Inspiration
FIRST IDEAS
The end result came to be very different from what I first thought the act was going to be about. The initial idea came to me somewhere in August as I was jogging in the forest on a warm summer evening. At the time I was struggling with some personal stuff. I felt like I was constantly being too much, too loud, too opinionated or too honest for the people around me and that I was just a terrible person. My idea was to put all those 'bad' qualities into movement and find a movement quality that really felt like me.
A little bit later when I made a decision on the music I realized that the number will be about something a lot bigger than the concept I had thought of. I started doing research about the history of the time period I was about to dive into and from there I found lots of interesting to grab onto and try to display on stage.
MEANING
The meaning behind ''Riot'' is broad but simple. It's about being the messenger for a time where there was no lack of war, chaos, uprisings or opposing political views. The anti-war protests, the people fighting in the streets for civil rights, autonomy, anti-racism, anti-capitalism, feminism. I find it funny how we still have to protest some of the same issues today, 50 years later. The number explores what it's like to live in the middle of all that and try to make the best of it.
A photo from a protest in the US
I also wanted to pay homage to the spirit of rock'n'roll and make a little ode to the time of psychedelia. I find that decade so interesting to read about and it definitely broadened my horizon.
Jimi Hendrix
As one of the most iconic musicians of that era, Jimi Hendrix holds a spot in history as someone whose career was fairly short, but who accomplished more in those few years than most do in a lifetime. Posthumously his work has received notable acclaim by people, critics and fellow musicians everywhere and til this day his legacy lives on in his music. To say that his work inspired this act is an understatement. After having many conversations about this with my teachers, I found pictures and a video online where he, while on stage, gets on his knees, lays out his guitar before him, and sets it on fire. The next time I was training I was looking at my rope completely differently. The rope was to me what the guitar was to Jimi. When you use something as your tool to express how you feel and spend so much time with it, it really becomes a part of you in some way. The relationship between Jimi and his guitar is something I thought about a lot and it gave so much extra depth to the meaning of the number.
TECHNIQUE
The rope technique I decided to put into the act was mostly based on what I felt super comfortable doing without a crash mat. I knew that I wanted there to be a 'bigger' trick in some part so that's why I added the Double Back Drop to the middle. I also liked that the biggest trick wasn't in the very end, so it didn't follow the curve of a traditional aerial number. Overall, the tricks and sequences I included were ones that feel good to do, are visually pleasing and give me a sense of individuality in the world of aerialists.
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CHOREOGRAPHY/MOVEMENT
In the number I put a lot of emphasis on my own personal style of moving. The movement both on the floor and on the rope started from our Oma Impro classes and me doing improvisation on my own. I had lots of fun researching to different musics and trying to 'break the lines'. When training, the words I had written down to describe the movements were: dramatic, determined, sharp, technique with lines contrasted by a weird quality, unpredictable, feisty, fast, visual, expressive, strange. Some parts were born just by trying to interpret parts of 'Purple Haze' into a physical form and sing the lyrics with my body.
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