REQUIRED READING: An Invitation to the Dance
CHOREOGRAPHIC ELEMENTS OF DANCE
I. The Body – When looking at dance, the first thing to consider is the body. What is the body doing? Body parts can be used in isolation, or as a whole. The dancer can flex, extend, stretch, contract, etc. Is the body stationary or locomotor? Classical dance terms to describe some body movements: plié (bend), jeté (leap), arabesque (long gently arched support on one foot), attitude (leg bent at 120 degrees), e.g.
II. Movement – When dancers talk about movement they use the terms Shape, Space, Time and Energy.
a. Shape describes the visual designs that the body makes: symmetrical/asymmetrical; squared/angular or rounded/curved, long lines or contorted shapes; low to the floor, or medium and high levels.
b. Space describes the direction, path, and range of movement. Space also includes the location of a particular movement such as upstage or downstage. The physical directions, which are traced by the dancers as they move through space are referred to as pathways. Movement can be performed with a narrow, limited range close to the body, or with a wide range in which the legs and arms extend out to a great degree.
c. Time is an element of dance involving rhythm, phrasing, tempo, accent, and duration. Time can be metered, as in music, or based on body rhythms, such as breath, emotions, and heartbeat.
d. Energy, Effort & Motion describe the manner in which movements are performed. They are the quality or kind of movement, described through verbs and adverbs. Common descriptive terms used in relation to energy are: percussive, suspended, heavy, light, and smoothly or abruptly. Verbs can help describe more specific activity: rolling, running, jumping, lifting, leaning, suspending. This is often described in terms of effort: weight (light or strong), flow (free slow or controlled flow), directionality (direct/indirect), and time (sudden/sustained). When these elements are combines, unique variations or efforts are created. For instance, strong, direct, and sudden is a “punching” quality; light, indirect, and sustained create a “floating” quality.
III. Imagery/Emotion/Theme – Like all art, dance is meant to convey something to the audience. Some dances may be abstract, while others may contain literal meaning. A dance may tell a story or create a mood. Dance may be philosophical in content or may contain political or social commentary. This may be the most important question of all: what is the subject matter of the dance?
IV. Music/Sound – How does the choreography relate to the music?
Is the movement in sync with the music, or is there a divergence of movement from music? Is there live or taped music? Is there a strong sense of rhythmic engagement with the music, or not? Is Text or vocalization involved – is there a use of words?
V. Structure – How is the dance put together? What is the form? When considering structure, look for repetition, phrasing, variation, contrast, unison, and counterpoint
Is the dance completely choreographed or partially improvised?
VI. Costumes, sets, props and lights
What colors, textures, media, words, or properties do you see on stage?
How do the scenic elements contribute to the overall idea?
Can they be eliminated without changing the effect of the dance?
Who generated the ideas (choreographer or designer)?
VII. Styles of Dance – Note the style or technique of the dance or the company:
Jazz Dance, Tap Dance, World Dance forms: Latin American, Asian, etc. Ballroom: Waltz, Swing, Tango, etc.
A BRIEF DANCE TIMELINE
Dance grew out of people’s natural desire to move. And like the other art forms, the art of dance soon became codified into particular kinds of dance. When people speak of the art of dance now, they are generally referring to concert dance in which companies of dancers trained in particular ways of moving their bodies present choreographed pieces.
BALLET (c.a. 1500)
Ballet developed from the dance entertainments of the Italian court during the late Renaissance. In fact, the word ballet comes from the Italian word ballare, meaning “to dance.” But ballet really began to take off in the French court. These dances were constructed to honor and entertain the King and Queen. And so, a style of dance developed to accommodate these and other historical influences:
Dancers moved from side to side so that they would never turn their backs on the royal personages. This method of movement encouraged an interest in a foot position, called turnout (toes pointed to each side) to make this movement easier to accomplish.
The clothing that people in the Renaissance wore–tight and bulky to keep out the cold–made it very difficult for them bend at the waist. Thus a style of movement which required excellent posture developed.
Finally, the rounded arm positions of ballet dancers developed in part from these clothing constraints and in part from a Renaissance belief that the circle symbolized the construction of the universe in which animals, man, God and the planets became aligned when they were all in their proper spheres.
King Louis XIV of France was passionate about dance and established in 1661 the Academie Royale de Danse in Paris, the first school for the training of professional dancers. Because French teachers were the first to codify the movement of ballet, many of the words to describe these movement are still in French, such as plié, jeté and tendu.
A BALLET REVOLUTION (c.a. 1700)
With the advent of the 18th Century, dance became a form of high art. People became less interested in ballet as a way to entertain royalty and began to see it as a method of telling stories. During this century, the ballet d’action, a ballet focused on the narrative of story and character, developed in reaction to the technical rigidity that seemed to have been essential in ballet in previous years.
With the world shifting the focus away from royalty and toward the average citizen, it is perhaps natural that a more Romantic way style of ballet began to develop. As in other art forms, Romanticism in dance meant an interest in man, nature and the supernatural. Romantics sought to glorify human beings.
In ballet, this glorified human being took the form of the ballerina who often danced en pointe (on her toes). “Pointe dancing was reserved for women only, and this exclusive taste for female dancers and characters inspired a certain type of recognizable Romantic heroine; a sylph-like fairy whose pristine goodness and purity inevitably triumphs over evil or injustice” (San Francisco Ballet). By this time as well, clothing had become less rigid and less bulky, allowing for more intense and more interesting movement.
MODERN DANCE (c.a. 1900)
Ballet continued to be a very popular art form throughout the 19th century century, with some of the greatest companies coming from Russia. However, in the early 20th century, in both Europe and America, a new form of dance which we call Modern Dance began to develop.
Dancers like Isadora Duncan and Martha Graham began to develop their own styles which they based on more organic movement, rather than on rules about how far one’s feet needed to be turned out and how round one’s arms should be.
Modern dance’s insistence on organic movement caused it to look very different from ballet. Instead of perfectly rounded arms and graceful gestures, dance movements could be wild and asymmetrical. American Modern Dance legend Martha Graham, in particular, was known for her sharp, angular gestures.
Isadora Duncan (1878-1927) Known as the mother of “modern dance,” Isadora Duncan founded the “New System” of interpretive dance, blending together poetry, music and the rhythms of nature.
She did not believe in the formality of conventional ballet and gave birth to a more free form of dance with Greek-like costumes, bare feet, and loose hair. Duncan restored dancing to a new vitality using the solar plexus and the torso as the generating force for all movements to follow.
Innovations:
Developed a concept of natural breathing which she identified with the ebb and flow of ocean waves
Defined movement based on natural and spiritual laws rather than on formal considerations of geometric space
Developed a philosophy of dance; defended dance as a primary art form worthy of respect
De-emphasized scenery and costumes in favor of a simple stage setting and simple costumes. By doing this, Duncan suggested that watching a dancer dance was enough.
Martha Graham (1894-1991) Martha Graham was also interested in more organic impulses for movement, but instead of looking to nature, she looked inward to human anatomy. Graham identified a method of breathing and impulse control she called “contraction and release.”
For Graham, movement originated in the tension of a contracted muscle, and continued in the flow of energy released from the body as the muscle relaxed. This method of muscle control gave Graham’s dances and dancers a hard, angular look, one that was very unfamiliar to dance audiences used to the smooth, lyrical bodily motions of Isadora Duncan. In her first reviews, as a result, Graham was often accused of dancing in an “ugly” way.
Innovations:
Graham’s movement system and her theory of contraction and release are central to the development of modern dance in the United States
First to introduce controlled falling to the floor, stag leaps (where the back leg is straight and the front one is bent toward the knee of the back leg), and a developed imagery to accompany movement
First modern dance choreographer to fully use collaborations with other modern artists to create her dance theater masterpieces