Save the Sea Animals!!

My group, Subzero, choreographed and performed based on the theme water pollution. As a group we decided that we wanted to demonstrate how pollution affects the sea animals. We came up with this theme, as we decided research about what is affecting the ocean and the living species in it. We saw pictures of animals cover stuck with trash and oil covering them. This problem affected us and we wanted to show people how pollution can affect the sea animals. The overall idea of the dance was to show that trash can cause the death of the sea animals. In the choreography we included a pollutant, the water god lemanja, and animal fishes. For the animal fishes, we included: a turtle, jelly fish, beta fish, clown fish, and a shark. We wanted to show a variation of sea animals. The shark represented the predator. The choreography began with the sea animal going through a bridge that the pollutant and lemanja made. This represented the animals going inside the polluted ocean. Lemanja represented the water and the pollutant the pollution. While going in the sea creatures were swimming through the bridge. Once inside the people representing the fishes starting dancing. They dance some African American and Samba moves. This represented the fishes being happy in the ocean. Then the pollutant and Lemanja walk around them. They just looked at each other in a bad way. They made dirty looks to each other. Then the fishes made a circle and the pollutant and Lemanja went inside the circle. Each of them introduced themselves with a dance. The pollutant was represented by the goddess Omolu. Lemanja and Omolu danced in the middle of the circle and introduced to the audience what they do. Omolu performed the dance of spreading out diseases, but in this situation trash. Lemanja, performed the dance of water and the bracelets. Then, Omolu and Lemanja fight each other, Lemanja losses the fight and gets out of the circle. Then the fishes continue to swim around, but Omolu is also going around. As she goes around she is throwing trash and every time she throws trash to a fish, the fish dies. Omolu goes around killing the fishes. The last one to survive is the shark. The shark does not die of pollution, but instead of not having anyone to eat. The shark shows his starvation to the audience by rubbing his stomach and making a sad face that he has no food. The shark represented the Life Cycle. Then he dies. After all the fishes had died, Lemanja comes back in and fights Omolu. She revives all the fishes again and they swim out. Omolu stays on the floor dead. Our costumes were simple, but it helped people understand more about our theme. We bought colorful shirts that will help represent the color of the fishes. In the shirts we put the name of the fish and drew a picture of it. The shark put a red bandana on his face, to show that he was the predator. Omolu, dressed all in black and had a skull painted in her shirt, with other words printed. It had words like disease, pollution, and death. Yemaya, wore a white skirt and a baby blue color shirt to represent water. In this process of making the parade I also got the opportunity to learn more about myself. I learned that working as a team can be fun and easy to do. Before I would be the shy one of the group, but this time I wanted to get out of my comfort zone and decided to speak more and give my opinions to the group. Another thing I learn is that working as a group makes things easier. Also, I did not think I had creativeness, but I sure did have it inside me. This parade turned out to be a unique and fun experience. In overall, I learn many things from this parade and class in all. At the beginning of the course we learn about the Oxiras. I learned that each dance that the Orixas performed represented something. Also, samba moves were interesting to learn because it is part of the history of Brazil. Samba helped Brazil bring together the mixture of races. Also, because Samba is still performed in Brazil and has been part of many other places. While working on the parade it was interesting seeing how everything we learn was going to help the group make a statement about our theme. As an assistant director, I was involved in every part of the parade. The things we learned in class helped us come up with ideas that would help the audience understand about the pollution in the sea. Doing the parade made me understand that dance can be more than just moves. Dance has a deep meaning for something. In this case the Oxiras helped our parade have a meaning and helped the audience understand about what was going on in our dance. If I could continue this piece, I would incorporate different styles of dancing. I would add more samba into it and some hip hop. Also, I would add more formations to the dance and have other people perform. I would put more people, so that there can be more fishes. I would put more fishes because the ocean is full of different sea animals. Also, I would give the pollutant more and different kinds of trash. This way people can see the different ways a fish can be polluted. Another, thing I would do is make the piece longer.