregarding the achievements of their civilization. Maya kingdoms resisted integration into the Spanish Empire and their defeat took almost two centuries.

Initial Experimentation

• A community working, playing together.
• Gradually moving from open, unconfined space to tighter, physically limiting space.
• Shifting focus from a human oppressor to an abstract one.

Zeroing in on Topic

• Focus condensed to Spaniards and Guatemala. Inspired by the K'iche welcome dance, Danza de la Conquista

Scene Arrangement

• Arrival of the Spaniards, Resistance of the kingdoms, Death of the king
• Extrapolating dance movements from precedents
• Workshopping, improvising, rehearsing, changing the dance into a fleshed out product

Final Dance

• Indirect pathway
• walk lightly
• stomping
• artifact

Silv

• small to large and free
• strange, heavy rythmic walking

Silv

• shove and push
• hierarchy and chaos
• indirect falling
• greed and conquest

Silv

Stable

Unstable

Delicate

The artifact, represents the beating heart of the Natives. It is the object that leads the natives together in their dance. When it is stolen by the Spanish, the natives become unorganized. Originally simply a plum bob (affectionately named 'bob').

Spacial Improvisation

Lali

La Verdolaga

Toto la Momposina

It's pretty and it's pretty, oh the greens (in the ground)

Nice how it is watered, ay the greens (in the ground)

I sowed it (in the ground)

Caravan

Juan Tizol and Duke Ellington

Chaos, disharmony, all at once

Rosary Chant

Saint Dominic

To you do we cry, poor banished children of Eve; to you do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this vale of tears.

MP

The performance focuses on the cultural affects of Spanish colonization in Latin America. It is set in the 1500's when the Spanish first arrive in modern day Guatamala, Hondorus, and El Salvador. The dance then continues through 1530, when Spain was able to expand New Spain into the territory.

Ultimately, the viewer should walk away with some understanding of the effects of colonization , and with a curiosity to learn more about specific colonization events in Latin America.

Lali

CORPUS

Kukuli Velarde

The Spanish conquest of Guatemala was a conflict during the Spanish colonization of the Americas, in which Spanish colonisers gradually incorporated the territory that became the modern country of Guatemala into New Spain.

Many conquistadors viewed the Maya as "infidels" who needed to be forcefully converted and pacified, disregarding the achievements of their civilization.

The Spanish conquest of the Maya was a prolonged affair; the Maya kingdoms resisted integration into the Spanish Empire with such tenacity that their defeat took almost two centuries.

• The Kʼicheʼ had carved out a small empire covering a large part of the western Guatemalan Highlands and the neighbouring Pacific coastal plain. 

• The Kaqchikel rebelled against their former Kʼicheʼ allies and founded a new kingdom to the southeast, steadily eroding the kingdom of the Kʼicheʼ.

• Pedro de Alvarado arrived in Guatemala from the newly conquered Mexico in 1524.

• The Kaqchikel Maya allied with the Spanish, but excessive demands created tension, forcing them to surrender to the Spanish in 1530.

Initial Experimentation

• A community working, playing together.
• Gradually moving from open, unconfined space to tighter, physically limiting space.
• Shifting focus from a human oppressor to an abstract one.

Zeroing in on Topic

• Focus condensed to Spaniards and Guatemala. Inspired by the K'iche welcome dance, Danza de la Conquista

Scene Arrangement

• Arrival of the Spaniards, Resistance of the kingdoms, Death of the king
• Extrapolating dance movements from precedents
• Workshopping, improvising, rehearsing, changing the dance into a fleshed out product

Final Dance

In the first scene the natives enter followed shortly after by the Spaniards. The natives walk lightly, gliding across the floor, while the Spaniards stomp towards them. The Spaniards then move in an indirect pathway, inspecting the natives, virtually prospecting their culture and artifacts. The artifact in question, sways, moving lightly and sustained throughout the whole scene.

Silv

In the second scene, the Spaniards plot their next move, making small controlled gestures at first and then gradually letting their movements become larger and energetically more free as they become more confident in their plan. Suddenly, the Spaniards then take the artifact and start marching around the tower, with the natives struggling to keep up with the strange, heavy rhythmic way of walking.

Silv

In the last scene, the Spaniards shove away the natives and then push the king. The whole scene is very controlled on the part of the Spaniards and has a feeling of hierarchy and chaos. One of the Spaniards then shoots each native being very bound and mostly controlled, and the king spins them around inbetween shooting. the king then slowly falls to the ground indirectly stumbling around. The show ends with the feeling of greed and conquest from the Spaniards.

Silv

Stable

Unstable

Delicate

The artifact, represents the beating heart of the Natives. It is the object that leads the natives together in their dance. It holds together their delicate relationship. When it is stolen by the Spanish, the natives become unorganized, leaving room for the Spanish to interrupt them. Originally simply a plum bob (affectionately named 'bob') It was encased with a gold painted cardboard shell, to give it some visual significance.

Spacial Improvisation

Lali

La Verdolaga

Toto la Momposina

It's pretty and it's pretty, oh the greens (in the ground)

Nice how it is watered, ay the greens (in the ground)

I sowed it (in the ground)

Caravan

Juan Tizol and Duke Ellington

Chaos, disharmony, all at once

Rosary Chant

Saint Dominic

To you do we cry, poor banished children of Eve; to you do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this vale of tears.

MP