No. 164
The Wolf Step
By : isabel_garciap
Entrant’s location : Mexico
LINKS
Description
This project is a representation of how I used dance to escape emotionally. When I was 12, I was diagnosed with LES (Systemic Lupus Erythematosus), a chronic auto-immune system disease which harmed my self-esteem drastically. I chose to hide this and my feelings about it from everyone because I was so embarrassed: I was not a normal girl; I was ugly because I had a disease (I used to think that). When I felt bad (psychologically) I danced and this was the only moment that I felt powerful and pretty. Dancing made me look at myself differently: beautiful, enough and capable of excelling. I made lupus dance with me to the wolf (lupus) step, the step I would have to add to my choreographies for the rest of my life.
What did you create?
I made a dance video showing my emotional journey from when I was diagnosed with Lupus until now (2019). The lyrics of the song (Unstoppable, by Sia) portray exactly how I was feeling and was one of the things that motivated me each day. By researching scientific studies, I learned about how emotions show visually and kept that in mind in order to create the choreography (which was mostly improvised), so you can feel through the roughness or softness of my movements the type of emotion I was feeling and how I managed to overcome psychologically the big self-esteem problem it caused in consequence.
Why did you make it?
There is not enough awareness about this disease and its effects on teenagers that have it. This is not a topic that is normal to talk about, so I want to share with other teens with this disease what I was not provided with in those difficult moments: an emotional escape. In my case dancing was the way out, but I invite others to express themselves in unique and interesting ways even though they don't have any medical issue. The most difficult part of being diagnosed at such a young age was to understand that this was not temporary, it will live with me forever and will become part of me as a person too. The fact of Lupus being an auto-immune disease it literally makes you weaker, it destroys you from the inside. Therefore, I decided years later to create the wolf step, a dance step that will take me out of this horrible emotional state that lupus had me in; this step consisted in blending with society gracefully so no one can watch me suffer, but the hardest part about dominating this dance step was accepting it will be part of the choreography of my life permanently.
How did you make it?
To do this, I researched how emotions are portrayed grafically which led me to study various mathemathical projects. These showed graphics of the basic emotions: anger, happiness, fear, disgust and sadness. Each one was characterized by different shapes and line types. Based on that, I recorded an improvised lyrical dance with harsh, not that harsh and soft movements depending on what part of the story I was expressing with my dancing and how was I feeling in that moment of my life. Added to this, a song that has always inspired me and reflects perfectly my journey is Unstoppable, by Sia which is why I made the choice to improvise with it.
Your entry’s specification
1080 X 920 px 1.07 GB H.264, AAC HD I do not own the copyright of the song.