Soliloquies: A Movement-based Approach towards Beckett’s Waiting for Godot

Riana Diah Sitharesmi

doi:10.24821/ijcas.v3i1.1833

Abstract

The research entitled “Soliloquies: a movement-based approach towards Beckett’s Waiting for Godot” examines my understanding of the play, which is manifested in the form of a dance piece along with a writing component. The conceptual foreground is drawn from the circumstantial analysis of a duality of human’s strategies confronting the difficult situation in their waits. “Waiting for Godot” (WfG), the biggest iconic of modern theatre, is the baseline to address the pragmatic understanding towards human condition and human self-reflection. The research aims to discover an alternative way bringing the abstract concept of human condition into a tacit understanding of the dance performance as well as the writing component. Both literary investigation and artistic-based research are processed simultaneously to discover the coherence, through which the creative process would find the equilibrium in both practical and academic. The observation of WfG’s dramatic tension leads the choreographic process in focusing kinesthetic exploration to represent ‘body and mind’. The idea is manifested through the dance performance entitled “Soliloquies”, which uses the presence of Balinese and Javanese elements as a starting point as well as the development of individual aesthetic experiences of the dancers. The results of the research generate distinctive movement vocabularies to convey its choreographic structure, while they also challenge an intercultural dialogue in the process of studio research. It draws the conclusion that such investigation could articulate the manifestation of movement-based approach towards Beckett’s WfG, that is the absurd of human condition. It also brings out a hermeneutic sphere in the art process, which works for me, as a female Indonesian dancer, to reconstruct identity within Indonesia contemporary state.

Highlights

Human’s suffering is perpetuated for another indefinite period of life
EBIJdoCiotAokrSoiaf:lRVeovl.ie3w, Number 1 June 2016 execution by a nation towards other nations brought his concern of human life that was without meaning and absurd (Sternlicht 2005, p. 58). Beckett wrote his script for the play “Waiting for Godot” (1953) within the deep concern towards his own experience as a witness of world’s irony. My research examines another understanding of Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” (WfG), which is manifested in the form of an essay as a writing component, and a dance piece as a choreographic assessment
The dancers try to find motions and shapes within this limitation, i.e. the restriction to move forward and backward, and to avoid three-dimensional routine. The perception of such limitation, individual, somehow puts us into similar mental responds, such as the uncomfortable feeling of being in a small chest, or being in a narrow aisle between two walls. We explore this sense of desperation along with the unique appearance of wayang kulit as a frame of shapes

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Human’s suffering is perpetuated for another indefinite period of life. Some of those are compliant, some others keep questioning and searching, and the rest of them are ignorant. Beckett wrote his script for the play “Waiting for Godot” (1953) within the deep concern towards his own experience as a witness of world’s irony My research examines another understanding of Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” (WfG), which is manifested in the form of an essay as a writing component, and a dance piece as a choreographic assessment. The Soliloquies’ dramatic development refers to Samuel Becket’s WfG both in its artistic staging and in its content It is for allowing the dance piece to represent an important understanding towards human’s daily waits that is embedded in the play. The challenge is commenced by presenting two female dancers in aprons with a pair of boot and a bowler hat to link them to the icons

Emerging new vocabularies and developing individual character

CONCLUSION