U's choreography and How It All Came Together

By: Melissa Rivera

Picking sides is never easy-- unless, of course, if you're part of Juicy R! We picked our groups according to the way happened to be standing in class one day. U, C, and R. As co-choreographer for Juicy R, I was in charge of all five Us. We were at the forefront of our entire group and I knew we had to make a good first impression. I chose our music as well as our moves. The song was "Solta o Frango" by Bonde do Role. I had heard some of this band's music and even though I had no idea what any of the words meant, I loved the beat so we stuck to it. 

Juicy R's theme for the parade was a balancing act between school spirit and student unity. The latter had a lot more gray area that we needed to decide on before starting to build our parade. In the end, we settled with having "student unity" (or lack thereof) be defined by the social and ethnic cliques that are seen all around campus. We understood that this may not have been directly correlated with the lack of school spirit that is present at UCR, but we felt it was still an important issue that we could tie in with school spirit. As far as our theme went, we did an excellent job integrating it with our performance. In fact, we may have focused too much on it rather than our execution of the moves.

After seeing the replay of our final performance, I saw that we actually skipped an entire part of the routine. Each letter's group was supposed to call out a chant to represent its letter. Unfortunately, there was some confusion with the timing of the music and when to yell out said chant and U was unable to represent. If given the chance to redo it, I probably would have added more intricate moves and better execution of the steps. But due to the simplicity that we had to reduce our presentation to, we did what we could. 

Our theme was incorporated into almost every element of our performance. As far as choreography, every move intended to depict a state of mind or attitude. U group was the self-centered, "too-cool-for-school" bunch. The dance moves were reminiscent of Oxum's mirror move and the expressions of the dancers' faces showed rolling eyes and indignation. 

Our costumes were symbolic for several reasons. Firstly, they were essentially identical with the exception of the details. This represents the common thread of the students of UCR. We are all Highlanders (whether we like it or not). Secondly, the only thing that keeps us apart are the insignificant details like our ethnicities or social customs or in Juicy R's case, the letters on our shirts. We wanted to show that if we put a bit of an effort and saw others for who they are, rather than what they are, we are more likely to get along. One way of coming together is through the school itself. We used the R group as the high spirited assemblers of unity among U and C groups. Through R, we saw that U and C were better together than divided and when all three groups banded together we collectively became UCR. 

So basically our entire performance told a story, just like the dances of the orixas. I learned that their dances are not simply exhibitions of movements and gestures, they actually tell stories. They explain and answer questions and are even interactive with the audience. I also learned that although the moves are repetitive, they help with the story telling part of the performance. As the moves are repeated and periodically changed, the story evolves and progresses. 

We used props at the end of our routine to include a little bit of an element of surprise. The hidden streamers in our pockets were supposed to symbolize the hidden school spirit that is within all the students of UCR. During our final performance however, we had some streamer difficulties, but it seemed like got it under control in time. 

With this project, I learned a lot about myself. I learned that I am capable of leading a group and teaching others. I initially thought that being a choreographer meant I'd make some random moves up, show my group leader and have her teach the group instead. Juicy R encountered many changes of plans and the strategy we ended up with called for smaller groups and each of the three choreographers to be in charge of them. This made me a little worried because I didn't know how my group would handle dancing and whether or not they would be cooperative. My group turned out to be very willing to participate and look silly for a few minutes, which was my main concern. I usually don't like working in groups because I feel that there are always bad apples that hinder the group's development. Since our very large group got broken down into three smaller, more manageable ones, I felt like it was doable. I learned that working in groups and making them efficient requires some stepping up to the plate and sometimes having to be the party pooper and tell everyone to be quiet and focus. The time constraints that we were under also helped put some pressure on us so we could focus on our objective and goof off less, which is very difficult to do when surrounded by friends and classmates. 

This project was the perfect culmination to an original and intriguing class, one that I will definitely never forget about. Thanks Dr. Scott and Ryan!

-Melissa Rivera