URL TO ARTICLE: https://www.wm.edu/news/stories/2019/a-passion-for-dance-and-justice.php
Recently I came across an article by Kate Hoving, Reves Center, that talked about the different ideas that dance can express. I found this article very long and tiring on my eyes, but intriguing nonetheless.
In one of the earlier paragraphs, the article states: “The JazzArt Dance Theatre mission statement is “Dance is used as a transformation tool to integrate social awareness and cultural inclusiveness that embodies the nature of South Africa’s Bill of Rights… Through training, performance and interdisciplinary collaborations with diverse role-players we develop multi-skilled performers and create works that promote excellence, innovation and social change.””
In my opinion, cultural inclusiveness is not something I really see in dance, I guess. When I watch productions I generally don’t see any people of color, and that is definitely something that needs to be changed. I like the part about promoting excellence, innovation and social change because apart from the people being good dancers, they also have to be aware of social issues. Of course dancers should be fully immersed into the world of ballet, but they should also stay “woke” as my generation calls it, and they should be fully aware of social justice issues around the world.
The article also states that Leah Glenn, the program direction at JazzArt Dance Theatre, “Wanted them to see the difference between ballet and modern dance, the difference in quality of movement, the difference in focus from one company to the next.” She said, “one of the things that they learned was that with ballet, you’re always lifting, and a lot of time you’re dancing on your toes. But with modern, it tends to be more grounded. Not that there isn’t a tremendous amount of overlap now. There is. But we had some really interesting conversations about it.”
I agree with the part about how when dancing ballet, you always have to be lifting, whereas when you are doing contemporary or modern dance, the feeling is more grounded. For me, when I first learned a contemporary dance after only doing ballet for 6 years, my teacher kept saying that I was too “light”, and although I needed to keep holding my core muscle, I also needed to ground my feet to the floor like magnets. This is something very hard to achieve, at least for me, because I’m so used to making my feelings look fairy-like and effortless (or at least I try!)that when I need to look “heavy”, it’s not so easy for me.
Glenn also said, “So, if you dance every day from the time you’re able to walk, there’s something that’s going to come to you with a certain ease. That beat. That joy. That reminds me of home. If you’ve never done that before, you may love it just as much, but you’re not going to feel the same way about the experience. And when I say feel, I mean kinaesthetically, not so much emotionally.”
When Glenn says that by feeling and loving the experience of dance, she says that you feel kinesthetically, not so much emotionally. This might be the way she feels about it, but for me, I feel both. When I dance to a specific choreography, I not only feel the energy running through me, but I also feel it even more so inside of me. By that I mean emotionally. It’s hard (for me) to differentiate, but for me kinesthetically means being dynamic, and feeling the music beat inside of you like a steady drum, and your body just knows how to maneuver itself. By emotionally, I mean that I can see a picture in my mind. For example, when dancing the candor variation in sleeping beauty, I imagine myself as a flawless, beautiful fairy that is known to be the sweetest and gentlest in the land, and she comes to bless an adorable, long-awaited baby. Imagining this helps me live and breathe the character, and in this sense I love dance emotionally too.
Lastly, Glenn stated, “I told them to choose six characteristics they would use to describe themselves, and they had to create movements inspired by those characteristics. They then tied all those movements together to create a dance phrase.”
Personally I am not so good at choreographing my own little dance pieces, but I can imagine how using characteristics could help with creating a dance phrase. For instance, if one of the characteristics were, let’s say, trauma. I would probably clutch my head a few times and try to look frightened by widening my eyes and raising my eyebrows, and I would run in circles as if I were stuck in a traumatic memory. If the characteristic were joy, like I had just opened a package filled with butterflies, I would do small, light leaps and smile widely, and I would try to act fairy-like and weightless.
Dance Domain 