Artificial Things (Lucy Bennett, Stopgap Dance Company, 2014): choreographic intent, structure, dancers, movement features, staging and aural setting of the anthology set work, focusing on Scene Three.

What this dot point is asking

Artificial Things is one of the six professional works in the AQA GCSE Dance anthology, and Component 2 (the 1 hour 30 minute written exam, 40 percent of the qualification) can ask you to analyse and evaluate it in detail. This dot point asks you to know the work as a discrete unit: its choreographer and company, its choreographic intent, its structure, its dancers, and its movement, staging and aural features. The exam focuses on Scene Three of the work, so most of your detail should come from that section.

The facts you must know

Stopgap is central to the meaning of the work. Because the company is inclusive, the choreography is built around bodies that move in different ways, and the wheelchair is treated as part of the movement language rather than as an obstacle. Knowing this lets you explain why the partnering looks the way it does.

Choreographic intent

Bennett wanted to present human relationships, support and interdependence between disabled and non-disabled dancers, alongside themes of limitation, loss, resolution and the experience of being gazed at or observed by others. Scene Three is the reflective aftermath of earlier tension: it is more pensive, and it moves towards togetherness and resolve. The snow-globe world suggests both a contained, fragile beauty and the sense of figures being watched from outside.

Structure

The full work is built in three scenes that move from underlying tension, to a more violent and energetic search for liberation that ends with a dismantled wheelchair, to the calmer, reflective Scene Three. For the exam you concentrate on Scene Three, where the mood is quieter and the relationships between the four dancers come to the fore through shared weight and gentle contact.

Movement and physical features

The movement is largely floor-based and weight-sharing, with dancers supporting, lifting and leaning on one another. Wheelchair users and standing dancers partner equally, so a standing dancer may be lowered to the floor while a wheelchair user reaches and supports. Dynamics shift between sustained, gentle moments and sudden bursts of energy. Contact work, counterbalance and the careful transfer of weight are the signature physical features, and they directly express the theme of interdependence.

Staging and aural setting

The set evokes a snow-covered, snow-globe-like world, drawing on the imagery of Goran Djurovic's paintings; the recurring image of a figure perched on a tipped wheelchair anchors the visual world. Costumes are everyday and muted, keeping focus on the dancers and their relationships. The aural setting is a layered soundscape combining piano, wind sounds and electronic textures, with a fragment of the song The Sunshine of Your Smile adding a nostalgic, bittersweet colour that supports the themes of memory and loss.

Why this matters for the exam

Section B and Section C of the written paper reward precise, work-specific detail tied to intent. A candidate who can name Lucy Bennett, Stopgap, the snow-globe world and a weight-sharing duet, and then explain how each communicates interdependence, builds the AO3 marks quickly. The other anthology dot points give you the analytical lenses; this dot point gives you the secure, work-specific facts for Artificial Things.