Inspired by the oddities and quirks of life

Surrealism is destructive, but it destroys only what it considers to be shackles limiting our vision.
~Salvador Dalí

Giselle Liu has been a very busy YAF choreographer, not only preparing the cast of our December musical A Chorus Line, but also working with a group of YAF dancers to create #artsinthepark2013‘s Surrealism piece, titled ‘Surreal is Me’!

The Surrealist movement originated in the early 1920s. It was inspired by the Dadaists, who rejected traditional forms of art and thinking, and by Sigmund Freud’s studies in dream analysis. Surrealist artists used free association to produce work that combined images from the real world and the subconscious, creating works that are often bizarre and striking!

We were very fortunate to grab Giselle for a minute to ask her to tell us more about Surrealism.

Using Surrealism as my inspiration…

When given the freedom to explore, my work naturally tends to be a little quirky and outside of the box, and so for this #artsinthepark2013 piece, it was just a matter of drawing the connection. I love images, and was inspired by several Surrealism works by the great artists of that art movement – Salvador Dalí, Andre Breton and René Margritte -  so I incorporated their images and still moments from my everyday life and searched for the oddities and quirks within the context. And then once I researched Surrealism, I immediately knew which song I wanted to use.

Challenges during the rehearsal process….

I think the only challenge in the process was translating into words what my vision was without having the piece set. Fortunately, Toi Ling, being the amazing costume designer she is, understood exactly what I was going for and was able to instantly comprehend and share the vision. Also, it’s always chaotic in the beginning but the dancers were all very open, giving and trusting in the process – for that, I am very thankful.

At  #artsinthepark2013…

My hope is for the audience to be able to get lost in the whimsical journey of the piece. I want them to be able to create their own stories and be inventive of what the images are – not only what I’ve created them to be.