BA (Hons) Ceramics 2005 |
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Fiora Touliatou Email tfiora@yahoo.com |
I am focusing on two specific dances: belly dance and flamenco, because they are exciting and also they share similar history and identity, while they are also contrasting - they have evolved differently. The characteristics of belly dance are the flexible spine and snake-like movements of the hands. On the other hand, the spine in flamenco is curved upwards on the torso, the shoulders are raised and the gestures are tensed and dramatic. I make the figures by slab-building and modeling and also press the slabs in scratched plaster to create textured patterns. The latter come from painted and incised ancient Greek pottery - they carry the past-, while the idea of making textures on the figures comes from tribal scarification and tattoos. On the belly dance figures, the textures are on the areas of the stomach, belly and abdomen and also arms and wrists. On the flamenco ones, the texture is on the torso, shoulders and wrists. Moreover, I am using different types of patterns for each dance; I associate belly dance with circles, spirals and curves, while flamenco with angles, lines and zigzags. My general intention is to accentuate and contrast the characteristics of these two dances. The colours of the decoration are bright (mainly blues, greens, yellows, purples) bringing the Mediterranean element of my culture and of the history of these dances themselves. |
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The main idea of my work is dance, colour and pattern. The wider context is to convey the message that the body is a potential means of unspoken emotions, more dramatic than spoken ones. My figures are fragmented from the neck to the thighs, in order to draw the attention of the viewer on the identity of the dance, thus posture and gesture. Moreover, nudity is important in order to show the beauty of the body, the exact position of the moving parts and the shape of the muscles. 
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