A Work in Progress

I recently handed in my drafts of my Reflective Essay and Diagram for Module ACI3611. This whole process made me question what the term ‘draft’ really entails and how it can relate to me and my practice. 

 

The Cambridge Dictionary defines a draft as: 

‘a piece of text, a formal suggestion, or a drawing in its original state, often containing the main ideas and intentions but not the developed form’

 

Sticking to this definition, what I handed in cannot really be qualified as a ‘draft’ since the ideas were developed and the pieces were vastly different from how I originally wrote them. But then again, we often distinguish between first, second, third drafts and so on. At what point does a draft cease to be a draft and become a ‘finished’ piece of work? 

 

If we look at this in terms of the dance world, and thus my practice, all pieces of choreography start off as drafts. Whether the choreographer prefers to meticulously plan the architecture of a piece, or prefers to rely on improvisation and instinct, there must always be a central idea or theme to work around. According to the above definition of ‘draft’ we could argue that an idea or concept in question is itself a draft, since the ideas have not been developed, or even really discovered. 

 

This same notion can be carried on into personal practice, since we are constantly working to expand, improve, and develop our skills and ideas within our work. There is also the feeling within the dance world that there is no end to creativity and how much we can physically develop and improve, whether that be in terms of stamina, strength, technique, flexibility or versatility. All of these, with the exception of flexibility, are aspects of a dancer that have no end point, there is always room for improvement. We never ‘finish’ becoming versatile for example, and as much as we sometimes think otherwise, there is no dancer with ‘perfect’ technique. 

 

The idea of fervent and relentless self-improvement is also present within the staging of choreography. I mentioned earlier how the initial idea of a piece could be counted as a draft, and if we adhere to the idea of multiple sequential drafts, we could argue that the final piece of choreography onstage is just another later draft. When pieces are restaged and revived by a choreographer or company, they are rarely exact replicas. Steps and aspects of the staging are adapted and changed to suit the dancers needs and the facilities of the performance space, and often the choreographer will develop ideas further or cut out entire sections that they were not happy with originally but didn’t have the time to change. 

 

To conclude, I feel that perhaps the word ‘finished product’ as the antithesis of 'draft' is somewhat misleading and ill-placed in the world of dance and art. Nothing is every truly ‘finished’, since artists as people are obsessed with learning more about their art form. Being an artist also forces you to learn more about yourself, often through testing situations and seemingly insurmountable hurdles. Hence, we as artists are also ‘drafts’, and in my opinion, that is all we will ever be. Contrary to common belief, this is not a bad thing.  

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/draft