Life As A Pineapple – My independent Research Project
In my third year at University we were set an independent project for us to create and perform a piece or work made by us as individuals. All performances were performed in IPAR week, a week where everyone shows their creations to family and friends as well as tutors. This project was something that could be personal to us as artists as it was our own creation, using all our knowledge and experiences we have learnt in the past three years studying at York St John University.
I chose to focus my project on the fruit Pineapple. You may wonder why? its only a piece of fruit? why so random? People aren’t aware that pineapples carry a lot of history and culture behind them, besides them being beautiful looking. They carry centuries of Indian migration, symbols of architecture, and have been represented as royal privileges. Along with its history and culture behind the fruit, me as an independent artist has found a liking to the design of the pineapple itself, its beautiful colors, pine cones, and incredible leaves that sprout out the top of the fruit. The flavor is incredible, inspiring lots of different foods and drinks we have today.
For my performance I wanted to create a layered movement piece showing different aspects of the Pineapples journey to from when it was founded to how big it is today. This showing how the pineapple was founded, through to how it became royal privileges, to the most famous foods and drinks we have today.
Looking back on my independent performance, It gave me the ability to execute my own ideas, this including learning new skills such as lighting, setting up set, finding costumes, producing my own choreography, all in which are aspects you have to have when creating a performance. All these aspects are skills you need when support marginalized young people, as I wasn’t fixated on one skill, I was able to multi task which is something you need to be able to do when working with young people, as you could come across a situation with a couple of young people, where you need to be able to prioritize the most important factor, just like I did when creating my performance.
