DANIELA ANAYA AMAYA
Dancer - Performing Artist
Self appraisal
Two great lessons I received in acting principles were the importance of honesty and teamwork. On the one hand, honesty, for me, is what makes the difference between repeating movements and actually dancing, it is that special “something” that happens to me when I connect the movement with an internal need. On the other hand, teamwork is clear when creating with others, this in dance sometimes becomes a bit diffuse due to the need for technical achievement, which is something individual. The performance managed to clarify the need of the other in a moment as introspective as the basic cycle was for me.
I started my performing arts career in 2015. I arrived full of certainty about dance and about my life. I thought I knew everything, and during the first year of my degree I had to adapt to the idea of not knowing anything. That is, I had to assume a new possibility in my life that implied that nothing was definitive, that all knowledge was questionable, manipulable and transformable. What he "knew" had to be reviewed in a new context; the patterns that I had acquired over the past 20 years became conscious and I could no longer even walk without at least questioning where my knees were. I had had a certainty, I wanted to dance, but at that moment I could not even answer the “simple” question: What is dance? How could I dedicate myself to dancing if I didn't even know what that was? Facing the basic cycle was about learning to receive and to let go.
I had a hard time fitting the idea of acting as part of my artistic endeavor, I didn't want to understand what one thing had to do with the other. It was the concept of the performing arts, as the space in which everything that is done to be seen converges, that helped me to place acting work in my panorama. Understanding what performance is is a daily task of building, adding, questioning what I do and what I see others doing.
The somatic area was my favorite during the basic cycle, each class was a discovery and that was where my interest in training and learning methodologies was born. Since that moment, a profound question about the transmission and reception of information, from and through the body, has always accompanied me. In the dance area I became interested in pedagogy. I saw my difficulties in getting rid of patterns that I had acquired due to the lack of pedagogical experience of my previous teachers, and the problems of many of my classmates in building the necessary connections for each technique. Thus, the need to analyze and investigate around those strategies, methods and techniques to teach dance was awakened in me. During the rest of the race, I have been able to approach many forms of transmission, select the ones that have been most useful and efficient for me and put into practice those that have given me the best results on myself and my colleagues.
Finishing the basic cycle I was injured and was forced to sit and observe, to understand and learn from stillness. Tai Chi, acting, ballet, contemporary dance, each class was a challenge, the importance of somatic work became clearer than ever, every day I had to listen to my body very carefully and accept the moments when it asked me to stop and learn in new ways.
I can summarize my basic cycle as a year in which I learned to let go of certainties and accept doubts and uncertainty as creative spaces, places where discomfort moves me to discover new ways of doing and fear drives me to take on new challenges.
Elements of the staging II was the moment in which all the experiences lived up to that moment took shape. I organized a small performance that made visible what I had understood until now by analysis of theatrical texts, dance, acting, production, lighting. On the day of the final show, I discovered that I am passionate about creating connections between elements, and I decided that nothing could be just one thing.
The basic cycle was an open door that has brought me through a long road full of questions. I have questioned everything I have believed, and I have discovered how wonderful it can be to live knowing that nothing is absolute. Now I think that the only way to know more is to assume the multiplicity of ideas about all things, and for me that is reflected in allowing yourself the freedom not to classify, not to pigeonhole.
From the beginning of the professional cycle it was clear to me that my emphasis would be dance, but more than dance I have been able to come to the conclusion that I have a question about movement. Movement as a builder of knowledge and as a vehicle of communication. So far I have not stopped wondering about the many ways in which movement becomes dance. I have spent the last four years trying to shape what dance can become for me.
I have a great interest in performing work. Throughout the professional cycle, I have sought to deepen the technical and interpretive skills that the career has to offer in the field of contemporary dance. I had the opportunity to go through the classes of many different teachers, all with very varied approaches. The approach to the different techniques has allowed me to acquire a broad vision of the possibilities of movement. I have been able to experience practices such as classical ballet, Cunningham, López technique and different forms of Release. All this has allowed me to understand and incorporate the principles of dance (alignment, center, connections, qualities, rhythm, coordination, among others). In this way, I have been building a fairly broad movement profile that allows me to unfold in different spaces and respond from action to the needs of the scene.
Among my strengths is technical precision, I can easily understand and appropriate movement. I also have the ability to pay attention to details, I am very interested in understanding the subtleties of movement and from there exploring its possibilities and variations. I have an excellent memory, which allows me to learn choreography, skills and variations quickly. So I can spend more time exploring and understanding movement in every class and job. I have also taken advantage of the variety of teachers to explore and learn about different teaching methodologies. I am drawn to the ways we learn to learn and I really enjoy exploring multiple ways of acquiring and sharing knowledge.
I consider that dance is not a series of steps or poses, rather a single continuous path through which my body moves, this has allowed me to acquire great fluidity in movement. Likewise, I believe that movement is at the same time form, space and rhythm; thus I have developed a very good spatial and musical awareness.
I have trained myself to be stronger and stronger, I enjoy when the movement is demanding and complex. Likewise, this force together with a work of great consciousness of the center allows me to be very fast. I enjoy floor work that combines all of these elements. The jumps, the entrances and exits of the floor and the fluidity of the Realese are aspects that I really enjoy.
Managing the focus is one of the technical aspects that has cost me the most. Knowing where to look and with what quality to do it is one of the tasks that I focus the most on in each class. I play naming objects, walking paths, choreographing trajectories and I always try to find new ways to explore the use of my gaze. However, it is still an element that is not fully integrated and that I must continue working on. I also want to continue deepening in achieving greater precision and in expanding my movement profile, since qualities with sustained time or contained flow cost me more than those sudden and free.
In the areas of laboratories and staging, I have focused on two lines of research. On the one hand, the learning methodologies; and on the other, creation. At the level of methodologies, I have sought to explore how I learn and how I teach. I understood learning as the process of creating connections in the body; memory, creativity and analysis are different ways of linking concepts. I am interested in finding new ways to learn. I see the field of creation as the place to become aware of learning and to find different ways of connecting them.
The Laban analysis laboratory allowed me to develop a platform to investigate and expand movement profiles through improvisation, and the somatic vision staging was a space to select elements of different somatic practices that allow to enhance training and work both of execution as of creation. Likewise, in the staging of dance history and dance repertoire, I have sought to explore the ways in which others have developed their works and how this is the result of their contexts, at the same time that I have sought to apply those same experiences at my work. In the laboratories of traditional dance, choreographic composition, movement dramaturgy and improvisation I have sought to build my own compositional strategies.
The staging areas developed in me a great capacity for analysis and research. It makes it easier for me to understand texts and write. Also, I have the ability to organize knowledge so that it is easier for me and others to understand. I enjoy creating structures and mobilizing them through the different areas.
However, I sometimes fail to communicate these structures effectively. One aspect to improve in this field is to continue looking for new ways to communicate my knowledge, to continue exploring mechanisms for the exchange of information so that it is always accessible to others, since I believe that “individual” knowledge is of little use.
I would be interested in continuing to deepen the investigation. I am struck by history and the creation of connections between cultures. I propose to follow a path driven by exploration in dance, which crosses my body from various aspects, such as technique, writing, reading and stage work.
The ensembles area has been a space to investigate the different facets of the creative performer. I feel comfortable in the production and management areas, but it is the work of creating and interpreting that I am most passionate about. During the degree I was able to explore working with different directors, from those who control all the details of the scene to those who give their performers all the responsibility and only guide the group process. This has given me the ability to contribute to the scene on different levels. I like to relate mainly from the body, to propose ideas and situations from the physical and I try to understand others from there. I enjoy teamwork as a space to understand the world through the experiences of others and to broaden my own vision of myself.
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Finally, several aspects in which I want to delve even more are choreographic composition, modern dance techniques and the different traditional dances of Colombia. I think that choreographic composition is an endless field and during the career I only had the opportunity to explore a small part. I also consider that training in different techniques is an opportunity to continue understanding the body from different points of view. Modern dance, as one of the roots of the techniques that I have appropriated; and traditional dances, as roots of my cultural heritage.
The investigation of the movement, from the different areas of the career, is a fundamental axis of my process. Exploration and improvisation are the foundations of my work as a performing artist and it is through these that I learn and create. Learning, execution and creation are the spaces where I enjoy exploiting my skills and acquiring new knowledge to be more and more versatile and contribute from new places to performing.