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Discovering Dance
312 Pages
Discovering Dance is the ideal introductory text for students with little to no dance experience. Teachers can adapt this course to meet students where they are, whether they are new to dance or already have some dance experience.
The material helps students consider where movement comes from and why humans are compelled to move, grasp the foundational concepts of dance, and explore movement activities from the perspectives of a dancer, a choreographer, and an observer. The result is a well-rounded educational experience for students to build on, whether they want to further explore dance or choreography or otherwise factor dance into college or career goals.
Discovering Dance will help students in these ways:
• Meet national and state standards in dance education and learn from a pedagogically sound scope and sequence that allow them to address 21st-century learning goals.
• Discover dance through creating, performing, analyzing, understanding, responding to, connecting to, and evaluating dance and dance forms.
• Step into a flexible dance curriculum that is appropriate for one or more years of instruction.
• Build on their dance experience, whether they want to further explore dance or choreography or otherwise factor dance into college or career goals.
• Use student web resources to enhance their learning.
The book is divided into four parts and 16 chapters. Part I focuses on the foundational concepts of dance and art processes, wellness, safety, dance elements, and composition. Part II delves into societal facets of dance, including historical, social, folk, and cultural dance. In part III, students explore dance on stage, including ballet, modern dance, jazz dance, and tap dance, and also examine aspects of performance and production. Part IV rounds out the course by preparing students for dance in college or as a career and throughout life.
Each chapter helps students
• discover new dance genres;
• explore dance genres through its history, artists, vocabulary, and significant works;
• apply dance concepts through movement, written, oral, visual, technology, and multimedia assignments, thus deepening their knowledge and abilities;
• enhance learning by completing in each chapter a portfolio assignment; and
• use the Did You Know and Spotlight elements to expand on the chapter content and gain more insight into dance artists, companies, and events.
Learning objectives, vocabulary terms, and an essential question at the beginning of each chapter prepare students for their learning experience. Students then move through the chapter, engaging in a variety of movement discovery, exploration, response, and research activities. The activities and assignments meet the needs of visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learners and help students explore dance through vocabulary, history, culture, creation, performance, and choreography.
This personal discovery is greatly aided by technology—including learning experiences that require taking photos; watching or creating short videos of dancers’ performances; creating timelines, graphs, drawings, and diagrams; and creating soundscapes.
Chapterrs conclude with a portfolio assignment or project and a chapter review quiz. A comprehensive glossary further facilitates learning.
In addition, some chapters contain Explore More elements, which trigger students to investigate selected dance styles on the web resource. These sections offer students insight into various dance genres and styles; for example, in the chapter on cultural dance, students can explore more about street dances, Mexican folkloric dance, African dance, Indian dance, and Japanese dance.
The online components further strengthen the book and enrich the students’ learning experience. These resources also help teachers to prepare for and manage their classes. Here is an overview of the resources:
Teacher Web Resource
• Learning objectives
• Extended learning activities
• Handouts and assignments that students can complete, save, and print to turn in
• Explore More sections of selected chapters to introduce students to additional social, folk, cultural, and contemporary dance styles
• Chapter glossary terms both with and without the definitions
• Chapter PowerPoint presentations
• Information on assessment tools
• Interactive chapter review quizzes
• Answer keys for handouts, assignment sheets, and quizzes
• Unit exams and answer sheets
• Video and audio clips for selected dance genres
• Web links and web search terms for resources to enhance the learning
• Additional teacher resources to support and extend the teaching and learning process (these resources include chapter learning objectives, enduring understanding and essential questions, chapter quotes, teacher-directed information to support teaching specific activities, and web links)
Student Web Resource
• Handouts and assignments that students can complete, save, and print to turn in
• Explore More sections of selected chapters to introduce students to additional social, folk, cultural, and contemporary dance styles
• Chapter glossary terms both with and without the definitions so students can test their knowledge
• Information on assessment tools
• Interactive chapter review quizzes
• Video and audio clips for selected dance genres
• Web links and web search terms for resources to enhance the learning
The availability of Discovering Dance as not only a print book but also an e-book and an interactive iBook enhances its ability to introduce students to the elements of dance and help them discover new talents, desires, and delights as they explore movement and dance.
Part I. Foundations of Dance
Chapter 1. Dance for All
Chapter 2. Safety, Health, and Wellness
Chapter 3. Elements of Dance
Chapter 4. Basics of Dance Composition
Part II. Dance in Society
Chapter 5. History of Dance
Chapter 6. Social Dance
Chapter 7. Folk Dance
Chapter 8. Cultural Dance
Part III. Dance on Stage
Chapter 9. Ballet
Chapter 10. Modern Dance
Chapter 11. Jazz Dance
Chapter 12. Tap Dance
Chapter 13. Dance as Entertainment
Chapter 14. Performance and Production
Part IV. Dance for Life
Chapter 15. College and Career Preparation
Chapter 16. Dance in Your Life
Gayle Kassing, PhD, taught beginning ballet through advanced ballet for more than 25 years at four universities. Kassing earned a BFA in ballet and theater, an MS in modern dance, a PhD in dance and related arts, and an MAT in K-12 curriculum integrated with technology. She was the 2010 National Dance Association (NDA) Artist Scholar. She is a member of the National Dance Education Organization (NDEO). She is the author of History of Dance and Beginning Ballet and coauthor of Dance Teaching Methods and Curriculum Design. Kassing is an acquisitions editor at Human Kinetics.
- Learning objectives
- Extended learning activities
- Handouts and assignments that students can complete, save, and print to turn in
- Explore More sections of selected chapters to introduce students to additional social, folk, cultural, and contemporary dance styles
- Chapter glossary terms both with and without the definitions
- Chapter PowerPoint presentations
- Information on assessment tools
- Interactive chapter review quizzes
- Answer keys for handouts, assignment sheets, and quizzes
- Unit exams and answer sheets
- Video and audio clips for selected dance genres
- Web links and web search terms for resources to enhance the learning
- Additional teacher resources to support and extend the teaching and learning process (these resources include chapter learning objectives, enduring understanding and essential questions, chapter quotes, teacher-directed information to support teaching specific activities, and web links)
- Handouts and assignments that students can complete, save, and print to turn in
- Explore More sections of selected chapters to introduce students to additional social, folk, cultural, and contemporary dance styles
- Chapter glossary terms both with and without the definitions so students can test their knowledge
- Information on assessment tools
- Interactive chapter review quizzes
- Video and audio clips for selected dance genres
- Web links and web search terms for resources to enhance the learning
Exploring Dance Composition
Dance composition is learning how to make a dance. During the dance composition process you explore a movement idea by creating dance movement or selecting steps in some dance genres, then you manipulate these elements and materials of dance into movement modules of various lengths to compose a dance.
Dance composition is learning how to make a dance. During the dance composition process you explore a movement idea by creating dance movement or selecting steps in some dance genres, then you manipulate these elements and materials of dance into movement modules of various lengths to compose a dance. To understand how to use your tools for composition, you need to be familiar with choreographic design principles, structures, and devices. For a dance work to have solidarity and value, the choreography should connect to aesthetic principles that underlie art works.
In the Movement Invention activity, you invented two contrasting dance phrases (a short series of movements that connect into a pattern) or longer sequences. In the next activities you will create a movement sequence (a group of movements that form a unit), and then you will develop a movement statement (similar to a sentence). All of these movement segments contain a beginning, a middle, and an end. Coupling movement sentences together builds a dance segment similar to a paragraph in writing. Regardless of how long or short it is, a dance composition focuses on the beginning, the middle, the end, and on the movement between these points. Creating and composing the movement is one part of the choreographic process. Checking to ensure choreographic principles underlie the dance modules requires you to analyze your composition during the process and when it is complete. Table 4.1 lists the basic choreographic principles that underlie a dance composition.
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The following sections lead you through the choreographic process as you compose your movement segments.
Creative and Choreographic Processes
Different dance scholars present similar creative and choreographic processes. Some scholars write about the creative process, while others write about the steps to create a dance. Both processes underlie making a dance.
The creative process in dance making requires a period of preparation in which you collect ideas. This preparation time should include time for developing choreographic ideas; in other words, you need to figure out the central idea and how to approach it. Next you have to experiment with movement for a deeper insight into the movement ideas. In later sessions, you evaluate the movement and determine what works and what does not work as part of the dance work. The final step in the process is elaborating on the movement ideas you have selected.
Another dance composition process uses similar steps. First, observe the world around you, and explore ways of imitating or symbolizing what you have observed using bodies and movement. Working by yourself, do movement explorations and collect external experiences by observing the work of others. During the composition process, group reflections and discussions provide feedback that should be sorted out as to how well it applies or transfers to the dance in progress. In creating a dance, use your synthesized information from exploration and reflection. After the performance, a final group reflection helps to analyze the process and the product. Then extend the group reflection to a journal of what you learned and what ideas have been sparked for future choreography.
You should know the reason behind your writing activities in relation to your movement activities. Choreographic journaling has been part of dance composition courses since at least the last quarter of the 20th century, and this type of journaling continues today.
In academic dance courses, you usually keep choreographic journals to collect written records of your observations, movement experiments, research, and findings as you go through the dance composition process. Often you write about personal goals in the class and challenges you have faced during a course. You also write about how as an individual or in a group you responded to the process or what you learned from it to help you frame or propose your next project.
With the creative and choreographic processes in mind, the next step is to survey your ingredients for making a dance. In chapter 3 you learned about the elements of dance that play a central role in creating a dance. However, other ingredients also contribute to dance composition.
Activity 4.2 Explore
Create a Movement Sequence
Using the locomotor movements from chapter 3, select two, three, or four even and uneven locomotor movements, and join them together into an 8-count movement sequence. Often movement sequences are parts of a longer movement statement. If a sequence appears to be complete, it may be referred to as a movement statement or sentence. This activity has two parts.
Part 1
Decide the order of the locomotor movements. Practice your movement sequence until you have it memorized. To add variety to the movement sequence, here are some ideas to try:
First, do the movement sequence as you created it. Repeat the sequence once at slow speed, then repeat it again at a faster speed. Changing the speed or timing on movements changes your energy or qualities of movement. Memorize these movement sequences in the order you chose.
Think about what energy, effort, or qualities you used in these repetitions and how they changed. Review the list of effort actions or movement qualities from chapter 3, and identify which ones you used. If you find a couple of undistinguishable efforts or movement qualities, try the movement again to clarify them.
Part 2
Now select two, three, or four different even and uneven locomotor movements or basic steps presented in chapter 3; these movements should be ones you are less comfortable with. Use these movements to create another movement sequence.Practice and memorize your new sequence. Again, perform the sequence four times using two or three different speeds. Then, do the first movement sequence followed by the second, or longer, sequence.
Reflect on these ideas about both movement phrases or sequences:
- The locomotor movements or steps you chose
- The differences in speeds
- How the energy, effort, effort actions, or movement qualities changed
How does the first movement sequence compare or contrast to your second movement sequence? Identify at least two similarities and two differences in movement, energy, effort, effort actions, and movement qualities when you changed the speed of your movement.
Summarize your reflections either on paper or in your mind. In a small group, take turns doing your two movement sequences following one another. Then present to the group your summary of the similarities and differences between the two movement sequences you created. Ask the group, "What did you see as similarities and differences after viewing my two movement sequences?"
Listening to the feedback of your peers may give you new ideas to try or to incorporate into your sequences. Observing others perform their movement inventions may give you more ideas to store away in your movement memory bank for future use.
Sources of Movement
Creating new dance movements comes from exploring and experimenting with movement possibilities. Exploring new ways to move may take you out of your comfort zone. As you mentally and physically record these experiments, keep in mind that they may or may not turn out to be movements you want to add to your movement memory bank. But don't let that stop you from experimenting. Although it does involve taking movement risks, your experiments are being done in the safe setting of a dance class.
Improvisation is creating movement or movement invention for making dances. Using different stimuli creates new movement. Internal stimuli could include exploring your spontaneous individual movements based on touch, auditory, or visual sources. External stimuli could come from music, a work of art, nature, or an everyday task.
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During improvisation, the teacher can provide valuable feedback or suggestions about the movement or poses being created.
When a group is looking for solutions to a problem, they often brainstorm, and together they consider a number of options. Improvisation is similar to brainstorming; in fact, it has been called body storming. You can practice body storming by yourself or with a group. Doing movement improvisation with a group can be a lot of fun, and it allows you to gather or share new movement ideas. While improvising, use the somatic movement awareness principles and Laban effort actions. Experiment with how these important actions connect to space, time, energy, and weight to create new dynamics in your dancing.
Sources for improvisation can be visual, words, poetry, tasks, senses, or someone else's movement or dances. These movement experiments or improvisations have several forms:
- Free-form improvisations are self-expression based on the premise of you moving and responding to music. This type of improvisational study can be a movement response to auditory, visual, textural, or a combination of stimuli.
- Semi-structured movement experiments solve a problem, answer the question, or have different points that the teacher or you determine as the criteria for composing the work.
- A structured improvisation is an experimental movement sequence that is loosely structured and practiced. Quite often a group work, the choreographer identifies movement sections or specific movement pictures that the group has developed during practice. These sections or pictures give the work an overall form and an artistic focus.
When you view or discuss an improvisation, you need a framework to help keep the discussion focused on the composition instead of on personal likes and dislikes. One system for discussing dance is known as RADS,which stands for using the following components: relationships, actions, dynamics, and use of space. Try it after a movement invention session or apply it as a self-analysis to your own movement improvisation.
Improvisation is a creative way to extend your personal movement repertory and styles. Practicing the many forms of improvisation helps you tap into your own creative force, enhancing your experience as a dancer and as a dance maker.
Learn more about Discovering Dance.
Discovering Cultural Dance
Dance has been called the universal language; you live in a world that dances.
Dance has been called the universal language; you live in a world that dances. Take a look at the map of the world and its continents (figure 8.1). Geographers have identified distinct natural and physical features (ecosystems) in regions throughout the world. Studying a geographic region that supports human culture is also known as cultural geography. Within these geographic regions are specific cultural regions of the world.
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Regions of the world.
In each of these cultural regions are countries, people of various racial and ethnic groups, and their cultural values. Their arts include dances from aboriginals or first people (the original people who inhabited the land since millennia ago) who migrated to these regions because of war, famine, economic hardship, or other reasons. The common elements of culture include the following (Blankenship in press):
- It is a way of life, learned and shared with future generations.
- It changes with time and is symbolic.
- The economy drives a culture.
Culture is a community or society's knowledge, beliefs, values, customs, and common heritage. If you were to look at the cultural geographic areas of the world, you would encounter commonalities and differences that make each country or region unique. People have many different views about defining and describing dance from geographic or cultural regions of the world. Some people consider dances from across these regions to be examples of world dance, while others might call these dances cultural dance. Regardless of where you live in the world, you participate in dances that reflect a lot or a little of the culture.
Activity 8.1 Explore
Dance Around the World
Using a map of the world, survey the geographic region that your teacher assigns to your group. Search a region's or country's website, then describe the physical features of each region or country. Next, research and describe the people of that area and their culture, and find examples of a traditional dance they perform. If you can locate a video performance of the dance, write a brief descriptive summary about it. In your summary include the following information:
- Background or history of the dance
- Who dances
- When and where the dance is performed
Describe the music that accompanies the dance and the dancers' clothing. Add a photo of the dancers performing, and list references or web links to your online sources.
Did You Know?
People Like Me
People Like Me is the arts education program of the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festivaland World Arts West. For 15 seasons this organization has presented an extraordinary festival featuring dancers and dance companies that represent cultures around the world. On their website, the festival provides their Online Encyclopedia of World Dance, which includes performers, information about selected dances and dance styles, musical instruments, and history of the dance style. Attending the festival to view cultural dance performances by artists from across the world would be an awesome experience. Visiting the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival and World Arts West website provides easy access to a virtual tour of dance around the world.
Exploring Cultural Dance
Specific countries have dances that identify with a region and its culture immediately. For example, African dances or Indian dances have styles that make them readily identifiable, as do other cultural dances from across the globe.
When you study dances as part of a culture, you are using different lenses to see each dance in its cultural context. Earlier in this chapter, you discovered that culture is a concept in human geography. It also has deep connections to the fields of cultural anthropology, ethnology, and ethnomusicology. Cultural anthropology is the study of humans and their culture, which includes social structures, languages, laws, religion, arts, and technology. Ethnology is the study of the cultural life of a community. An ethnologist lives in a community for several years to record the everyday life of the people and their culture. Ethnomusicology is the study of a people's music in relation to its culture or society. Ethnomusicologists may extend their study to dances performed to the music of the culture.
Countries all over the world have traditional dances, but they are actually evolving products of history, migration, wars, and political and societal changes of the people who perform them. Today, in one country you can encounter many cultural dances, including the following:
- Dances of aboriginals or first people.
- Dances of early settlers who migrated to the area and brought their culture to their new home. In various historical eras, the dances may have colonial or postcolonial versions.
- Blended dances created after wars changed a people and their culture. These dances are not created overnight. In an invaded country, the original people and the new arrivals may or may not embrace each other's cultures or dances. A cultural clash may occur, and the two groups may resist each other's influence. Blending outside influences into existing traditions takes place over time.
- Newer variations of traditional dances that evolve from generation to generation. These dances absorb and blend personal, group, and societal trends that can change a dance and its performance.
- Dances of tribes, first people, and ethnic groups who strive to keep their ancestral traditions alive in contemporary society. People preserve these dances to share their heritage with the young people of their community.
All cultural dances presented in the overview of dance types connect to the three common elements of a culture (see Discovering Cultural Dance).
If you add all these elements together, you get two deep understandings:
- Culture is about participating as a community; it can be related to ritual, spiritual, and life events and celebrations.
- Culture can be defined as a way of life that is learned, shared with future generations, and changes with time.
Participating, viewing, and learning about cultural dance and the roles it plays in societies leads to awareness and appreciation of other people and their cultural values.
Experiencing a cultural dance means taking a look at the movement from the perspectives of both the cultural dancer and the requirements of the dance. The ideas you have learned about other dance forms so far or will encounter in this book may not apply to cultural dances. So, discard your preconception of cultural dances, and involve yourself in perceiving and experiencing the movement. Then you will be poised to find the meaning or essence of the dance and gain some insights about the dancers who perform it. Experiencing cultural dance requires you to observe through a different kind of dance lens; you must see as an ethnologist would, paying attention to the dance in the context of its home culture.
Explore More
Take a virtual dance tour! On the web resource, you will visit a variety of countries across the globe. Each country provides an overview of its geography, history, and some of its most important dances. Key search terms in some of the dance genres provide ways to view and learn a dance or movement sequence. The dance tour provides an overview from which you can explore more through researching the countries and their wealth of dances.
Mexico
Mexico has a wealth of natural and cultural resources, with diverse landscapes from mountains to jungles, and historic traditions reaching back more than 3,000 years. Mexican dance captures the rhythm, emotion, and movement of a vibrant society with a heritage rich in tradition.
America
The United States is a country of vast natural and cultural resources and is populated by people from a vast variety of cultural heritage. Since prehistoric times, Native Americans have danced to express their traditions and cultural values. Contemporary urban dance forms began to express social changes in the United States during the latter 20th century.
Europe
Europe is a huge continent with many nationalities and their dances. Chapter 7 (Folk Dance) contains a variety of folk dances from countries throughout Europe, Russia, and other countries.
Africa
Africa is the second largest continent in the world with 54 countries. African people and cultures represent a diversity of economic and social structures with various beliefs, religions, and arts. For centuries African cultural dance has captured the spirit of life events, community and spiritual beliefs, and identities of tribes and clans of various regions.
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© Anke Van Wyk | Dreamstime.com
In Africa, dance is an integral part of ceremonies, festivals, and rites. African dances are done in many countries throughout the world.
India
India is the seventh largest country in the world. For nearly 3,000 years, dance art has existed in India and is a significant aspect in Indian culture. Classical Indian dance includes a wide range of forms and styles that reflect various geographic centers, history, and traditions.
Japan
Japan is a group of islands off the east coast of Asia. According to legend, Japan was founded in the 7th century BCE. Japanese cultural dances relate to religions and social eras in Japanese history. Japanese cultural dance forms and styles span historical court dances, religious dances, and traditional folk dances. In Japan, dance remains an integral part of historical theatrical entertainment.
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Japanese dances are passed from generation to generation.
Exploring these countries is just the starting place for learning about cultural dance. You may want to continue your virtual travels to other countries. These countries may connect to your family heritage, a place where a friend came from, or a country you hope to visit in the future. Whatever the reason, you can go there today and share what you learned with the class.
Activity 8.2 Explore
Learn a Cultural Dance
In a small group, find a dance from the country you visited on the web in the exploration activity Dance Around the World. The cultural dance you select could be
- a traditional dance,
- a folk dance,
- a social dance,
- a dance that provides entertainment for visitors, or
- a dance that is considered an art form or part of another art such as drama or theater.
Find two videos of the dance. After watching the videos, learn several movements, poses, a movement sequence, or the entire dance. Through your reading and research about this dance can you discover
- who dances,
- when and where they dance, and
- why they dance.
Identify a list of unique characteristics of the dance (review dance designs in chapter 5). Then, further explore the background and history of the dance to answer this question: How does the dance relate to or represent the people, their culture, and society?
Spotlight
Dance Diplomacy
In early 2010 modern and contemporary dance makers from the groups Urban Bush Women, ODC, and Evidence, a dance company, took part in the first U.S. pilot program to tour internationally as the gateway of cultural exchange among nations. The purpose of this "dance diplomacy" was to create a model cultural exchange initiative. The international tour, supported by the U.S. Department of State, reached global audiences of more than 15,000 in 16 cities of 9 countries in Southeast Asia, South America, and Africa. The second season in 2012 reached global audiences of 25,000 in 24 cities in 13 countries in Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia.
U.S. embassies and the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs partner with dance companies, leading cultural and community-based organizations, and educational institutions to host unique residencies that create opportunities for engagement and exchange. One of these cultural exchanges is DanceMotionUSA, which sends American dance companies overseas to connect with audiences through workshops, lecture demonstrations, and public performances.
Learn more about Discovering Dance.
Discovering Dance as Entertainment
As you read the introduction to this chapter, you may have recognized some of the forms of dance as entertainment that you knew or have even taken part in. Some of these forms are live performances, and others are performed for recorded media, yet others focus on commercial dance.
As you read the introduction to this chapter, you may have recognized some of the forms of dance as entertainment that you knew or have even taken part in. Some of these forms are live performances, and others are performed for recorded media, yet others focus on commercial dance.Your first activity is an exploration of a form of commercial dance.
Activity 13.1 Explore
Dance in Commercials
Many television commercials use dance to sell products or services. To begin this exploration, spend some time surfing television channels. Select two of your favorite commercials that include dance. Write a one-page paper about one of the commercials. Describe the dancers, the setting, the dance, and why they are dancing. What message do you think is being communicated through the dance? Are the music and dialogue effective parts of the commercial? What product is being featured in the commercial? Do you think the dancing makes connections to the product to sell it effectively? What appeals to you (or doesn't appeal to you) about the dance and the commercial? Write a paragraph to critique the commercial. Search for this commercial on the Internet. In your paper, include a photo and a link for viewing the commercial online.
As a class, share your commercial review papers in the classroom or on the school or class's webpage. If several people selected the same commercial, post them together. Then select two other commercials posted that you did not view but capture your interest. In a class discussion, determine the top three dance commercials, and provide a rationale for these choices using the same criteria you used for your commercial review. On a sheet of paper or the board, post these "awards" with that group of commercial reviews.
Did You Know?
Cruise Ship Performers
The top cruise lines vie for passengers by offering an array of dance, musical theater, and media entertainment options. From shortened versions of Broadway shows to aqua theaters where an underwater civilization comes to life, each cruise line has multiple entertainment options for travelers. Behind the scenes, the life for dancers and other entertainers revolves around rehearsing and performing the shows. Dancers should have training in a wide variety of dance genres and styles. With two performances or more per day, or twelve performances or more per week, production show dancers have a busy schedule. A production show dancer may have additional roles on nonproduction show evenings and other occasions such as greet passengers or lead and escort tours of the bridge and backstage areas. On cruise ships, which can be like a small city on the sea, show dancers must be ready for living in close quarters and get used to dancing on a stage that moves with the rocking motion of the ship. In their spare time, dancers have staff access on deck and to facilities such as the pool and the gym. If you love to travel, this is a job in which you can dance your way to new destinations.
Exploring Dance as Entertainment
Dance entertainment is a vast topic and an important component of dance. As a viewer of dance entertainment, you see the collaboration between dance artists, directors, and media or live production staff. These collaborators create ways to use dance choreography to entertain audiences or sell products or services in various settings. To prepare for dancing in commercial or entertainment settings, you have to be versatile as a dancer. You must study social dance, folk dance, cultural dance, street dance, ballet, modern dance, jazz, and tap dance. When you explore the section on dance unions in chapter 15 and on the web resource, you will see job listings that outline the dance genres a dancer needs to have for these jobs. A job can be for a one-performance event, or it might last for years, such as a musical theater performance on Broadway or a yearlong touring show. Commercial dancers who go from job to job are called dance gypsies, because their work is constantly changing from one show to another.
History of Dance as Entertainment
Professional dancers have worked as entertainers since prehistory. In ancient Egypt, the first recorded professional dancers, along with acrobats and musicians, entertained royalty. In ancient Greece dance was part of theater. From medieval times through the renaissance, dance was entertainment and amusement for nobles and peasants alike.
During modern history as dance moved onstage, dance as entertainment was part of other art forms or as interludes between dramas and operas. In the 19th century, dance continued to gain stature through entertainment such as minstrel shows, circuses, spectacles, fairs, variety shows, and vaudeville performances. Dance performances took place outdoors, in music and variety halls, theaters, and arenas. When the transcontinental railway system linked the nation from coast to coast, dance as entertainment exploded. Entire troupes or stock companies or self-contained companies who performed all types of entertainment forms, traveled the country by train; they stopped in cities and small towns to entertain people for the night. These companies were made up of versatile triple threat performers - those who did all the acting, dancing, and singing roles required in an evening's entertainment.
In the 20th century, the love of dance as entertainment grew in new directions. Broadway revues evolved into musical theater productions. With the invention of motion pictures and then television, dance moved into entertainment mass media.
For Broadway shows, dance artists and choreographers from ballet and modern dance companies created dances in early-20th-century follies (elaborate shows with music, songs, and dances), revues, and then musicals. As musical theater dance developed, it continued to absorb the styles of dance genres such as tap dance, ballet, modern dance, and jazz dance. Each musical theater production had its unique choreography using blended styles. Broadway shows tour throughout the world, bringing classical and contemporary musical theater productions to millions of people.
Dance movies have been popular since the early days of film. Producing these movies took hundreds of dancers, such as in the work of Busby Berkeley in the 1920s as a Broadway dance director and in 1930s movies where he directed musical numbers which led to his fame. Dance movies became an important area of commercial dance. Dancers and choreographers have entertained and educated audiences in historical dramas, animated movies, movie musicals, and science fiction movies alike. Animated movies in which characters danced were the invention of Walt Disney and his creative staff. Characters such as Snow White and the dancing dwarfs, princesses, and all kinds of creatures perform animated dances. In the 1950s, Gene Kelly bridged the gap between animation and live characters when he danced with an animated mouse in the film Anchors Away (1945).
With the advent of television, dance moved into variety shows, such as the Ed Sullivan Show. They showcased a wide variety of dance artists and choreographers and made them household names across America. As television programming expanded, so did the opportunities for dance shows. The popular Dance in America series brought ballet and modern dance companies to homes across America. Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) continues to provide diverse programming of dance as art, entertainment, and education.
Over the last decade, reality dance shows such as So You Think You Can Dance and Dancing With the Stars have expanded dance audiences and their appreciation of dance. Televised dance or drill team competitions and other associated dance competitions present another aspect of dance as entertainment. Television programming now includes an array of dance entertainment, including sitcoms and documentary series on dancers, their personal lives, musical theater, and dance genres from around the world.
After Disneyland opened in the 1950s, amusement and theme parks became another mass entertainment medium. Dance became an important feature in theme parks across the nation and the world. Dancing characters from the movies reside in different areas of these parks. In each park, one or more companies of dancers perform short entertainment shows throughout the day, every day. Dancers perform blended historical, cultural, or social dance styles to entertain park visitors. The Disney concept of performers - being in character and onstage while walking in the park or dancing - spurred an entire entertainment industry. Other live entertainment settings, including cruise ships, casinos, and resorts, provide multiple dancing stage shows as entertainment for guests.
When Internet technology expanded, another entertainment site emerged that would support dance films, recorded dance performance, and ways to interact in real time with dancers and choreographers across the globe. In the 20th century the term dance for the camera was coined to describe dance that was filmed as art, education, or entertainment. Productions of dance for the camera include documentaries of dancers and choreographers, historical and educational movies, concert and cultural dance companies, and performances of choreographed artistic dance films. These dance films are broadcast on television, shown in schools, or shown as fine art films. On the Internet, anyone can post a personal dance video to be viewed by the class, the school, and often the entire world. Dance for the camera has expanded into a whole new dimension that requires understanding dance as well as the art of filming it. To create dance for the camera, you need to grasp the artistic and production values, choices, and processes that are part of creating a filmed work.
Explore More
You can see from this brief overview that there is much to explore in dance as entertainment and its commercial sector. The Explore More sections on the web resource will explore three dance entertainment genres: dance or drill teams, dance in musical theater, and dance for the camera.
Dance or Drill Teams
Dance or drill teams range from students in middle school, high school, and college to professionals who perform at local sporting events to televised professional sports. Halftime shows for many sports feature dance or drill teams. Dance or drill teams perform for school games and community functions, and they take part in dance and drill team competitions. Their routines showcase their ensemble technique, spirit, and enthusiasm for the crowds. Training for dance and drill team requires athleticism and artistry. Dance and drill teams began as a Texas phenomenon that has spread across the United States and around the world. Visit the chapter 13 on the web resource to explore more about dance and drill teams.
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A dance team moves together to create a powerful effect.
Courtesy of Jennifer Dawson, Terri Ware, and Silver Star Dancers
Activity 13.2 Discover
Learn a Drill or Dance Team Combination
For this activity, your teacher or a classmate teaches one or more basic drill or dance combinations to the class. After everyone has learned and practiced the routine to music, take a few minutes to reflect on the experience. In your journal, write about what you enjoyed in the routine, what was challenging, and which type of routine you preferred and why. Share it with another student or in a group discussion.
Dance in Musical Theater
Musical theater dance spans school musicals, professional productions on the Broadway stage, and touring companies that travel to cities across the world. Becoming a musical theater dancer takes versatile dance training and other performing arts skills such as acting, music, and voice. The challenge in every musical theater production is to blend dancing, acting, and singing to portray your role. Visit the web resource to explore more about musical theater dance.
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Musical theater productions feature a blend of singing, dancing, and acting.
Jim West
Activity 13.3 Explore
Dance in Musical Theater
Choose a musical from the list provided by your teacher. Form a small group with other students who chose the same musical theater production. Together, search the Internet to find a video of a major dance sequence or dance combination from that musical. Your teacher may provide you with a list of dances from which to choose. View the dance number, then answer these questions:
- Identify each main character, and write a sentence or two about each person to describe their personality.
- Where does the dance take place?
- What inspires the characters to do this dance?
Describe the dance, the music, and whether it includes a song that is part of the musical number.
Collaborate as a group to develop, write, and present a 1- or 2-minute oral summary or a media presentation to the class to cover this information:
- Provide the story line (plot) of the musical.
- Identify the choreographer and give a very brief summary (two or three sentences) of the individual's contributions to the field.
- Indicate the main characters by writing a two- to three-sentence biography about each person.
- Describe the dance, the music, and the song in the musical number that you viewed.
Post a one-page summary of your group's information in the classroom or on the class web page. Add a picture that captures the meaning of the musical, or take a photo of your group in a memorable pose from the dance you researched. On your media presentation and one-page summary, cite the sources for your research.
Dance for the Camera
Dance in film, television, music videos, and other media forms provides entertainment for audiences. It also provides choreographers and dancers more media choices for presenting dance as an art form. Dance for the camera is term that covers entertainment, artistic, and multimedia forms of presenting dance. Filming dance has been instrumental in documenting its artists and works for the public to enjoy. Further, dance media has expanded dancers' views about how to complement or enhance a live performance. The final Explore More section investigates the types of media used in dance for the camera.
Learn more about Discovering Dance.
Discovering College and Career Preparation
Moving in new ways, remembering movement sequences, and executing them in time to music within changing formations and pathways is challenging.
Moving in new ways, remembering movement sequences, and executing them in time to music within changing formations and pathways is challenging. Dancing is a complicated process that requires mental and physical coordination, memorization, problem solving, refining, and performing. Like sports and many other fine arts, dancing demands that you juggle many factors to perform at your best. College and careers demand the same.
The processes of dancing, dance making, and dance appreciation fuel the discipline of dance. Across the arts the processes of creating, performing, responding, and interconnecting support other studies. Learning the movement languages of dance genres helps you not only in dance-related studies and careers but also in other arts-related disciplines and in life.
Activity 15.1 Research
College and Career Options
Write a list of two or three potential careers in dance, fine arts, or another discipline that you are interested in learning more about. Do an Internet search about each career, and note the following factors:
- Educational requirements
- Skills and abilities needed for this career
- Working conditions (for example, hours)
- Pay range and other benefits
- Personal benefits and values someone in this career would receive
After you have collected the answers to these questions for each career path, write a short descriptive paragraph about each career, and share it with the class.
In another document, write what appeals to you about this career. Also add what you think are your challenges in considering this career. Decide whether this career is a future possibility for further consideration or it is not a direction you wish to pursue.
Did You Know?
Dance Employment
The U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics posts the Occupational Outlook Handbook on its website (www.bls.gov). This handbook includes employment information about dancers and choreographers as part of the country's work force. These government data provide information about work environment, pay scale, and job outlook for the future as well as other information. In 2010 about 25,600 dancers and choreographers held jobs. Approximately 20 percent of dancers in performing arts companies and about 78 percent of choreographers work in a variety of schools and other places (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2012).
Employment of dancers is expected to increase at about 11 percent with a projected employment of 13,700 more people by 2020. This percentage is in the average range of all occupations. Employment of choreographers is projected to increase 24 percent with a projected employment of 16,400 by 2020. This is faster than the average for all occupations. The growing interest in dance as entertainment attracts people to enroll in dance classes. In turn, this growth in enrollment creates employment opportunities in television, movies, and other leisure settings.
Exploring Dance and Associated Careers
Imagine you are looking for a job, and you see an advertisement that reads, "Employer looking for creative, innovative, adaptive thinkers. If you are qualified, please apply." As a dancer, you can meet these and other requirements for work in the 21st century. Dancing, dance making, and thinking like a dancer train you in the skills you need for your education and career.
The time since the start of the new millennium has seen tremendous changes at a rapid pace. This quick pace is in part because of advances in technology that affect everyday lives and careers. Near the end of the 20th century, some of the world's greatest thinkers began to investigate what types of knowledge and skills 21st-century workers and citizens would need to be successful. As a result, they identified various types of learning and literacy such as financial, environmental, artistic, and others.
Across these categories, a series of broad topics reach from school to work, into the community, and the world:
- Communication
- Creativity
- Collaboration
- Critical thinking
The skills that support these four C's for 21st-century learning are presented in table 15.1.
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Scanning the entries in table 15.1 can be overwhelming. Pause a moment, and reflect on the assignments you did in the chapters of this book and your other class work. Then, recall the dance learning processes contained in the items listed. The point to remember is that the four topics contain major knowledge and skills that span dance and other disciplines of study as preparation for college and careers. In table 15.1 you will see that some of the skills identified cross one or more of the four categories.
Acquiring these attributes is a long-term process; it can take many years to complete. Reading these ideas gives you an understanding of how learning spans from the classroom through experiences in your community and life. These four C's are deeply embedded in dancing, dance making, and dance appreciation processes:
- Communicating through dance: In dance you communicate when you create, perform, or reflect on a dance work. In making a dance, the choreographer, dancers, and associated artistic staff need common arts vocabularies to effectively communicate, analytical skills to solve problems, and negotiation and teamwork skills along with an array of management skills to create and produce a dance performance.
- Creativity: When choreographers and dancers analyze and solve movement problems in a dance work, they use the creative process. The choreographer approaches an idea or theme for a dance and creatively seeks a choreographic design through which to communicate a cohesive artistic statement. The audience viewing a dance reflects and analyzes what they perceive as the meaning and the design of the dance work. Their feedback may be communicated to the dancers, choreographer, artistic staff, or the community. These responses can influence the direction of a choreographer's future works, artistic directions, or a company's finances.
- Collaboration: Collaboration is an integral part of dancing and creating artistic works with other artists. Improvisational structures and dance compositional forms require that dancers work as a highly functioning team to perform a dance. In dance making, choreographers strategically plan movement for dancers to communicate ideas. Associated artists join forces to present a unified message in an artistic work.
- Critical thinking: Through all dance processes, dancers and choreographers, associated artists, and audience members use critical thinking. Dancers have to make logical and quick decisions during a dance for safety or for artistic expression. Choreographers use analytical skills along with management and technology skills to make dances that satisfy an artistic mission and to meet business goals. Dance audiences determine whether attending a dance company performance will be a continuing venture.
Dance provides a wide range of professional career options in communities, cities, and around the world. Dance careers span areas of the arts and entertainment, media, fitness, recreation, business, education, technical fields, and other areas.
As you learned in chapter13, dance as entertainment is big business. Dance in education spans from preschool through university and graduate education, and into communities and people's lives across the nation as participation or through education, performance, and advocacy. Dance studios, gyms, recreation centers, and performing arts organizations have expanded their community contributions as more and more people realize the importance and contribution of dance and the other arts to their lives. Dance professional organizations provide continuing professional development for students, educators, artists, scientists, writers, and others interested or involved in dance as profession or associated professions. Dance professionals work as performers and in many roles that support dance performance. Often professionals with a dance background work in associated fields such as dance therapy, kinesiology, production, media, and arts administration. Their presence as dance professionals in these fields brings deeper perspectives to new audiences of how dance can play a role in other disciplines.
Transferring Dance Skills to Life Skills
Life and career skills - the skills you need in order to succeed in work and life - require four characteristics: flexibility, adaptability, taking initiative, and being self-directed. In school, work, and community you should demonstrate cross-cultural and leadership skills. In your school and career, you should be responsible, productive, and accountable for your work. In the dance class you cultivate dancer attributes that then apply in your dancing and personal development.
Your experience in dance develops a number of traits that apply to other life endeavors. Personal development through dance for future career directions beyond dance include these:
- Physical, intellectual, and kinesthetic awareness
- Fine-tuned observation skills
- Enhanced focus and concentration
- Extended self-discipline, responsibility, and empathy
- Perception and sensory awareness of personal movement and others' movement choices and styles
- Versatility, ability to adapt, and flexibility in various situations
- Expanded interpersonal (mental and physical attributes you share with others) and intrapersonal (the internal conversation you have with yourself) communication skills
Observation and Awareness
Observation skills are critical to learning dance and are essential in any career. Observational skills take time to develop. Concentrated observation helps you acquire visual, auditory, and sensory information. As a dancer you filter through this information and determine how it applies to get the desired result.
Dancers learn to coordinate movements of body parts in a step or movement. This complicated coordination of brain and body improves as you move through more complex exercises, combinations, dance sequences, and dances. When you memorize movement you initiate an internal cueing system that engages a complicated synergy of intellectual and body actions with the elements of space, time, energy, or effort. So, what you do in dance contributes directly to your personal development in dance and also to future directions beyond dance. When you take dance classes or perform, you develop these skills:
- Using interpersonal spatial awareness
- Having a physical and intellectual presence in space
- Creating movement as a result of being internally sensitive and intuitive
- Acquiring performance awareness and a professional attitude
- Reading movement and then reproducing the movement (translate it, transpose it) presented by the teacher or choreographer
- Memorizing movements and dances to create a memory bank
- Understanding movement systems, genres, and styles
Creativity and Communication
When composing a dance, you use the creative process to formulate a design and structure for dance movements. You use the creative process in dance when you experiment with the following:
- Determining movement patterns as part of choreography and choreographic designs in space and time using a range of energy or efforts
- Manipulating the order of movements to make a logical statement using seamless transitions
- Using choreographic structures and strategies for augmentations
- Connecting musical knowledge to movement sequences
- Relating visual design elements of patterns, relationships to dance, and identifying styles to apply or augment
- Applying movement, choreographic, and aesthetic principles to dancing and dance composition
- Employing stagecraft and media knowledge in producing the work
Producing a dance is a complicated process that combines design elements, problem-solving skills, and communication with artists and technicians. When you practice these processes, you enhance your abilities as a dancer and create conduits that relate to many associated dance careers.
Media and Artistic Literacy
When you view dances, you develop a visual and mental store of classical to contemporary dance works. Dancers and choreographers have used this system of "recording" to create a memory bank since before the common use of notation systems and electronic recording systems. These mental memories of movements combine with kinesthetic responses you receive from watching dancers perform. Your response to a dance in conversation, discussion, or written forms is also kinesthetic in nature. Translating movement experiences into descriptive and meaningful commentary supports and expands your dance and artistic literacy and your media literacy.
Artistic literacy is the knowledge and understanding required to participate authentically in the arts. Arts include dance, music, dramatic art, visual art, and media. The arts contain content, principles, and applications that are common to them as art forms. In artistic literacy, the processes of creating, performing (in dance, music, or theater), presenting (in the visual arts) or producing (in media arts), responding, and connecting reach across all of the arts. Learning these processes in various art forms contributes to your media literacy and to your experience (State Education Agency Directors of Arts Education 2013).
Media literacy is the ability to access, analyze, and evaluate media content. Viewing and responding to a dance performance includes both deconstruction and construction.
After you reflect upon the dance as a complete work, the next step is to take the dance apart. Deconstruction is analyzing or taking a dance performance apart. It is how you look at the components of the choreography, the dancers' performance, and the production elements of the work. Construction activities use the dance analysis (or deconstruction) as a basis for participating in a discussion about the dance, writing a dance report about a work you have viewed, or summarizing your findings and filing them in your memory bank along with your visual memories of the dance work.
When you attend a dance concert or view a video of a dance performance, you may have been assigned to write a dance report. A couple of strategies are useful for preparing you to write your response. Before you view the performance, read over the items or questions you have to cover in the report. When you view the dance, watch, hear, and feel the performance. Some people suggest reading the program notes about the dance after the concert. Your viewing experience of the dance provides the information from which to write your report.
In past centuries, literacy meant reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills. These skills remain foundational today; they have become the basis of 21st-century skills such as media literacy. When you gain an understanding of a media presentation and its components that create meaning, then you are engaging in media literacy.
Dance literacy includes knowledge of movement, music, theater, and arts terminology. Dance is multilingual through its various genres, their specific terminology, and the application of movement, choreographic, and aesthetic principles. Other facets of dance literacy include knowledge of rhythmic and musical languages, stagecraft and theater vocabularies, arts education, arts media processes, and production terminology. Dance literacy skills contribute to overall media literacy.
Activity 15.2 Explore
Analyzing a Dance Performance
When you view a dance performance, you use your skills in media literacy to analyze it. After you reflect on the dance as a complete work, the next step is to take the dance apart. It is how you look at the components of the choreography, the dancers' performance, and the production elements of the work. When you deconstruct a dance work, think about these questions:
- What do you think is the choreographer's message, idea, and theme?
- Were you able to discern the choreographic structure of the dance?
- How did the music interact or support the dance?
- Did the dancers' technique meet the requirements of the choreography?
- Did the dancers express the style of the choreography?
- Did the production elements of lighting and costuming support the presentation of the dance work and contribute to it as a work of art?
- Was the dance aesthetically moving to you?
- Would you consider this dance a work of art?
Multiple Intelligences
The theory of multiple intelligences (MI) and 21st-century educational theories have provided evidence that students acquire many ways of being smart through dance. These intelligences translate to other courses of study and into the workplace.
The theory of multiple intelligences was developed by an educational psychologist named Harold Gardner. Beginning in the 1980s, Gardner's original system of seven intelligences has expanded to nine; it continues to expand. The following list summarizes Gardner's nine intelligences. Your multiple intelligence quotient is really a combination of all of your intelligences. You may rate very high in certain intelligences and not as high in others. Gardner claims that you can strengthen and expand the intelligences that you ignore or challenge yourself (Gardner1983).
- Verbal-linguistic intelligence: Verbal skills and sensitivity to meaning and rhythm of words.
- Mathematical or logical intelligence: Conceptual and abstract thinking skills in both numerical and logic patterns.
- Musical intelligence: Understanding and ability to use rhythm, pitch, and texture.
- Visual-spatial intelligence: Thinking and visualizing using images in spatial and abstract configurations.
- Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence: Moving and handling objects with grace, skill, and artfulness.
- Interpersonal intelligence: Communicating appropriately with other people in relation to their moods, ideas, and directions.
- Intrapersonal intelligence: Self-awareness of feelings, values, and thinking processes.
- Naturalist intelligence: Recognizing and categorizing plants, animals, and other things in nature.
- Existential intelligence: Deep thinking about philosophical and essential questions about life and its meaning.
Adapted from http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/mi/index.html
Activity 15.3 Discover
Your Multiple Intelligences (MI)
Do you recognize some of your intelligences? The web resource includes a link to an MI test to take for fun and to find out the various ways you are smart. Then you can compare your MI with those of others in the class. Knowing your MI can give you insights into some possible career directions. Your MI can change over time as you develop other intelligences. Documenting your MI can be an interesting way to self-check and track your changes in the future.
Learn more about Discovering Dance.
Exploring Dance Composition
Dance composition is learning how to make a dance. During the dance composition process you explore a movement idea by creating dance movement or selecting steps in some dance genres, then you manipulate these elements and materials of dance into movement modules of various lengths to compose a dance.
Dance composition is learning how to make a dance. During the dance composition process you explore a movement idea by creating dance movement or selecting steps in some dance genres, then you manipulate these elements and materials of dance into movement modules of various lengths to compose a dance. To understand how to use your tools for composition, you need to be familiar with choreographic design principles, structures, and devices. For a dance work to have solidarity and value, the choreography should connect to aesthetic principles that underlie art works.
In the Movement Invention activity, you invented two contrasting dance phrases (a short series of movements that connect into a pattern) or longer sequences. In the next activities you will create a movement sequence (a group of movements that form a unit), and then you will develop a movement statement (similar to a sentence). All of these movement segments contain a beginning, a middle, and an end. Coupling movement sentences together builds a dance segment similar to a paragraph in writing. Regardless of how long or short it is, a dance composition focuses on the beginning, the middle, the end, and on the movement between these points. Creating and composing the movement is one part of the choreographic process. Checking to ensure choreographic principles underlie the dance modules requires you to analyze your composition during the process and when it is complete. Table 4.1 lists the basic choreographic principles that underlie a dance composition.
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The following sections lead you through the choreographic process as you compose your movement segments.
Creative and Choreographic Processes
Different dance scholars present similar creative and choreographic processes. Some scholars write about the creative process, while others write about the steps to create a dance. Both processes underlie making a dance.
The creative process in dance making requires a period of preparation in which you collect ideas. This preparation time should include time for developing choreographic ideas; in other words, you need to figure out the central idea and how to approach it. Next you have to experiment with movement for a deeper insight into the movement ideas. In later sessions, you evaluate the movement and determine what works and what does not work as part of the dance work. The final step in the process is elaborating on the movement ideas you have selected.
Another dance composition process uses similar steps. First, observe the world around you, and explore ways of imitating or symbolizing what you have observed using bodies and movement. Working by yourself, do movement explorations and collect external experiences by observing the work of others. During the composition process, group reflections and discussions provide feedback that should be sorted out as to how well it applies or transfers to the dance in progress. In creating a dance, use your synthesized information from exploration and reflection. After the performance, a final group reflection helps to analyze the process and the product. Then extend the group reflection to a journal of what you learned and what ideas have been sparked for future choreography.
You should know the reason behind your writing activities in relation to your movement activities. Choreographic journaling has been part of dance composition courses since at least the last quarter of the 20th century, and this type of journaling continues today.
In academic dance courses, you usually keep choreographic journals to collect written records of your observations, movement experiments, research, and findings as you go through the dance composition process. Often you write about personal goals in the class and challenges you have faced during a course. You also write about how as an individual or in a group you responded to the process or what you learned from it to help you frame or propose your next project.
With the creative and choreographic processes in mind, the next step is to survey your ingredients for making a dance. In chapter 3 you learned about the elements of dance that play a central role in creating a dance. However, other ingredients also contribute to dance composition.
Activity 4.2 Explore
Create a Movement Sequence
Using the locomotor movements from chapter 3, select two, three, or four even and uneven locomotor movements, and join them together into an 8-count movement sequence. Often movement sequences are parts of a longer movement statement. If a sequence appears to be complete, it may be referred to as a movement statement or sentence. This activity has two parts.
Part 1
Decide the order of the locomotor movements. Practice your movement sequence until you have it memorized. To add variety to the movement sequence, here are some ideas to try:
First, do the movement sequence as you created it. Repeat the sequence once at slow speed, then repeat it again at a faster speed. Changing the speed or timing on movements changes your energy or qualities of movement. Memorize these movement sequences in the order you chose.
Think about what energy, effort, or qualities you used in these repetitions and how they changed. Review the list of effort actions or movement qualities from chapter 3, and identify which ones you used. If you find a couple of undistinguishable efforts or movement qualities, try the movement again to clarify them.
Part 2
Now select two, three, or four different even and uneven locomotor movements or basic steps presented in chapter 3; these movements should be ones you are less comfortable with. Use these movements to create another movement sequence.Practice and memorize your new sequence. Again, perform the sequence four times using two or three different speeds. Then, do the first movement sequence followed by the second, or longer, sequence.
Reflect on these ideas about both movement phrases or sequences:
- The locomotor movements or steps you chose
- The differences in speeds
- How the energy, effort, effort actions, or movement qualities changed
How does the first movement sequence compare or contrast to your second movement sequence? Identify at least two similarities and two differences in movement, energy, effort, effort actions, and movement qualities when you changed the speed of your movement.
Summarize your reflections either on paper or in your mind. In a small group, take turns doing your two movement sequences following one another. Then present to the group your summary of the similarities and differences between the two movement sequences you created. Ask the group, "What did you see as similarities and differences after viewing my two movement sequences?"
Listening to the feedback of your peers may give you new ideas to try or to incorporate into your sequences. Observing others perform their movement inventions may give you more ideas to store away in your movement memory bank for future use.
Sources of Movement
Creating new dance movements comes from exploring and experimenting with movement possibilities. Exploring new ways to move may take you out of your comfort zone. As you mentally and physically record these experiments, keep in mind that they may or may not turn out to be movements you want to add to your movement memory bank. But don't let that stop you from experimenting. Although it does involve taking movement risks, your experiments are being done in the safe setting of a dance class.
Improvisation is creating movement or movement invention for making dances. Using different stimuli creates new movement. Internal stimuli could include exploring your spontaneous individual movements based on touch, auditory, or visual sources. External stimuli could come from music, a work of art, nature, or an everyday task.
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During improvisation, the teacher can provide valuable feedback or suggestions about the movement or poses being created.
When a group is looking for solutions to a problem, they often brainstorm, and together they consider a number of options. Improvisation is similar to brainstorming; in fact, it has been called body storming. You can practice body storming by yourself or with a group. Doing movement improvisation with a group can be a lot of fun, and it allows you to gather or share new movement ideas. While improvising, use the somatic movement awareness principles and Laban effort actions. Experiment with how these important actions connect to space, time, energy, and weight to create new dynamics in your dancing.
Sources for improvisation can be visual, words, poetry, tasks, senses, or someone else's movement or dances. These movement experiments or improvisations have several forms:
- Free-form improvisations are self-expression based on the premise of you moving and responding to music. This type of improvisational study can be a movement response to auditory, visual, textural, or a combination of stimuli.
- Semi-structured movement experiments solve a problem, answer the question, or have different points that the teacher or you determine as the criteria for composing the work.
- A structured improvisation is an experimental movement sequence that is loosely structured and practiced. Quite often a group work, the choreographer identifies movement sections or specific movement pictures that the group has developed during practice. These sections or pictures give the work an overall form and an artistic focus.
When you view or discuss an improvisation, you need a framework to help keep the discussion focused on the composition instead of on personal likes and dislikes. One system for discussing dance is known as RADS,which stands for using the following components: relationships, actions, dynamics, and use of space. Try it after a movement invention session or apply it as a self-analysis to your own movement improvisation.
Improvisation is a creative way to extend your personal movement repertory and styles. Practicing the many forms of improvisation helps you tap into your own creative force, enhancing your experience as a dancer and as a dance maker.
Learn more about Discovering Dance.
Discovering Cultural Dance
Dance has been called the universal language; you live in a world that dances.
Dance has been called the universal language; you live in a world that dances. Take a look at the map of the world and its continents (figure 8.1). Geographers have identified distinct natural and physical features (ecosystems) in regions throughout the world. Studying a geographic region that supports human culture is also known as cultural geography. Within these geographic regions are specific cultural regions of the world.
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Regions of the world.
In each of these cultural regions are countries, people of various racial and ethnic groups, and their cultural values. Their arts include dances from aboriginals or first people (the original people who inhabited the land since millennia ago) who migrated to these regions because of war, famine, economic hardship, or other reasons. The common elements of culture include the following (Blankenship in press):
- It is a way of life, learned and shared with future generations.
- It changes with time and is symbolic.
- The economy drives a culture.
Culture is a community or society's knowledge, beliefs, values, customs, and common heritage. If you were to look at the cultural geographic areas of the world, you would encounter commonalities and differences that make each country or region unique. People have many different views about defining and describing dance from geographic or cultural regions of the world. Some people consider dances from across these regions to be examples of world dance, while others might call these dances cultural dance. Regardless of where you live in the world, you participate in dances that reflect a lot or a little of the culture.
Activity 8.1 Explore
Dance Around the World
Using a map of the world, survey the geographic region that your teacher assigns to your group. Search a region's or country's website, then describe the physical features of each region or country. Next, research and describe the people of that area and their culture, and find examples of a traditional dance they perform. If you can locate a video performance of the dance, write a brief descriptive summary about it. In your summary include the following information:
- Background or history of the dance
- Who dances
- When and where the dance is performed
Describe the music that accompanies the dance and the dancers' clothing. Add a photo of the dancers performing, and list references or web links to your online sources.
Did You Know?
People Like Me
People Like Me is the arts education program of the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festivaland World Arts West. For 15 seasons this organization has presented an extraordinary festival featuring dancers and dance companies that represent cultures around the world. On their website, the festival provides their Online Encyclopedia of World Dance, which includes performers, information about selected dances and dance styles, musical instruments, and history of the dance style. Attending the festival to view cultural dance performances by artists from across the world would be an awesome experience. Visiting the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival and World Arts West website provides easy access to a virtual tour of dance around the world.
Exploring Cultural Dance
Specific countries have dances that identify with a region and its culture immediately. For example, African dances or Indian dances have styles that make them readily identifiable, as do other cultural dances from across the globe.
When you study dances as part of a culture, you are using different lenses to see each dance in its cultural context. Earlier in this chapter, you discovered that culture is a concept in human geography. It also has deep connections to the fields of cultural anthropology, ethnology, and ethnomusicology. Cultural anthropology is the study of humans and their culture, which includes social structures, languages, laws, religion, arts, and technology. Ethnology is the study of the cultural life of a community. An ethnologist lives in a community for several years to record the everyday life of the people and their culture. Ethnomusicology is the study of a people's music in relation to its culture or society. Ethnomusicologists may extend their study to dances performed to the music of the culture.
Countries all over the world have traditional dances, but they are actually evolving products of history, migration, wars, and political and societal changes of the people who perform them. Today, in one country you can encounter many cultural dances, including the following:
- Dances of aboriginals or first people.
- Dances of early settlers who migrated to the area and brought their culture to their new home. In various historical eras, the dances may have colonial or postcolonial versions.
- Blended dances created after wars changed a people and their culture. These dances are not created overnight. In an invaded country, the original people and the new arrivals may or may not embrace each other's cultures or dances. A cultural clash may occur, and the two groups may resist each other's influence. Blending outside influences into existing traditions takes place over time.
- Newer variations of traditional dances that evolve from generation to generation. These dances absorb and blend personal, group, and societal trends that can change a dance and its performance.
- Dances of tribes, first people, and ethnic groups who strive to keep their ancestral traditions alive in contemporary society. People preserve these dances to share their heritage with the young people of their community.
All cultural dances presented in the overview of dance types connect to the three common elements of a culture (see Discovering Cultural Dance).
If you add all these elements together, you get two deep understandings:
- Culture is about participating as a community; it can be related to ritual, spiritual, and life events and celebrations.
- Culture can be defined as a way of life that is learned, shared with future generations, and changes with time.
Participating, viewing, and learning about cultural dance and the roles it plays in societies leads to awareness and appreciation of other people and their cultural values.
Experiencing a cultural dance means taking a look at the movement from the perspectives of both the cultural dancer and the requirements of the dance. The ideas you have learned about other dance forms so far or will encounter in this book may not apply to cultural dances. So, discard your preconception of cultural dances, and involve yourself in perceiving and experiencing the movement. Then you will be poised to find the meaning or essence of the dance and gain some insights about the dancers who perform it. Experiencing cultural dance requires you to observe through a different kind of dance lens; you must see as an ethnologist would, paying attention to the dance in the context of its home culture.
Explore More
Take a virtual dance tour! On the web resource, you will visit a variety of countries across the globe. Each country provides an overview of its geography, history, and some of its most important dances. Key search terms in some of the dance genres provide ways to view and learn a dance or movement sequence. The dance tour provides an overview from which you can explore more through researching the countries and their wealth of dances.
Mexico
Mexico has a wealth of natural and cultural resources, with diverse landscapes from mountains to jungles, and historic traditions reaching back more than 3,000 years. Mexican dance captures the rhythm, emotion, and movement of a vibrant society with a heritage rich in tradition.
America
The United States is a country of vast natural and cultural resources and is populated by people from a vast variety of cultural heritage. Since prehistoric times, Native Americans have danced to express their traditions and cultural values. Contemporary urban dance forms began to express social changes in the United States during the latter 20th century.
Europe
Europe is a huge continent with many nationalities and their dances. Chapter 7 (Folk Dance) contains a variety of folk dances from countries throughout Europe, Russia, and other countries.
Africa
Africa is the second largest continent in the world with 54 countries. African people and cultures represent a diversity of economic and social structures with various beliefs, religions, and arts. For centuries African cultural dance has captured the spirit of life events, community and spiritual beliefs, and identities of tribes and clans of various regions.
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© Anke Van Wyk | Dreamstime.com
In Africa, dance is an integral part of ceremonies, festivals, and rites. African dances are done in many countries throughout the world.
India
India is the seventh largest country in the world. For nearly 3,000 years, dance art has existed in India and is a significant aspect in Indian culture. Classical Indian dance includes a wide range of forms and styles that reflect various geographic centers, history, and traditions.
Japan
Japan is a group of islands off the east coast of Asia. According to legend, Japan was founded in the 7th century BCE. Japanese cultural dances relate to religions and social eras in Japanese history. Japanese cultural dance forms and styles span historical court dances, religious dances, and traditional folk dances. In Japan, dance remains an integral part of historical theatrical entertainment.
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Japanese dances are passed from generation to generation.
Exploring these countries is just the starting place for learning about cultural dance. You may want to continue your virtual travels to other countries. These countries may connect to your family heritage, a place where a friend came from, or a country you hope to visit in the future. Whatever the reason, you can go there today and share what you learned with the class.
Activity 8.2 Explore
Learn a Cultural Dance
In a small group, find a dance from the country you visited on the web in the exploration activity Dance Around the World. The cultural dance you select could be
- a traditional dance,
- a folk dance,
- a social dance,
- a dance that provides entertainment for visitors, or
- a dance that is considered an art form or part of another art such as drama or theater.
Find two videos of the dance. After watching the videos, learn several movements, poses, a movement sequence, or the entire dance. Through your reading and research about this dance can you discover
- who dances,
- when and where they dance, and
- why they dance.
Identify a list of unique characteristics of the dance (review dance designs in chapter 5). Then, further explore the background and history of the dance to answer this question: How does the dance relate to or represent the people, their culture, and society?
Spotlight
Dance Diplomacy
In early 2010 modern and contemporary dance makers from the groups Urban Bush Women, ODC, and Evidence, a dance company, took part in the first U.S. pilot program to tour internationally as the gateway of cultural exchange among nations. The purpose of this "dance diplomacy" was to create a model cultural exchange initiative. The international tour, supported by the U.S. Department of State, reached global audiences of more than 15,000 in 16 cities of 9 countries in Southeast Asia, South America, and Africa. The second season in 2012 reached global audiences of 25,000 in 24 cities in 13 countries in Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia.
U.S. embassies and the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs partner with dance companies, leading cultural and community-based organizations, and educational institutions to host unique residencies that create opportunities for engagement and exchange. One of these cultural exchanges is DanceMotionUSA, which sends American dance companies overseas to connect with audiences through workshops, lecture demonstrations, and public performances.
Learn more about Discovering Dance.
Discovering Dance as Entertainment
As you read the introduction to this chapter, you may have recognized some of the forms of dance as entertainment that you knew or have even taken part in. Some of these forms are live performances, and others are performed for recorded media, yet others focus on commercial dance.
As you read the introduction to this chapter, you may have recognized some of the forms of dance as entertainment that you knew or have even taken part in. Some of these forms are live performances, and others are performed for recorded media, yet others focus on commercial dance.Your first activity is an exploration of a form of commercial dance.
Activity 13.1 Explore
Dance in Commercials
Many television commercials use dance to sell products or services. To begin this exploration, spend some time surfing television channels. Select two of your favorite commercials that include dance. Write a one-page paper about one of the commercials. Describe the dancers, the setting, the dance, and why they are dancing. What message do you think is being communicated through the dance? Are the music and dialogue effective parts of the commercial? What product is being featured in the commercial? Do you think the dancing makes connections to the product to sell it effectively? What appeals to you (or doesn't appeal to you) about the dance and the commercial? Write a paragraph to critique the commercial. Search for this commercial on the Internet. In your paper, include a photo and a link for viewing the commercial online.
As a class, share your commercial review papers in the classroom or on the school or class's webpage. If several people selected the same commercial, post them together. Then select two other commercials posted that you did not view but capture your interest. In a class discussion, determine the top three dance commercials, and provide a rationale for these choices using the same criteria you used for your commercial review. On a sheet of paper or the board, post these "awards" with that group of commercial reviews.
Did You Know?
Cruise Ship Performers
The top cruise lines vie for passengers by offering an array of dance, musical theater, and media entertainment options. From shortened versions of Broadway shows to aqua theaters where an underwater civilization comes to life, each cruise line has multiple entertainment options for travelers. Behind the scenes, the life for dancers and other entertainers revolves around rehearsing and performing the shows. Dancers should have training in a wide variety of dance genres and styles. With two performances or more per day, or twelve performances or more per week, production show dancers have a busy schedule. A production show dancer may have additional roles on nonproduction show evenings and other occasions such as greet passengers or lead and escort tours of the bridge and backstage areas. On cruise ships, which can be like a small city on the sea, show dancers must be ready for living in close quarters and get used to dancing on a stage that moves with the rocking motion of the ship. In their spare time, dancers have staff access on deck and to facilities such as the pool and the gym. If you love to travel, this is a job in which you can dance your way to new destinations.
Exploring Dance as Entertainment
Dance entertainment is a vast topic and an important component of dance. As a viewer of dance entertainment, you see the collaboration between dance artists, directors, and media or live production staff. These collaborators create ways to use dance choreography to entertain audiences or sell products or services in various settings. To prepare for dancing in commercial or entertainment settings, you have to be versatile as a dancer. You must study social dance, folk dance, cultural dance, street dance, ballet, modern dance, jazz, and tap dance. When you explore the section on dance unions in chapter 15 and on the web resource, you will see job listings that outline the dance genres a dancer needs to have for these jobs. A job can be for a one-performance event, or it might last for years, such as a musical theater performance on Broadway or a yearlong touring show. Commercial dancers who go from job to job are called dance gypsies, because their work is constantly changing from one show to another.
History of Dance as Entertainment
Professional dancers have worked as entertainers since prehistory. In ancient Egypt, the first recorded professional dancers, along with acrobats and musicians, entertained royalty. In ancient Greece dance was part of theater. From medieval times through the renaissance, dance was entertainment and amusement for nobles and peasants alike.
During modern history as dance moved onstage, dance as entertainment was part of other art forms or as interludes between dramas and operas. In the 19th century, dance continued to gain stature through entertainment such as minstrel shows, circuses, spectacles, fairs, variety shows, and vaudeville performances. Dance performances took place outdoors, in music and variety halls, theaters, and arenas. When the transcontinental railway system linked the nation from coast to coast, dance as entertainment exploded. Entire troupes or stock companies or self-contained companies who performed all types of entertainment forms, traveled the country by train; they stopped in cities and small towns to entertain people for the night. These companies were made up of versatile triple threat performers - those who did all the acting, dancing, and singing roles required in an evening's entertainment.
In the 20th century, the love of dance as entertainment grew in new directions. Broadway revues evolved into musical theater productions. With the invention of motion pictures and then television, dance moved into entertainment mass media.
For Broadway shows, dance artists and choreographers from ballet and modern dance companies created dances in early-20th-century follies (elaborate shows with music, songs, and dances), revues, and then musicals. As musical theater dance developed, it continued to absorb the styles of dance genres such as tap dance, ballet, modern dance, and jazz dance. Each musical theater production had its unique choreography using blended styles. Broadway shows tour throughout the world, bringing classical and contemporary musical theater productions to millions of people.
Dance movies have been popular since the early days of film. Producing these movies took hundreds of dancers, such as in the work of Busby Berkeley in the 1920s as a Broadway dance director and in 1930s movies where he directed musical numbers which led to his fame. Dance movies became an important area of commercial dance. Dancers and choreographers have entertained and educated audiences in historical dramas, animated movies, movie musicals, and science fiction movies alike. Animated movies in which characters danced were the invention of Walt Disney and his creative staff. Characters such as Snow White and the dancing dwarfs, princesses, and all kinds of creatures perform animated dances. In the 1950s, Gene Kelly bridged the gap between animation and live characters when he danced with an animated mouse in the film Anchors Away (1945).
With the advent of television, dance moved into variety shows, such as the Ed Sullivan Show. They showcased a wide variety of dance artists and choreographers and made them household names across America. As television programming expanded, so did the opportunities for dance shows. The popular Dance in America series brought ballet and modern dance companies to homes across America. Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) continues to provide diverse programming of dance as art, entertainment, and education.
Over the last decade, reality dance shows such as So You Think You Can Dance and Dancing With the Stars have expanded dance audiences and their appreciation of dance. Televised dance or drill team competitions and other associated dance competitions present another aspect of dance as entertainment. Television programming now includes an array of dance entertainment, including sitcoms and documentary series on dancers, their personal lives, musical theater, and dance genres from around the world.
After Disneyland opened in the 1950s, amusement and theme parks became another mass entertainment medium. Dance became an important feature in theme parks across the nation and the world. Dancing characters from the movies reside in different areas of these parks. In each park, one or more companies of dancers perform short entertainment shows throughout the day, every day. Dancers perform blended historical, cultural, or social dance styles to entertain park visitors. The Disney concept of performers - being in character and onstage while walking in the park or dancing - spurred an entire entertainment industry. Other live entertainment settings, including cruise ships, casinos, and resorts, provide multiple dancing stage shows as entertainment for guests.
When Internet technology expanded, another entertainment site emerged that would support dance films, recorded dance performance, and ways to interact in real time with dancers and choreographers across the globe. In the 20th century the term dance for the camera was coined to describe dance that was filmed as art, education, or entertainment. Productions of dance for the camera include documentaries of dancers and choreographers, historical and educational movies, concert and cultural dance companies, and performances of choreographed artistic dance films. These dance films are broadcast on television, shown in schools, or shown as fine art films. On the Internet, anyone can post a personal dance video to be viewed by the class, the school, and often the entire world. Dance for the camera has expanded into a whole new dimension that requires understanding dance as well as the art of filming it. To create dance for the camera, you need to grasp the artistic and production values, choices, and processes that are part of creating a filmed work.
Explore More
You can see from this brief overview that there is much to explore in dance as entertainment and its commercial sector. The Explore More sections on the web resource will explore three dance entertainment genres: dance or drill teams, dance in musical theater, and dance for the camera.
Dance or Drill Teams
Dance or drill teams range from students in middle school, high school, and college to professionals who perform at local sporting events to televised professional sports. Halftime shows for many sports feature dance or drill teams. Dance or drill teams perform for school games and community functions, and they take part in dance and drill team competitions. Their routines showcase their ensemble technique, spirit, and enthusiasm for the crowds. Training for dance and drill team requires athleticism and artistry. Dance and drill teams began as a Texas phenomenon that has spread across the United States and around the world. Visit the chapter 13 on the web resource to explore more about dance and drill teams.
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A dance team moves together to create a powerful effect.
Courtesy of Jennifer Dawson, Terri Ware, and Silver Star Dancers
Activity 13.2 Discover
Learn a Drill or Dance Team Combination
For this activity, your teacher or a classmate teaches one or more basic drill or dance combinations to the class. After everyone has learned and practiced the routine to music, take a few minutes to reflect on the experience. In your journal, write about what you enjoyed in the routine, what was challenging, and which type of routine you preferred and why. Share it with another student or in a group discussion.
Dance in Musical Theater
Musical theater dance spans school musicals, professional productions on the Broadway stage, and touring companies that travel to cities across the world. Becoming a musical theater dancer takes versatile dance training and other performing arts skills such as acting, music, and voice. The challenge in every musical theater production is to blend dancing, acting, and singing to portray your role. Visit the web resource to explore more about musical theater dance.
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Musical theater productions feature a blend of singing, dancing, and acting.
Jim West
Activity 13.3 Explore
Dance in Musical Theater
Choose a musical from the list provided by your teacher. Form a small group with other students who chose the same musical theater production. Together, search the Internet to find a video of a major dance sequence or dance combination from that musical. Your teacher may provide you with a list of dances from which to choose. View the dance number, then answer these questions:
- Identify each main character, and write a sentence or two about each person to describe their personality.
- Where does the dance take place?
- What inspires the characters to do this dance?
Describe the dance, the music, and whether it includes a song that is part of the musical number.
Collaborate as a group to develop, write, and present a 1- or 2-minute oral summary or a media presentation to the class to cover this information:
- Provide the story line (plot) of the musical.
- Identify the choreographer and give a very brief summary (two or three sentences) of the individual's contributions to the field.
- Indicate the main characters by writing a two- to three-sentence biography about each person.
- Describe the dance, the music, and the song in the musical number that you viewed.
Post a one-page summary of your group's information in the classroom or on the class web page. Add a picture that captures the meaning of the musical, or take a photo of your group in a memorable pose from the dance you researched. On your media presentation and one-page summary, cite the sources for your research.
Dance for the Camera
Dance in film, television, music videos, and other media forms provides entertainment for audiences. It also provides choreographers and dancers more media choices for presenting dance as an art form. Dance for the camera is term that covers entertainment, artistic, and multimedia forms of presenting dance. Filming dance has been instrumental in documenting its artists and works for the public to enjoy. Further, dance media has expanded dancers' views about how to complement or enhance a live performance. The final Explore More section investigates the types of media used in dance for the camera.
Learn more about Discovering Dance.
Discovering College and Career Preparation
Moving in new ways, remembering movement sequences, and executing them in time to music within changing formations and pathways is challenging.
Moving in new ways, remembering movement sequences, and executing them in time to music within changing formations and pathways is challenging. Dancing is a complicated process that requires mental and physical coordination, memorization, problem solving, refining, and performing. Like sports and many other fine arts, dancing demands that you juggle many factors to perform at your best. College and careers demand the same.
The processes of dancing, dance making, and dance appreciation fuel the discipline of dance. Across the arts the processes of creating, performing, responding, and interconnecting support other studies. Learning the movement languages of dance genres helps you not only in dance-related studies and careers but also in other arts-related disciplines and in life.
Activity 15.1 Research
College and Career Options
Write a list of two or three potential careers in dance, fine arts, or another discipline that you are interested in learning more about. Do an Internet search about each career, and note the following factors:
- Educational requirements
- Skills and abilities needed for this career
- Working conditions (for example, hours)
- Pay range and other benefits
- Personal benefits and values someone in this career would receive
After you have collected the answers to these questions for each career path, write a short descriptive paragraph about each career, and share it with the class.
In another document, write what appeals to you about this career. Also add what you think are your challenges in considering this career. Decide whether this career is a future possibility for further consideration or it is not a direction you wish to pursue.
Did You Know?
Dance Employment
The U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics posts the Occupational Outlook Handbook on its website (www.bls.gov). This handbook includes employment information about dancers and choreographers as part of the country's work force. These government data provide information about work environment, pay scale, and job outlook for the future as well as other information. In 2010 about 25,600 dancers and choreographers held jobs. Approximately 20 percent of dancers in performing arts companies and about 78 percent of choreographers work in a variety of schools and other places (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2012).
Employment of dancers is expected to increase at about 11 percent with a projected employment of 13,700 more people by 2020. This percentage is in the average range of all occupations. Employment of choreographers is projected to increase 24 percent with a projected employment of 16,400 by 2020. This is faster than the average for all occupations. The growing interest in dance as entertainment attracts people to enroll in dance classes. In turn, this growth in enrollment creates employment opportunities in television, movies, and other leisure settings.
Exploring Dance and Associated Careers
Imagine you are looking for a job, and you see an advertisement that reads, "Employer looking for creative, innovative, adaptive thinkers. If you are qualified, please apply." As a dancer, you can meet these and other requirements for work in the 21st century. Dancing, dance making, and thinking like a dancer train you in the skills you need for your education and career.
The time since the start of the new millennium has seen tremendous changes at a rapid pace. This quick pace is in part because of advances in technology that affect everyday lives and careers. Near the end of the 20th century, some of the world's greatest thinkers began to investigate what types of knowledge and skills 21st-century workers and citizens would need to be successful. As a result, they identified various types of learning and literacy such as financial, environmental, artistic, and others.
Across these categories, a series of broad topics reach from school to work, into the community, and the world:
- Communication
- Creativity
- Collaboration
- Critical thinking
The skills that support these four C's for 21st-century learning are presented in table 15.1.
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Scanning the entries in table 15.1 can be overwhelming. Pause a moment, and reflect on the assignments you did in the chapters of this book and your other class work. Then, recall the dance learning processes contained in the items listed. The point to remember is that the four topics contain major knowledge and skills that span dance and other disciplines of study as preparation for college and careers. In table 15.1 you will see that some of the skills identified cross one or more of the four categories.
Acquiring these attributes is a long-term process; it can take many years to complete. Reading these ideas gives you an understanding of how learning spans from the classroom through experiences in your community and life. These four C's are deeply embedded in dancing, dance making, and dance appreciation processes:
- Communicating through dance: In dance you communicate when you create, perform, or reflect on a dance work. In making a dance, the choreographer, dancers, and associated artistic staff need common arts vocabularies to effectively communicate, analytical skills to solve problems, and negotiation and teamwork skills along with an array of management skills to create and produce a dance performance.
- Creativity: When choreographers and dancers analyze and solve movement problems in a dance work, they use the creative process. The choreographer approaches an idea or theme for a dance and creatively seeks a choreographic design through which to communicate a cohesive artistic statement. The audience viewing a dance reflects and analyzes what they perceive as the meaning and the design of the dance work. Their feedback may be communicated to the dancers, choreographer, artistic staff, or the community. These responses can influence the direction of a choreographer's future works, artistic directions, or a company's finances.
- Collaboration: Collaboration is an integral part of dancing and creating artistic works with other artists. Improvisational structures and dance compositional forms require that dancers work as a highly functioning team to perform a dance. In dance making, choreographers strategically plan movement for dancers to communicate ideas. Associated artists join forces to present a unified message in an artistic work.
- Critical thinking: Through all dance processes, dancers and choreographers, associated artists, and audience members use critical thinking. Dancers have to make logical and quick decisions during a dance for safety or for artistic expression. Choreographers use analytical skills along with management and technology skills to make dances that satisfy an artistic mission and to meet business goals. Dance audiences determine whether attending a dance company performance will be a continuing venture.
Dance provides a wide range of professional career options in communities, cities, and around the world. Dance careers span areas of the arts and entertainment, media, fitness, recreation, business, education, technical fields, and other areas.
As you learned in chapter13, dance as entertainment is big business. Dance in education spans from preschool through university and graduate education, and into communities and people's lives across the nation as participation or through education, performance, and advocacy. Dance studios, gyms, recreation centers, and performing arts organizations have expanded their community contributions as more and more people realize the importance and contribution of dance and the other arts to their lives. Dance professional organizations provide continuing professional development for students, educators, artists, scientists, writers, and others interested or involved in dance as profession or associated professions. Dance professionals work as performers and in many roles that support dance performance. Often professionals with a dance background work in associated fields such as dance therapy, kinesiology, production, media, and arts administration. Their presence as dance professionals in these fields brings deeper perspectives to new audiences of how dance can play a role in other disciplines.
Transferring Dance Skills to Life Skills
Life and career skills - the skills you need in order to succeed in work and life - require four characteristics: flexibility, adaptability, taking initiative, and being self-directed. In school, work, and community you should demonstrate cross-cultural and leadership skills. In your school and career, you should be responsible, productive, and accountable for your work. In the dance class you cultivate dancer attributes that then apply in your dancing and personal development.
Your experience in dance develops a number of traits that apply to other life endeavors. Personal development through dance for future career directions beyond dance include these:
- Physical, intellectual, and kinesthetic awareness
- Fine-tuned observation skills
- Enhanced focus and concentration
- Extended self-discipline, responsibility, and empathy
- Perception and sensory awareness of personal movement and others' movement choices and styles
- Versatility, ability to adapt, and flexibility in various situations
- Expanded interpersonal (mental and physical attributes you share with others) and intrapersonal (the internal conversation you have with yourself) communication skills
Observation and Awareness
Observation skills are critical to learning dance and are essential in any career. Observational skills take time to develop. Concentrated observation helps you acquire visual, auditory, and sensory information. As a dancer you filter through this information and determine how it applies to get the desired result.
Dancers learn to coordinate movements of body parts in a step or movement. This complicated coordination of brain and body improves as you move through more complex exercises, combinations, dance sequences, and dances. When you memorize movement you initiate an internal cueing system that engages a complicated synergy of intellectual and body actions with the elements of space, time, energy, or effort. So, what you do in dance contributes directly to your personal development in dance and also to future directions beyond dance. When you take dance classes or perform, you develop these skills:
- Using interpersonal spatial awareness
- Having a physical and intellectual presence in space
- Creating movement as a result of being internally sensitive and intuitive
- Acquiring performance awareness and a professional attitude
- Reading movement and then reproducing the movement (translate it, transpose it) presented by the teacher or choreographer
- Memorizing movements and dances to create a memory bank
- Understanding movement systems, genres, and styles
Creativity and Communication
When composing a dance, you use the creative process to formulate a design and structure for dance movements. You use the creative process in dance when you experiment with the following:
- Determining movement patterns as part of choreography and choreographic designs in space and time using a range of energy or efforts
- Manipulating the order of movements to make a logical statement using seamless transitions
- Using choreographic structures and strategies for augmentations
- Connecting musical knowledge to movement sequences
- Relating visual design elements of patterns, relationships to dance, and identifying styles to apply or augment
- Applying movement, choreographic, and aesthetic principles to dancing and dance composition
- Employing stagecraft and media knowledge in producing the work
Producing a dance is a complicated process that combines design elements, problem-solving skills, and communication with artists and technicians. When you practice these processes, you enhance your abilities as a dancer and create conduits that relate to many associated dance careers.
Media and Artistic Literacy
When you view dances, you develop a visual and mental store of classical to contemporary dance works. Dancers and choreographers have used this system of "recording" to create a memory bank since before the common use of notation systems and electronic recording systems. These mental memories of movements combine with kinesthetic responses you receive from watching dancers perform. Your response to a dance in conversation, discussion, or written forms is also kinesthetic in nature. Translating movement experiences into descriptive and meaningful commentary supports and expands your dance and artistic literacy and your media literacy.
Artistic literacy is the knowledge and understanding required to participate authentically in the arts. Arts include dance, music, dramatic art, visual art, and media. The arts contain content, principles, and applications that are common to them as art forms. In artistic literacy, the processes of creating, performing (in dance, music, or theater), presenting (in the visual arts) or producing (in media arts), responding, and connecting reach across all of the arts. Learning these processes in various art forms contributes to your media literacy and to your experience (State Education Agency Directors of Arts Education 2013).
Media literacy is the ability to access, analyze, and evaluate media content. Viewing and responding to a dance performance includes both deconstruction and construction.
After you reflect upon the dance as a complete work, the next step is to take the dance apart. Deconstruction is analyzing or taking a dance performance apart. It is how you look at the components of the choreography, the dancers' performance, and the production elements of the work. Construction activities use the dance analysis (or deconstruction) as a basis for participating in a discussion about the dance, writing a dance report about a work you have viewed, or summarizing your findings and filing them in your memory bank along with your visual memories of the dance work.
When you attend a dance concert or view a video of a dance performance, you may have been assigned to write a dance report. A couple of strategies are useful for preparing you to write your response. Before you view the performance, read over the items or questions you have to cover in the report. When you view the dance, watch, hear, and feel the performance. Some people suggest reading the program notes about the dance after the concert. Your viewing experience of the dance provides the information from which to write your report.
In past centuries, literacy meant reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills. These skills remain foundational today; they have become the basis of 21st-century skills such as media literacy. When you gain an understanding of a media presentation and its components that create meaning, then you are engaging in media literacy.
Dance literacy includes knowledge of movement, music, theater, and arts terminology. Dance is multilingual through its various genres, their specific terminology, and the application of movement, choreographic, and aesthetic principles. Other facets of dance literacy include knowledge of rhythmic and musical languages, stagecraft and theater vocabularies, arts education, arts media processes, and production terminology. Dance literacy skills contribute to overall media literacy.
Activity 15.2 Explore
Analyzing a Dance Performance
When you view a dance performance, you use your skills in media literacy to analyze it. After you reflect on the dance as a complete work, the next step is to take the dance apart. It is how you look at the components of the choreography, the dancers' performance, and the production elements of the work. When you deconstruct a dance work, think about these questions:
- What do you think is the choreographer's message, idea, and theme?
- Were you able to discern the choreographic structure of the dance?
- How did the music interact or support the dance?
- Did the dancers' technique meet the requirements of the choreography?
- Did the dancers express the style of the choreography?
- Did the production elements of lighting and costuming support the presentation of the dance work and contribute to it as a work of art?
- Was the dance aesthetically moving to you?
- Would you consider this dance a work of art?
Multiple Intelligences
The theory of multiple intelligences (MI) and 21st-century educational theories have provided evidence that students acquire many ways of being smart through dance. These intelligences translate to other courses of study and into the workplace.
The theory of multiple intelligences was developed by an educational psychologist named Harold Gardner. Beginning in the 1980s, Gardner's original system of seven intelligences has expanded to nine; it continues to expand. The following list summarizes Gardner's nine intelligences. Your multiple intelligence quotient is really a combination of all of your intelligences. You may rate very high in certain intelligences and not as high in others. Gardner claims that you can strengthen and expand the intelligences that you ignore or challenge yourself (Gardner1983).
- Verbal-linguistic intelligence: Verbal skills and sensitivity to meaning and rhythm of words.
- Mathematical or logical intelligence: Conceptual and abstract thinking skills in both numerical and logic patterns.
- Musical intelligence: Understanding and ability to use rhythm, pitch, and texture.
- Visual-spatial intelligence: Thinking and visualizing using images in spatial and abstract configurations.
- Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence: Moving and handling objects with grace, skill, and artfulness.
- Interpersonal intelligence: Communicating appropriately with other people in relation to their moods, ideas, and directions.
- Intrapersonal intelligence: Self-awareness of feelings, values, and thinking processes.
- Naturalist intelligence: Recognizing and categorizing plants, animals, and other things in nature.
- Existential intelligence: Deep thinking about philosophical and essential questions about life and its meaning.
Adapted from http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/mi/index.html
Activity 15.3 Discover
Your Multiple Intelligences (MI)
Do you recognize some of your intelligences? The web resource includes a link to an MI test to take for fun and to find out the various ways you are smart. Then you can compare your MI with those of others in the class. Knowing your MI can give you insights into some possible career directions. Your MI can change over time as you develop other intelligences. Documenting your MI can be an interesting way to self-check and track your changes in the future.
Learn more about Discovering Dance.
Exploring Dance Composition
Dance composition is learning how to make a dance. During the dance composition process you explore a movement idea by creating dance movement or selecting steps in some dance genres, then you manipulate these elements and materials of dance into movement modules of various lengths to compose a dance.
Dance composition is learning how to make a dance. During the dance composition process you explore a movement idea by creating dance movement or selecting steps in some dance genres, then you manipulate these elements and materials of dance into movement modules of various lengths to compose a dance. To understand how to use your tools for composition, you need to be familiar with choreographic design principles, structures, and devices. For a dance work to have solidarity and value, the choreography should connect to aesthetic principles that underlie art works.
In the Movement Invention activity, you invented two contrasting dance phrases (a short series of movements that connect into a pattern) or longer sequences. In the next activities you will create a movement sequence (a group of movements that form a unit), and then you will develop a movement statement (similar to a sentence). All of these movement segments contain a beginning, a middle, and an end. Coupling movement sentences together builds a dance segment similar to a paragraph in writing. Regardless of how long or short it is, a dance composition focuses on the beginning, the middle, the end, and on the movement between these points. Creating and composing the movement is one part of the choreographic process. Checking to ensure choreographic principles underlie the dance modules requires you to analyze your composition during the process and when it is complete. Table 4.1 lists the basic choreographic principles that underlie a dance composition.
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The following sections lead you through the choreographic process as you compose your movement segments.
Creative and Choreographic Processes
Different dance scholars present similar creative and choreographic processes. Some scholars write about the creative process, while others write about the steps to create a dance. Both processes underlie making a dance.
The creative process in dance making requires a period of preparation in which you collect ideas. This preparation time should include time for developing choreographic ideas; in other words, you need to figure out the central idea and how to approach it. Next you have to experiment with movement for a deeper insight into the movement ideas. In later sessions, you evaluate the movement and determine what works and what does not work as part of the dance work. The final step in the process is elaborating on the movement ideas you have selected.
Another dance composition process uses similar steps. First, observe the world around you, and explore ways of imitating or symbolizing what you have observed using bodies and movement. Working by yourself, do movement explorations and collect external experiences by observing the work of others. During the composition process, group reflections and discussions provide feedback that should be sorted out as to how well it applies or transfers to the dance in progress. In creating a dance, use your synthesized information from exploration and reflection. After the performance, a final group reflection helps to analyze the process and the product. Then extend the group reflection to a journal of what you learned and what ideas have been sparked for future choreography.
You should know the reason behind your writing activities in relation to your movement activities. Choreographic journaling has been part of dance composition courses since at least the last quarter of the 20th century, and this type of journaling continues today.
In academic dance courses, you usually keep choreographic journals to collect written records of your observations, movement experiments, research, and findings as you go through the dance composition process. Often you write about personal goals in the class and challenges you have faced during a course. You also write about how as an individual or in a group you responded to the process or what you learned from it to help you frame or propose your next project.
With the creative and choreographic processes in mind, the next step is to survey your ingredients for making a dance. In chapter 3 you learned about the elements of dance that play a central role in creating a dance. However, other ingredients also contribute to dance composition.
Activity 4.2 Explore
Create a Movement Sequence
Using the locomotor movements from chapter 3, select two, three, or four even and uneven locomotor movements, and join them together into an 8-count movement sequence. Often movement sequences are parts of a longer movement statement. If a sequence appears to be complete, it may be referred to as a movement statement or sentence. This activity has two parts.
Part 1
Decide the order of the locomotor movements. Practice your movement sequence until you have it memorized. To add variety to the movement sequence, here are some ideas to try:
First, do the movement sequence as you created it. Repeat the sequence once at slow speed, then repeat it again at a faster speed. Changing the speed or timing on movements changes your energy or qualities of movement. Memorize these movement sequences in the order you chose.
Think about what energy, effort, or qualities you used in these repetitions and how they changed. Review the list of effort actions or movement qualities from chapter 3, and identify which ones you used. If you find a couple of undistinguishable efforts or movement qualities, try the movement again to clarify them.
Part 2
Now select two, three, or four different even and uneven locomotor movements or basic steps presented in chapter 3; these movements should be ones you are less comfortable with. Use these movements to create another movement sequence.Practice and memorize your new sequence. Again, perform the sequence four times using two or three different speeds. Then, do the first movement sequence followed by the second, or longer, sequence.
Reflect on these ideas about both movement phrases or sequences:
- The locomotor movements or steps you chose
- The differences in speeds
- How the energy, effort, effort actions, or movement qualities changed
How does the first movement sequence compare or contrast to your second movement sequence? Identify at least two similarities and two differences in movement, energy, effort, effort actions, and movement qualities when you changed the speed of your movement.
Summarize your reflections either on paper or in your mind. In a small group, take turns doing your two movement sequences following one another. Then present to the group your summary of the similarities and differences between the two movement sequences you created. Ask the group, "What did you see as similarities and differences after viewing my two movement sequences?"
Listening to the feedback of your peers may give you new ideas to try or to incorporate into your sequences. Observing others perform their movement inventions may give you more ideas to store away in your movement memory bank for future use.
Sources of Movement
Creating new dance movements comes from exploring and experimenting with movement possibilities. Exploring new ways to move may take you out of your comfort zone. As you mentally and physically record these experiments, keep in mind that they may or may not turn out to be movements you want to add to your movement memory bank. But don't let that stop you from experimenting. Although it does involve taking movement risks, your experiments are being done in the safe setting of a dance class.
Improvisation is creating movement or movement invention for making dances. Using different stimuli creates new movement. Internal stimuli could include exploring your spontaneous individual movements based on touch, auditory, or visual sources. External stimuli could come from music, a work of art, nature, or an everyday task.
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During improvisation, the teacher can provide valuable feedback or suggestions about the movement or poses being created.
When a group is looking for solutions to a problem, they often brainstorm, and together they consider a number of options. Improvisation is similar to brainstorming; in fact, it has been called body storming. You can practice body storming by yourself or with a group. Doing movement improvisation with a group can be a lot of fun, and it allows you to gather or share new movement ideas. While improvising, use the somatic movement awareness principles and Laban effort actions. Experiment with how these important actions connect to space, time, energy, and weight to create new dynamics in your dancing.
Sources for improvisation can be visual, words, poetry, tasks, senses, or someone else's movement or dances. These movement experiments or improvisations have several forms:
- Free-form improvisations are self-expression based on the premise of you moving and responding to music. This type of improvisational study can be a movement response to auditory, visual, textural, or a combination of stimuli.
- Semi-structured movement experiments solve a problem, answer the question, or have different points that the teacher or you determine as the criteria for composing the work.
- A structured improvisation is an experimental movement sequence that is loosely structured and practiced. Quite often a group work, the choreographer identifies movement sections or specific movement pictures that the group has developed during practice. These sections or pictures give the work an overall form and an artistic focus.
When you view or discuss an improvisation, you need a framework to help keep the discussion focused on the composition instead of on personal likes and dislikes. One system for discussing dance is known as RADS,which stands for using the following components: relationships, actions, dynamics, and use of space. Try it after a movement invention session or apply it as a self-analysis to your own movement improvisation.
Improvisation is a creative way to extend your personal movement repertory and styles. Practicing the many forms of improvisation helps you tap into your own creative force, enhancing your experience as a dancer and as a dance maker.
Learn more about Discovering Dance.
Discovering Cultural Dance
Dance has been called the universal language; you live in a world that dances.
Dance has been called the universal language; you live in a world that dances. Take a look at the map of the world and its continents (figure 8.1). Geographers have identified distinct natural and physical features (ecosystems) in regions throughout the world. Studying a geographic region that supports human culture is also known as cultural geography. Within these geographic regions are specific cultural regions of the world.
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Regions of the world.
In each of these cultural regions are countries, people of various racial and ethnic groups, and their cultural values. Their arts include dances from aboriginals or first people (the original people who inhabited the land since millennia ago) who migrated to these regions because of war, famine, economic hardship, or other reasons. The common elements of culture include the following (Blankenship in press):
- It is a way of life, learned and shared with future generations.
- It changes with time and is symbolic.
- The economy drives a culture.
Culture is a community or society's knowledge, beliefs, values, customs, and common heritage. If you were to look at the cultural geographic areas of the world, you would encounter commonalities and differences that make each country or region unique. People have many different views about defining and describing dance from geographic or cultural regions of the world. Some people consider dances from across these regions to be examples of world dance, while others might call these dances cultural dance. Regardless of where you live in the world, you participate in dances that reflect a lot or a little of the culture.
Activity 8.1 Explore
Dance Around the World
Using a map of the world, survey the geographic region that your teacher assigns to your group. Search a region's or country's website, then describe the physical features of each region or country. Next, research and describe the people of that area and their culture, and find examples of a traditional dance they perform. If you can locate a video performance of the dance, write a brief descriptive summary about it. In your summary include the following information:
- Background or history of the dance
- Who dances
- When and where the dance is performed
Describe the music that accompanies the dance and the dancers' clothing. Add a photo of the dancers performing, and list references or web links to your online sources.
Did You Know?
People Like Me
People Like Me is the arts education program of the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festivaland World Arts West. For 15 seasons this organization has presented an extraordinary festival featuring dancers and dance companies that represent cultures around the world. On their website, the festival provides their Online Encyclopedia of World Dance, which includes performers, information about selected dances and dance styles, musical instruments, and history of the dance style. Attending the festival to view cultural dance performances by artists from across the world would be an awesome experience. Visiting the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival and World Arts West website provides easy access to a virtual tour of dance around the world.
Exploring Cultural Dance
Specific countries have dances that identify with a region and its culture immediately. For example, African dances or Indian dances have styles that make them readily identifiable, as do other cultural dances from across the globe.
When you study dances as part of a culture, you are using different lenses to see each dance in its cultural context. Earlier in this chapter, you discovered that culture is a concept in human geography. It also has deep connections to the fields of cultural anthropology, ethnology, and ethnomusicology. Cultural anthropology is the study of humans and their culture, which includes social structures, languages, laws, religion, arts, and technology. Ethnology is the study of the cultural life of a community. An ethnologist lives in a community for several years to record the everyday life of the people and their culture. Ethnomusicology is the study of a people's music in relation to its culture or society. Ethnomusicologists may extend their study to dances performed to the music of the culture.
Countries all over the world have traditional dances, but they are actually evolving products of history, migration, wars, and political and societal changes of the people who perform them. Today, in one country you can encounter many cultural dances, including the following:
- Dances of aboriginals or first people.
- Dances of early settlers who migrated to the area and brought their culture to their new home. In various historical eras, the dances may have colonial or postcolonial versions.
- Blended dances created after wars changed a people and their culture. These dances are not created overnight. In an invaded country, the original people and the new arrivals may or may not embrace each other's cultures or dances. A cultural clash may occur, and the two groups may resist each other's influence. Blending outside influences into existing traditions takes place over time.
- Newer variations of traditional dances that evolve from generation to generation. These dances absorb and blend personal, group, and societal trends that can change a dance and its performance.
- Dances of tribes, first people, and ethnic groups who strive to keep their ancestral traditions alive in contemporary society. People preserve these dances to share their heritage with the young people of their community.
All cultural dances presented in the overview of dance types connect to the three common elements of a culture (see Discovering Cultural Dance).
If you add all these elements together, you get two deep understandings:
- Culture is about participating as a community; it can be related to ritual, spiritual, and life events and celebrations.
- Culture can be defined as a way of life that is learned, shared with future generations, and changes with time.
Participating, viewing, and learning about cultural dance and the roles it plays in societies leads to awareness and appreciation of other people and their cultural values.
Experiencing a cultural dance means taking a look at the movement from the perspectives of both the cultural dancer and the requirements of the dance. The ideas you have learned about other dance forms so far or will encounter in this book may not apply to cultural dances. So, discard your preconception of cultural dances, and involve yourself in perceiving and experiencing the movement. Then you will be poised to find the meaning or essence of the dance and gain some insights about the dancers who perform it. Experiencing cultural dance requires you to observe through a different kind of dance lens; you must see as an ethnologist would, paying attention to the dance in the context of its home culture.
Explore More
Take a virtual dance tour! On the web resource, you will visit a variety of countries across the globe. Each country provides an overview of its geography, history, and some of its most important dances. Key search terms in some of the dance genres provide ways to view and learn a dance or movement sequence. The dance tour provides an overview from which you can explore more through researching the countries and their wealth of dances.
Mexico
Mexico has a wealth of natural and cultural resources, with diverse landscapes from mountains to jungles, and historic traditions reaching back more than 3,000 years. Mexican dance captures the rhythm, emotion, and movement of a vibrant society with a heritage rich in tradition.
America
The United States is a country of vast natural and cultural resources and is populated by people from a vast variety of cultural heritage. Since prehistoric times, Native Americans have danced to express their traditions and cultural values. Contemporary urban dance forms began to express social changes in the United States during the latter 20th century.
Europe
Europe is a huge continent with many nationalities and their dances. Chapter 7 (Folk Dance) contains a variety of folk dances from countries throughout Europe, Russia, and other countries.
Africa
Africa is the second largest continent in the world with 54 countries. African people and cultures represent a diversity of economic and social structures with various beliefs, religions, and arts. For centuries African cultural dance has captured the spirit of life events, community and spiritual beliefs, and identities of tribes and clans of various regions.
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© Anke Van Wyk | Dreamstime.com
In Africa, dance is an integral part of ceremonies, festivals, and rites. African dances are done in many countries throughout the world.
India
India is the seventh largest country in the world. For nearly 3,000 years, dance art has existed in India and is a significant aspect in Indian culture. Classical Indian dance includes a wide range of forms and styles that reflect various geographic centers, history, and traditions.
Japan
Japan is a group of islands off the east coast of Asia. According to legend, Japan was founded in the 7th century BCE. Japanese cultural dances relate to religions and social eras in Japanese history. Japanese cultural dance forms and styles span historical court dances, religious dances, and traditional folk dances. In Japan, dance remains an integral part of historical theatrical entertainment.
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VWPics via AP Images
Japanese dances are passed from generation to generation.
Exploring these countries is just the starting place for learning about cultural dance. You may want to continue your virtual travels to other countries. These countries may connect to your family heritage, a place where a friend came from, or a country you hope to visit in the future. Whatever the reason, you can go there today and share what you learned with the class.
Activity 8.2 Explore
Learn a Cultural Dance
In a small group, find a dance from the country you visited on the web in the exploration activity Dance Around the World. The cultural dance you select could be
- a traditional dance,
- a folk dance,
- a social dance,
- a dance that provides entertainment for visitors, or
- a dance that is considered an art form or part of another art such as drama or theater.
Find two videos of the dance. After watching the videos, learn several movements, poses, a movement sequence, or the entire dance. Through your reading and research about this dance can you discover
- who dances,
- when and where they dance, and
- why they dance.
Identify a list of unique characteristics of the dance (review dance designs in chapter 5). Then, further explore the background and history of the dance to answer this question: How does the dance relate to or represent the people, their culture, and society?
Spotlight
Dance Diplomacy
In early 2010 modern and contemporary dance makers from the groups Urban Bush Women, ODC, and Evidence, a dance company, took part in the first U.S. pilot program to tour internationally as the gateway of cultural exchange among nations. The purpose of this "dance diplomacy" was to create a model cultural exchange initiative. The international tour, supported by the U.S. Department of State, reached global audiences of more than 15,000 in 16 cities of 9 countries in Southeast Asia, South America, and Africa. The second season in 2012 reached global audiences of 25,000 in 24 cities in 13 countries in Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia.
U.S. embassies and the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs partner with dance companies, leading cultural and community-based organizations, and educational institutions to host unique residencies that create opportunities for engagement and exchange. One of these cultural exchanges is DanceMotionUSA, which sends American dance companies overseas to connect with audiences through workshops, lecture demonstrations, and public performances.
Learn more about Discovering Dance.
Discovering Dance as Entertainment
As you read the introduction to this chapter, you may have recognized some of the forms of dance as entertainment that you knew or have even taken part in. Some of these forms are live performances, and others are performed for recorded media, yet others focus on commercial dance.
As you read the introduction to this chapter, you may have recognized some of the forms of dance as entertainment that you knew or have even taken part in. Some of these forms are live performances, and others are performed for recorded media, yet others focus on commercial dance.Your first activity is an exploration of a form of commercial dance.
Activity 13.1 Explore
Dance in Commercials
Many television commercials use dance to sell products or services. To begin this exploration, spend some time surfing television channels. Select two of your favorite commercials that include dance. Write a one-page paper about one of the commercials. Describe the dancers, the setting, the dance, and why they are dancing. What message do you think is being communicated through the dance? Are the music and dialogue effective parts of the commercial? What product is being featured in the commercial? Do you think the dancing makes connections to the product to sell it effectively? What appeals to you (or doesn't appeal to you) about the dance and the commercial? Write a paragraph to critique the commercial. Search for this commercial on the Internet. In your paper, include a photo and a link for viewing the commercial online.
As a class, share your commercial review papers in the classroom or on the school or class's webpage. If several people selected the same commercial, post them together. Then select two other commercials posted that you did not view but capture your interest. In a class discussion, determine the top three dance commercials, and provide a rationale for these choices using the same criteria you used for your commercial review. On a sheet of paper or the board, post these "awards" with that group of commercial reviews.
Did You Know?
Cruise Ship Performers
The top cruise lines vie for passengers by offering an array of dance, musical theater, and media entertainment options. From shortened versions of Broadway shows to aqua theaters where an underwater civilization comes to life, each cruise line has multiple entertainment options for travelers. Behind the scenes, the life for dancers and other entertainers revolves around rehearsing and performing the shows. Dancers should have training in a wide variety of dance genres and styles. With two performances or more per day, or twelve performances or more per week, production show dancers have a busy schedule. A production show dancer may have additional roles on nonproduction show evenings and other occasions such as greet passengers or lead and escort tours of the bridge and backstage areas. On cruise ships, which can be like a small city on the sea, show dancers must be ready for living in close quarters and get used to dancing on a stage that moves with the rocking motion of the ship. In their spare time, dancers have staff access on deck and to facilities such as the pool and the gym. If you love to travel, this is a job in which you can dance your way to new destinations.
Exploring Dance as Entertainment
Dance entertainment is a vast topic and an important component of dance. As a viewer of dance entertainment, you see the collaboration between dance artists, directors, and media or live production staff. These collaborators create ways to use dance choreography to entertain audiences or sell products or services in various settings. To prepare for dancing in commercial or entertainment settings, you have to be versatile as a dancer. You must study social dance, folk dance, cultural dance, street dance, ballet, modern dance, jazz, and tap dance. When you explore the section on dance unions in chapter 15 and on the web resource, you will see job listings that outline the dance genres a dancer needs to have for these jobs. A job can be for a one-performance event, or it might last for years, such as a musical theater performance on Broadway or a yearlong touring show. Commercial dancers who go from job to job are called dance gypsies, because their work is constantly changing from one show to another.
History of Dance as Entertainment
Professional dancers have worked as entertainers since prehistory. In ancient Egypt, the first recorded professional dancers, along with acrobats and musicians, entertained royalty. In ancient Greece dance was part of theater. From medieval times through the renaissance, dance was entertainment and amusement for nobles and peasants alike.
During modern history as dance moved onstage, dance as entertainment was part of other art forms or as interludes between dramas and operas. In the 19th century, dance continued to gain stature through entertainment such as minstrel shows, circuses, spectacles, fairs, variety shows, and vaudeville performances. Dance performances took place outdoors, in music and variety halls, theaters, and arenas. When the transcontinental railway system linked the nation from coast to coast, dance as entertainment exploded. Entire troupes or stock companies or self-contained companies who performed all types of entertainment forms, traveled the country by train; they stopped in cities and small towns to entertain people for the night. These companies were made up of versatile triple threat performers - those who did all the acting, dancing, and singing roles required in an evening's entertainment.
In the 20th century, the love of dance as entertainment grew in new directions. Broadway revues evolved into musical theater productions. With the invention of motion pictures and then television, dance moved into entertainment mass media.
For Broadway shows, dance artists and choreographers from ballet and modern dance companies created dances in early-20th-century follies (elaborate shows with music, songs, and dances), revues, and then musicals. As musical theater dance developed, it continued to absorb the styles of dance genres such as tap dance, ballet, modern dance, and jazz dance. Each musical theater production had its unique choreography using blended styles. Broadway shows tour throughout the world, bringing classical and contemporary musical theater productions to millions of people.
Dance movies have been popular since the early days of film. Producing these movies took hundreds of dancers, such as in the work of Busby Berkeley in the 1920s as a Broadway dance director and in 1930s movies where he directed musical numbers which led to his fame. Dance movies became an important area of commercial dance. Dancers and choreographers have entertained and educated audiences in historical dramas, animated movies, movie musicals, and science fiction movies alike. Animated movies in which characters danced were the invention of Walt Disney and his creative staff. Characters such as Snow White and the dancing dwarfs, princesses, and all kinds of creatures perform animated dances. In the 1950s, Gene Kelly bridged the gap between animation and live characters when he danced with an animated mouse in the film Anchors Away (1945).
With the advent of television, dance moved into variety shows, such as the Ed Sullivan Show. They showcased a wide variety of dance artists and choreographers and made them household names across America. As television programming expanded, so did the opportunities for dance shows. The popular Dance in America series brought ballet and modern dance companies to homes across America. Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) continues to provide diverse programming of dance as art, entertainment, and education.
Over the last decade, reality dance shows such as So You Think You Can Dance and Dancing With the Stars have expanded dance audiences and their appreciation of dance. Televised dance or drill team competitions and other associated dance competitions present another aspect of dance as entertainment. Television programming now includes an array of dance entertainment, including sitcoms and documentary series on dancers, their personal lives, musical theater, and dance genres from around the world.
After Disneyland opened in the 1950s, amusement and theme parks became another mass entertainment medium. Dance became an important feature in theme parks across the nation and the world. Dancing characters from the movies reside in different areas of these parks. In each park, one or more companies of dancers perform short entertainment shows throughout the day, every day. Dancers perform blended historical, cultural, or social dance styles to entertain park visitors. The Disney concept of performers - being in character and onstage while walking in the park or dancing - spurred an entire entertainment industry. Other live entertainment settings, including cruise ships, casinos, and resorts, provide multiple dancing stage shows as entertainment for guests.
When Internet technology expanded, another entertainment site emerged that would support dance films, recorded dance performance, and ways to interact in real time with dancers and choreographers across the globe. In the 20th century the term dance for the camera was coined to describe dance that was filmed as art, education, or entertainment. Productions of dance for the camera include documentaries of dancers and choreographers, historical and educational movies, concert and cultural dance companies, and performances of choreographed artistic dance films. These dance films are broadcast on television, shown in schools, or shown as fine art films. On the Internet, anyone can post a personal dance video to be viewed by the class, the school, and often the entire world. Dance for the camera has expanded into a whole new dimension that requires understanding dance as well as the art of filming it. To create dance for the camera, you need to grasp the artistic and production values, choices, and processes that are part of creating a filmed work.
Explore More
You can see from this brief overview that there is much to explore in dance as entertainment and its commercial sector. The Explore More sections on the web resource will explore three dance entertainment genres: dance or drill teams, dance in musical theater, and dance for the camera.
Dance or Drill Teams
Dance or drill teams range from students in middle school, high school, and college to professionals who perform at local sporting events to televised professional sports. Halftime shows for many sports feature dance or drill teams. Dance or drill teams perform for school games and community functions, and they take part in dance and drill team competitions. Their routines showcase their ensemble technique, spirit, and enthusiasm for the crowds. Training for dance and drill team requires athleticism and artistry. Dance and drill teams began as a Texas phenomenon that has spread across the United States and around the world. Visit the chapter 13 on the web resource to explore more about dance and drill teams.
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A dance team moves together to create a powerful effect.
Courtesy of Jennifer Dawson, Terri Ware, and Silver Star Dancers
Activity 13.2 Discover
Learn a Drill or Dance Team Combination
For this activity, your teacher or a classmate teaches one or more basic drill or dance combinations to the class. After everyone has learned and practiced the routine to music, take a few minutes to reflect on the experience. In your journal, write about what you enjoyed in the routine, what was challenging, and which type of routine you preferred and why. Share it with another student or in a group discussion.
Dance in Musical Theater
Musical theater dance spans school musicals, professional productions on the Broadway stage, and touring companies that travel to cities across the world. Becoming a musical theater dancer takes versatile dance training and other performing arts skills such as acting, music, and voice. The challenge in every musical theater production is to blend dancing, acting, and singing to portray your role. Visit the web resource to explore more about musical theater dance.
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Musical theater productions feature a blend of singing, dancing, and acting.
Jim West
Activity 13.3 Explore
Dance in Musical Theater
Choose a musical from the list provided by your teacher. Form a small group with other students who chose the same musical theater production. Together, search the Internet to find a video of a major dance sequence or dance combination from that musical. Your teacher may provide you with a list of dances from which to choose. View the dance number, then answer these questions:
- Identify each main character, and write a sentence or two about each person to describe their personality.
- Where does the dance take place?
- What inspires the characters to do this dance?
Describe the dance, the music, and whether it includes a song that is part of the musical number.
Collaborate as a group to develop, write, and present a 1- or 2-minute oral summary or a media presentation to the class to cover this information:
- Provide the story line (plot) of the musical.
- Identify the choreographer and give a very brief summary (two or three sentences) of the individual's contributions to the field.
- Indicate the main characters by writing a two- to three-sentence biography about each person.
- Describe the dance, the music, and the song in the musical number that you viewed.
Post a one-page summary of your group's information in the classroom or on the class web page. Add a picture that captures the meaning of the musical, or take a photo of your group in a memorable pose from the dance you researched. On your media presentation and one-page summary, cite the sources for your research.
Dance for the Camera
Dance in film, television, music videos, and other media forms provides entertainment for audiences. It also provides choreographers and dancers more media choices for presenting dance as an art form. Dance for the camera is term that covers entertainment, artistic, and multimedia forms of presenting dance. Filming dance has been instrumental in documenting its artists and works for the public to enjoy. Further, dance media has expanded dancers' views about how to complement or enhance a live performance. The final Explore More section investigates the types of media used in dance for the camera.
Learn more about Discovering Dance.
Discovering College and Career Preparation
Moving in new ways, remembering movement sequences, and executing them in time to music within changing formations and pathways is challenging.
Moving in new ways, remembering movement sequences, and executing them in time to music within changing formations and pathways is challenging. Dancing is a complicated process that requires mental and physical coordination, memorization, problem solving, refining, and performing. Like sports and many other fine arts, dancing demands that you juggle many factors to perform at your best. College and careers demand the same.
The processes of dancing, dance making, and dance appreciation fuel the discipline of dance. Across the arts the processes of creating, performing, responding, and interconnecting support other studies. Learning the movement languages of dance genres helps you not only in dance-related studies and careers but also in other arts-related disciplines and in life.
Activity 15.1 Research
College and Career Options
Write a list of two or three potential careers in dance, fine arts, or another discipline that you are interested in learning more about. Do an Internet search about each career, and note the following factors:
- Educational requirements
- Skills and abilities needed for this career
- Working conditions (for example, hours)
- Pay range and other benefits
- Personal benefits and values someone in this career would receive
After you have collected the answers to these questions for each career path, write a short descriptive paragraph about each career, and share it with the class.
In another document, write what appeals to you about this career. Also add what you think are your challenges in considering this career. Decide whether this career is a future possibility for further consideration or it is not a direction you wish to pursue.
Did You Know?
Dance Employment
The U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics posts the Occupational Outlook Handbook on its website (www.bls.gov). This handbook includes employment information about dancers and choreographers as part of the country's work force. These government data provide information about work environment, pay scale, and job outlook for the future as well as other information. In 2010 about 25,600 dancers and choreographers held jobs. Approximately 20 percent of dancers in performing arts companies and about 78 percent of choreographers work in a variety of schools and other places (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2012).
Employment of dancers is expected to increase at about 11 percent with a projected employment of 13,700 more people by 2020. This percentage is in the average range of all occupations. Employment of choreographers is projected to increase 24 percent with a projected employment of 16,400 by 2020. This is faster than the average for all occupations. The growing interest in dance as entertainment attracts people to enroll in dance classes. In turn, this growth in enrollment creates employment opportunities in television, movies, and other leisure settings.
Exploring Dance and Associated Careers
Imagine you are looking for a job, and you see an advertisement that reads, "Employer looking for creative, innovative, adaptive thinkers. If you are qualified, please apply." As a dancer, you can meet these and other requirements for work in the 21st century. Dancing, dance making, and thinking like a dancer train you in the skills you need for your education and career.
The time since the start of the new millennium has seen tremendous changes at a rapid pace. This quick pace is in part because of advances in technology that affect everyday lives and careers. Near the end of the 20th century, some of the world's greatest thinkers began to investigate what types of knowledge and skills 21st-century workers and citizens would need to be successful. As a result, they identified various types of learning and literacy such as financial, environmental, artistic, and others.
Across these categories, a series of broad topics reach from school to work, into the community, and the world:
- Communication
- Creativity
- Collaboration
- Critical thinking
The skills that support these four C's for 21st-century learning are presented in table 15.1.
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Scanning the entries in table 15.1 can be overwhelming. Pause a moment, and reflect on the assignments you did in the chapters of this book and your other class work. Then, recall the dance learning processes contained in the items listed. The point to remember is that the four topics contain major knowledge and skills that span dance and other disciplines of study as preparation for college and careers. In table 15.1 you will see that some of the skills identified cross one or more of the four categories.
Acquiring these attributes is a long-term process; it can take many years to complete. Reading these ideas gives you an understanding of how learning spans from the classroom through experiences in your community and life. These four C's are deeply embedded in dancing, dance making, and dance appreciation processes:
- Communicating through dance: In dance you communicate when you create, perform, or reflect on a dance work. In making a dance, the choreographer, dancers, and associated artistic staff need common arts vocabularies to effectively communicate, analytical skills to solve problems, and negotiation and teamwork skills along with an array of management skills to create and produce a dance performance.
- Creativity: When choreographers and dancers analyze and solve movement problems in a dance work, they use the creative process. The choreographer approaches an idea or theme for a dance and creatively seeks a choreographic design through which to communicate a cohesive artistic statement. The audience viewing a dance reflects and analyzes what they perceive as the meaning and the design of the dance work. Their feedback may be communicated to the dancers, choreographer, artistic staff, or the community. These responses can influence the direction of a choreographer's future works, artistic directions, or a company's finances.
- Collaboration: Collaboration is an integral part of dancing and creating artistic works with other artists. Improvisational structures and dance compositional forms require that dancers work as a highly functioning team to perform a dance. In dance making, choreographers strategically plan movement for dancers to communicate ideas. Associated artists join forces to present a unified message in an artistic work.
- Critical thinking: Through all dance processes, dancers and choreographers, associated artists, and audience members use critical thinking. Dancers have to make logical and quick decisions during a dance for safety or for artistic expression. Choreographers use analytical skills along with management and technology skills to make dances that satisfy an artistic mission and to meet business goals. Dance audiences determine whether attending a dance company performance will be a continuing venture.
Dance provides a wide range of professional career options in communities, cities, and around the world. Dance careers span areas of the arts and entertainment, media, fitness, recreation, business, education, technical fields, and other areas.
As you learned in chapter13, dance as entertainment is big business. Dance in education spans from preschool through university and graduate education, and into communities and people's lives across the nation as participation or through education, performance, and advocacy. Dance studios, gyms, recreation centers, and performing arts organizations have expanded their community contributions as more and more people realize the importance and contribution of dance and the other arts to their lives. Dance professional organizations provide continuing professional development for students, educators, artists, scientists, writers, and others interested or involved in dance as profession or associated professions. Dance professionals work as performers and in many roles that support dance performance. Often professionals with a dance background work in associated fields such as dance therapy, kinesiology, production, media, and arts administration. Their presence as dance professionals in these fields brings deeper perspectives to new audiences of how dance can play a role in other disciplines.
Transferring Dance Skills to Life Skills
Life and career skills - the skills you need in order to succeed in work and life - require four characteristics: flexibility, adaptability, taking initiative, and being self-directed. In school, work, and community you should demonstrate cross-cultural and leadership skills. In your school and career, you should be responsible, productive, and accountable for your work. In the dance class you cultivate dancer attributes that then apply in your dancing and personal development.
Your experience in dance develops a number of traits that apply to other life endeavors. Personal development through dance for future career directions beyond dance include these:
- Physical, intellectual, and kinesthetic awareness
- Fine-tuned observation skills
- Enhanced focus and concentration
- Extended self-discipline, responsibility, and empathy
- Perception and sensory awareness of personal movement and others' movement choices and styles
- Versatility, ability to adapt, and flexibility in various situations
- Expanded interpersonal (mental and physical attributes you share with others) and intrapersonal (the internal conversation you have with yourself) communication skills
Observation and Awareness
Observation skills are critical to learning dance and are essential in any career. Observational skills take time to develop. Concentrated observation helps you acquire visual, auditory, and sensory information. As a dancer you filter through this information and determine how it applies to get the desired result.
Dancers learn to coordinate movements of body parts in a step or movement. This complicated coordination of brain and body improves as you move through more complex exercises, combinations, dance sequences, and dances. When you memorize movement you initiate an internal cueing system that engages a complicated synergy of intellectual and body actions with the elements of space, time, energy, or effort. So, what you do in dance contributes directly to your personal development in dance and also to future directions beyond dance. When you take dance classes or perform, you develop these skills:
- Using interpersonal spatial awareness
- Having a physical and intellectual presence in space
- Creating movement as a result of being internally sensitive and intuitive
- Acquiring performance awareness and a professional attitude
- Reading movement and then reproducing the movement (translate it, transpose it) presented by the teacher or choreographer
- Memorizing movements and dances to create a memory bank
- Understanding movement systems, genres, and styles
Creativity and Communication
When composing a dance, you use the creative process to formulate a design and structure for dance movements. You use the creative process in dance when you experiment with the following:
- Determining movement patterns as part of choreography and choreographic designs in space and time using a range of energy or efforts
- Manipulating the order of movements to make a logical statement using seamless transitions
- Using choreographic structures and strategies for augmentations
- Connecting musical knowledge to movement sequences
- Relating visual design elements of patterns, relationships to dance, and identifying styles to apply or augment
- Applying movement, choreographic, and aesthetic principles to dancing and dance composition
- Employing stagecraft and media knowledge in producing the work
Producing a dance is a complicated process that combines design elements, problem-solving skills, and communication with artists and technicians. When you practice these processes, you enhance your abilities as a dancer and create conduits that relate to many associated dance careers.
Media and Artistic Literacy
When you view dances, you develop a visual and mental store of classical to contemporary dance works. Dancers and choreographers have used this system of "recording" to create a memory bank since before the common use of notation systems and electronic recording systems. These mental memories of movements combine with kinesthetic responses you receive from watching dancers perform. Your response to a dance in conversation, discussion, or written forms is also kinesthetic in nature. Translating movement experiences into descriptive and meaningful commentary supports and expands your dance and artistic literacy and your media literacy.
Artistic literacy is the knowledge and understanding required to participate authentically in the arts. Arts include dance, music, dramatic art, visual art, and media. The arts contain content, principles, and applications that are common to them as art forms. In artistic literacy, the processes of creating, performing (in dance, music, or theater), presenting (in the visual arts) or producing (in media arts), responding, and connecting reach across all of the arts. Learning these processes in various art forms contributes to your media literacy and to your experience (State Education Agency Directors of Arts Education 2013).
Media literacy is the ability to access, analyze, and evaluate media content. Viewing and responding to a dance performance includes both deconstruction and construction.
After you reflect upon the dance as a complete work, the next step is to take the dance apart. Deconstruction is analyzing or taking a dance performance apart. It is how you look at the components of the choreography, the dancers' performance, and the production elements of the work. Construction activities use the dance analysis (or deconstruction) as a basis for participating in a discussion about the dance, writing a dance report about a work you have viewed, or summarizing your findings and filing them in your memory bank along with your visual memories of the dance work.
When you attend a dance concert or view a video of a dance performance, you may have been assigned to write a dance report. A couple of strategies are useful for preparing you to write your response. Before you view the performance, read over the items or questions you have to cover in the report. When you view the dance, watch, hear, and feel the performance. Some people suggest reading the program notes about the dance after the concert. Your viewing experience of the dance provides the information from which to write your report.
In past centuries, literacy meant reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills. These skills remain foundational today; they have become the basis of 21st-century skills such as media literacy. When you gain an understanding of a media presentation and its components that create meaning, then you are engaging in media literacy.
Dance literacy includes knowledge of movement, music, theater, and arts terminology. Dance is multilingual through its various genres, their specific terminology, and the application of movement, choreographic, and aesthetic principles. Other facets of dance literacy include knowledge of rhythmic and musical languages, stagecraft and theater vocabularies, arts education, arts media processes, and production terminology. Dance literacy skills contribute to overall media literacy.
Activity 15.2 Explore
Analyzing a Dance Performance
When you view a dance performance, you use your skills in media literacy to analyze it. After you reflect on the dance as a complete work, the next step is to take the dance apart. It is how you look at the components of the choreography, the dancers' performance, and the production elements of the work. When you deconstruct a dance work, think about these questions:
- What do you think is the choreographer's message, idea, and theme?
- Were you able to discern the choreographic structure of the dance?
- How did the music interact or support the dance?
- Did the dancers' technique meet the requirements of the choreography?
- Did the dancers express the style of the choreography?
- Did the production elements of lighting and costuming support the presentation of the dance work and contribute to it as a work of art?
- Was the dance aesthetically moving to you?
- Would you consider this dance a work of art?
Multiple Intelligences
The theory of multiple intelligences (MI) and 21st-century educational theories have provided evidence that students acquire many ways of being smart through dance. These intelligences translate to other courses of study and into the workplace.
The theory of multiple intelligences was developed by an educational psychologist named Harold Gardner. Beginning in the 1980s, Gardner's original system of seven intelligences has expanded to nine; it continues to expand. The following list summarizes Gardner's nine intelligences. Your multiple intelligence quotient is really a combination of all of your intelligences. You may rate very high in certain intelligences and not as high in others. Gardner claims that you can strengthen and expand the intelligences that you ignore or challenge yourself (Gardner1983).
- Verbal-linguistic intelligence: Verbal skills and sensitivity to meaning and rhythm of words.
- Mathematical or logical intelligence: Conceptual and abstract thinking skills in both numerical and logic patterns.
- Musical intelligence: Understanding and ability to use rhythm, pitch, and texture.
- Visual-spatial intelligence: Thinking and visualizing using images in spatial and abstract configurations.
- Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence: Moving and handling objects with grace, skill, and artfulness.
- Interpersonal intelligence: Communicating appropriately with other people in relation to their moods, ideas, and directions.
- Intrapersonal intelligence: Self-awareness of feelings, values, and thinking processes.
- Naturalist intelligence: Recognizing and categorizing plants, animals, and other things in nature.
- Existential intelligence: Deep thinking about philosophical and essential questions about life and its meaning.
Adapted from http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/mi/index.html
Activity 15.3 Discover
Your Multiple Intelligences (MI)
Do you recognize some of your intelligences? The web resource includes a link to an MI test to take for fun and to find out the various ways you are smart. Then you can compare your MI with those of others in the class. Knowing your MI can give you insights into some possible career directions. Your MI can change over time as you develop other intelligences. Documenting your MI can be an interesting way to self-check and track your changes in the future.
Learn more about Discovering Dance.
Exploring Dance Composition
Dance composition is learning how to make a dance. During the dance composition process you explore a movement idea by creating dance movement or selecting steps in some dance genres, then you manipulate these elements and materials of dance into movement modules of various lengths to compose a dance.
Dance composition is learning how to make a dance. During the dance composition process you explore a movement idea by creating dance movement or selecting steps in some dance genres, then you manipulate these elements and materials of dance into movement modules of various lengths to compose a dance. To understand how to use your tools for composition, you need to be familiar with choreographic design principles, structures, and devices. For a dance work to have solidarity and value, the choreography should connect to aesthetic principles that underlie art works.
In the Movement Invention activity, you invented two contrasting dance phrases (a short series of movements that connect into a pattern) or longer sequences. In the next activities you will create a movement sequence (a group of movements that form a unit), and then you will develop a movement statement (similar to a sentence). All of these movement segments contain a beginning, a middle, and an end. Coupling movement sentences together builds a dance segment similar to a paragraph in writing. Regardless of how long or short it is, a dance composition focuses on the beginning, the middle, the end, and on the movement between these points. Creating and composing the movement is one part of the choreographic process. Checking to ensure choreographic principles underlie the dance modules requires you to analyze your composition during the process and when it is complete. Table 4.1 lists the basic choreographic principles that underlie a dance composition.
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The following sections lead you through the choreographic process as you compose your movement segments.
Creative and Choreographic Processes
Different dance scholars present similar creative and choreographic processes. Some scholars write about the creative process, while others write about the steps to create a dance. Both processes underlie making a dance.
The creative process in dance making requires a period of preparation in which you collect ideas. This preparation time should include time for developing choreographic ideas; in other words, you need to figure out the central idea and how to approach it. Next you have to experiment with movement for a deeper insight into the movement ideas. In later sessions, you evaluate the movement and determine what works and what does not work as part of the dance work. The final step in the process is elaborating on the movement ideas you have selected.
Another dance composition process uses similar steps. First, observe the world around you, and explore ways of imitating or symbolizing what you have observed using bodies and movement. Working by yourself, do movement explorations and collect external experiences by observing the work of others. During the composition process, group reflections and discussions provide feedback that should be sorted out as to how well it applies or transfers to the dance in progress. In creating a dance, use your synthesized information from exploration and reflection. After the performance, a final group reflection helps to analyze the process and the product. Then extend the group reflection to a journal of what you learned and what ideas have been sparked for future choreography.
You should know the reason behind your writing activities in relation to your movement activities. Choreographic journaling has been part of dance composition courses since at least the last quarter of the 20th century, and this type of journaling continues today.
In academic dance courses, you usually keep choreographic journals to collect written records of your observations, movement experiments, research, and findings as you go through the dance composition process. Often you write about personal goals in the class and challenges you have faced during a course. You also write about how as an individual or in a group you responded to the process or what you learned from it to help you frame or propose your next project.
With the creative and choreographic processes in mind, the next step is to survey your ingredients for making a dance. In chapter 3 you learned about the elements of dance that play a central role in creating a dance. However, other ingredients also contribute to dance composition.
Activity 4.2 Explore
Create a Movement Sequence
Using the locomotor movements from chapter 3, select two, three, or four even and uneven locomotor movements, and join them together into an 8-count movement sequence. Often movement sequences are parts of a longer movement statement. If a sequence appears to be complete, it may be referred to as a movement statement or sentence. This activity has two parts.
Part 1
Decide the order of the locomotor movements. Practice your movement sequence until you have it memorized. To add variety to the movement sequence, here are some ideas to try:
First, do the movement sequence as you created it. Repeat the sequence once at slow speed, then repeat it again at a faster speed. Changing the speed or timing on movements changes your energy or qualities of movement. Memorize these movement sequences in the order you chose.
Think about what energy, effort, or qualities you used in these repetitions and how they changed. Review the list of effort actions or movement qualities from chapter 3, and identify which ones you used. If you find a couple of undistinguishable efforts or movement qualities, try the movement again to clarify them.
Part 2
Now select two, three, or four different even and uneven locomotor movements or basic steps presented in chapter 3; these movements should be ones you are less comfortable with. Use these movements to create another movement sequence.Practice and memorize your new sequence. Again, perform the sequence four times using two or three different speeds. Then, do the first movement sequence followed by the second, or longer, sequence.
Reflect on these ideas about both movement phrases or sequences:
- The locomotor movements or steps you chose
- The differences in speeds
- How the energy, effort, effort actions, or movement qualities changed
How does the first movement sequence compare or contrast to your second movement sequence? Identify at least two similarities and two differences in movement, energy, effort, effort actions, and movement qualities when you changed the speed of your movement.
Summarize your reflections either on paper or in your mind. In a small group, take turns doing your two movement sequences following one another. Then present to the group your summary of the similarities and differences between the two movement sequences you created. Ask the group, "What did you see as similarities and differences after viewing my two movement sequences?"
Listening to the feedback of your peers may give you new ideas to try or to incorporate into your sequences. Observing others perform their movement inventions may give you more ideas to store away in your movement memory bank for future use.
Sources of Movement
Creating new dance movements comes from exploring and experimenting with movement possibilities. Exploring new ways to move may take you out of your comfort zone. As you mentally and physically record these experiments, keep in mind that they may or may not turn out to be movements you want to add to your movement memory bank. But don't let that stop you from experimenting. Although it does involve taking movement risks, your experiments are being done in the safe setting of a dance class.
Improvisation is creating movement or movement invention for making dances. Using different stimuli creates new movement. Internal stimuli could include exploring your spontaneous individual movements based on touch, auditory, or visual sources. External stimuli could come from music, a work of art, nature, or an everyday task.
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During improvisation, the teacher can provide valuable feedback or suggestions about the movement or poses being created.
When a group is looking for solutions to a problem, they often brainstorm, and together they consider a number of options. Improvisation is similar to brainstorming; in fact, it has been called body storming. You can practice body storming by yourself or with a group. Doing movement improvisation with a group can be a lot of fun, and it allows you to gather or share new movement ideas. While improvising, use the somatic movement awareness principles and Laban effort actions. Experiment with how these important actions connect to space, time, energy, and weight to create new dynamics in your dancing.
Sources for improvisation can be visual, words, poetry, tasks, senses, or someone else's movement or dances. These movement experiments or improvisations have several forms:
- Free-form improvisations are self-expression based on the premise of you moving and responding to music. This type of improvisational study can be a movement response to auditory, visual, textural, or a combination of stimuli.
- Semi-structured movement experiments solve a problem, answer the question, or have different points that the teacher or you determine as the criteria for composing the work.
- A structured improvisation is an experimental movement sequence that is loosely structured and practiced. Quite often a group work, the choreographer identifies movement sections or specific movement pictures that the group has developed during practice. These sections or pictures give the work an overall form and an artistic focus.
When you view or discuss an improvisation, you need a framework to help keep the discussion focused on the composition instead of on personal likes and dislikes. One system for discussing dance is known as RADS,which stands for using the following components: relationships, actions, dynamics, and use of space. Try it after a movement invention session or apply it as a self-analysis to your own movement improvisation.
Improvisation is a creative way to extend your personal movement repertory and styles. Practicing the many forms of improvisation helps you tap into your own creative force, enhancing your experience as a dancer and as a dance maker.
Learn more about Discovering Dance.
Discovering Cultural Dance
Dance has been called the universal language; you live in a world that dances.
Dance has been called the universal language; you live in a world that dances. Take a look at the map of the world and its continents (figure 8.1). Geographers have identified distinct natural and physical features (ecosystems) in regions throughout the world. Studying a geographic region that supports human culture is also known as cultural geography. Within these geographic regions are specific cultural regions of the world.
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Regions of the world.
In each of these cultural regions are countries, people of various racial and ethnic groups, and their cultural values. Their arts include dances from aboriginals or first people (the original people who inhabited the land since millennia ago) who migrated to these regions because of war, famine, economic hardship, or other reasons. The common elements of culture include the following (Blankenship in press):
- It is a way of life, learned and shared with future generations.
- It changes with time and is symbolic.
- The economy drives a culture.
Culture is a community or society's knowledge, beliefs, values, customs, and common heritage. If you were to look at the cultural geographic areas of the world, you would encounter commonalities and differences that make each country or region unique. People have many different views about defining and describing dance from geographic or cultural regions of the world. Some people consider dances from across these regions to be examples of world dance, while others might call these dances cultural dance. Regardless of where you live in the world, you participate in dances that reflect a lot or a little of the culture.
Activity 8.1 Explore
Dance Around the World
Using a map of the world, survey the geographic region that your teacher assigns to your group. Search a region's or country's website, then describe the physical features of each region or country. Next, research and describe the people of that area and their culture, and find examples of a traditional dance they perform. If you can locate a video performance of the dance, write a brief descriptive summary about it. In your summary include the following information:
- Background or history of the dance
- Who dances
- When and where the dance is performed
Describe the music that accompanies the dance and the dancers' clothing. Add a photo of the dancers performing, and list references or web links to your online sources.
Did You Know?
People Like Me
People Like Me is the arts education program of the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festivaland World Arts West. For 15 seasons this organization has presented an extraordinary festival featuring dancers and dance companies that represent cultures around the world. On their website, the festival provides their Online Encyclopedia of World Dance, which includes performers, information about selected dances and dance styles, musical instruments, and history of the dance style. Attending the festival to view cultural dance performances by artists from across the world would be an awesome experience. Visiting the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival and World Arts West website provides easy access to a virtual tour of dance around the world.
Exploring Cultural Dance
Specific countries have dances that identify with a region and its culture immediately. For example, African dances or Indian dances have styles that make them readily identifiable, as do other cultural dances from across the globe.
When you study dances as part of a culture, you are using different lenses to see each dance in its cultural context. Earlier in this chapter, you discovered that culture is a concept in human geography. It also has deep connections to the fields of cultural anthropology, ethnology, and ethnomusicology. Cultural anthropology is the study of humans and their culture, which includes social structures, languages, laws, religion, arts, and technology. Ethnology is the study of the cultural life of a community. An ethnologist lives in a community for several years to record the everyday life of the people and their culture. Ethnomusicology is the study of a people's music in relation to its culture or society. Ethnomusicologists may extend their study to dances performed to the music of the culture.
Countries all over the world have traditional dances, but they are actually evolving products of history, migration, wars, and political and societal changes of the people who perform them. Today, in one country you can encounter many cultural dances, including the following:
- Dances of aboriginals or first people.
- Dances of early settlers who migrated to the area and brought their culture to their new home. In various historical eras, the dances may have colonial or postcolonial versions.
- Blended dances created after wars changed a people and their culture. These dances are not created overnight. In an invaded country, the original people and the new arrivals may or may not embrace each other's cultures or dances. A cultural clash may occur, and the two groups may resist each other's influence. Blending outside influences into existing traditions takes place over time.
- Newer variations of traditional dances that evolve from generation to generation. These dances absorb and blend personal, group, and societal trends that can change a dance and its performance.
- Dances of tribes, first people, and ethnic groups who strive to keep their ancestral traditions alive in contemporary society. People preserve these dances to share their heritage with the young people of their community.
All cultural dances presented in the overview of dance types connect to the three common elements of a culture (see Discovering Cultural Dance).
If you add all these elements together, you get two deep understandings:
- Culture is about participating as a community; it can be related to ritual, spiritual, and life events and celebrations.
- Culture can be defined as a way of life that is learned, shared with future generations, and changes with time.
Participating, viewing, and learning about cultural dance and the roles it plays in societies leads to awareness and appreciation of other people and their cultural values.
Experiencing a cultural dance means taking a look at the movement from the perspectives of both the cultural dancer and the requirements of the dance. The ideas you have learned about other dance forms so far or will encounter in this book may not apply to cultural dances. So, discard your preconception of cultural dances, and involve yourself in perceiving and experiencing the movement. Then you will be poised to find the meaning or essence of the dance and gain some insights about the dancers who perform it. Experiencing cultural dance requires you to observe through a different kind of dance lens; you must see as an ethnologist would, paying attention to the dance in the context of its home culture.
Explore More
Take a virtual dance tour! On the web resource, you will visit a variety of countries across the globe. Each country provides an overview of its geography, history, and some of its most important dances. Key search terms in some of the dance genres provide ways to view and learn a dance or movement sequence. The dance tour provides an overview from which you can explore more through researching the countries and their wealth of dances.
Mexico
Mexico has a wealth of natural and cultural resources, with diverse landscapes from mountains to jungles, and historic traditions reaching back more than 3,000 years. Mexican dance captures the rhythm, emotion, and movement of a vibrant society with a heritage rich in tradition.
America
The United States is a country of vast natural and cultural resources and is populated by people from a vast variety of cultural heritage. Since prehistoric times, Native Americans have danced to express their traditions and cultural values. Contemporary urban dance forms began to express social changes in the United States during the latter 20th century.
Europe
Europe is a huge continent with many nationalities and their dances. Chapter 7 (Folk Dance) contains a variety of folk dances from countries throughout Europe, Russia, and other countries.
Africa
Africa is the second largest continent in the world with 54 countries. African people and cultures represent a diversity of economic and social structures with various beliefs, religions, and arts. For centuries African cultural dance has captured the spirit of life events, community and spiritual beliefs, and identities of tribes and clans of various regions.
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In Africa, dance is an integral part of ceremonies, festivals, and rites. African dances are done in many countries throughout the world.
India
India is the seventh largest country in the world. For nearly 3,000 years, dance art has existed in India and is a significant aspect in Indian culture. Classical Indian dance includes a wide range of forms and styles that reflect various geographic centers, history, and traditions.
Japan
Japan is a group of islands off the east coast of Asia. According to legend, Japan was founded in the 7th century BCE. Japanese cultural dances relate to religions and social eras in Japanese history. Japanese cultural dance forms and styles span historical court dances, religious dances, and traditional folk dances. In Japan, dance remains an integral part of historical theatrical entertainment.
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Japanese dances are passed from generation to generation.
Exploring these countries is just the starting place for learning about cultural dance. You may want to continue your virtual travels to other countries. These countries may connect to your family heritage, a place where a friend came from, or a country you hope to visit in the future. Whatever the reason, you can go there today and share what you learned with the class.
Activity 8.2 Explore
Learn a Cultural Dance
In a small group, find a dance from the country you visited on the web in the exploration activity Dance Around the World. The cultural dance you select could be
- a traditional dance,
- a folk dance,
- a social dance,
- a dance that provides entertainment for visitors, or
- a dance that is considered an art form or part of another art such as drama or theater.
Find two videos of the dance. After watching the videos, learn several movements, poses, a movement sequence, or the entire dance. Through your reading and research about this dance can you discover
- who dances,
- when and where they dance, and
- why they dance.
Identify a list of unique characteristics of the dance (review dance designs in chapter 5). Then, further explore the background and history of the dance to answer this question: How does the dance relate to or represent the people, their culture, and society?
Spotlight
Dance Diplomacy
In early 2010 modern and contemporary dance makers from the groups Urban Bush Women, ODC, and Evidence, a dance company, took part in the first U.S. pilot program to tour internationally as the gateway of cultural exchange among nations. The purpose of this "dance diplomacy" was to create a model cultural exchange initiative. The international tour, supported by the U.S. Department of State, reached global audiences of more than 15,000 in 16 cities of 9 countries in Southeast Asia, South America, and Africa. The second season in 2012 reached global audiences of 25,000 in 24 cities in 13 countries in Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia.
U.S. embassies and the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs partner with dance companies, leading cultural and community-based organizations, and educational institutions to host unique residencies that create opportunities for engagement and exchange. One of these cultural exchanges is DanceMotionUSA, which sends American dance companies overseas to connect with audiences through workshops, lecture demonstrations, and public performances.
Learn more about Discovering Dance.
Discovering Dance as Entertainment
As you read the introduction to this chapter, you may have recognized some of the forms of dance as entertainment that you knew or have even taken part in. Some of these forms are live performances, and others are performed for recorded media, yet others focus on commercial dance.
As you read the introduction to this chapter, you may have recognized some of the forms of dance as entertainment that you knew or have even taken part in. Some of these forms are live performances, and others are performed for recorded media, yet others focus on commercial dance.Your first activity is an exploration of a form of commercial dance.
Activity 13.1 Explore
Dance in Commercials
Many television commercials use dance to sell products or services. To begin this exploration, spend some time surfing television channels. Select two of your favorite commercials that include dance. Write a one-page paper about one of the commercials. Describe the dancers, the setting, the dance, and why they are dancing. What message do you think is being communicated through the dance? Are the music and dialogue effective parts of the commercial? What product is being featured in the commercial? Do you think the dancing makes connections to the product to sell it effectively? What appeals to you (or doesn't appeal to you) about the dance and the commercial? Write a paragraph to critique the commercial. Search for this commercial on the Internet. In your paper, include a photo and a link for viewing the commercial online.
As a class, share your commercial review papers in the classroom or on the school or class's webpage. If several people selected the same commercial, post them together. Then select two other commercials posted that you did not view but capture your interest. In a class discussion, determine the top three dance commercials, and provide a rationale for these choices using the same criteria you used for your commercial review. On a sheet of paper or the board, post these "awards" with that group of commercial reviews.
Did You Know?
Cruise Ship Performers
The top cruise lines vie for passengers by offering an array of dance, musical theater, and media entertainment options. From shortened versions of Broadway shows to aqua theaters where an underwater civilization comes to life, each cruise line has multiple entertainment options for travelers. Behind the scenes, the life for dancers and other entertainers revolves around rehearsing and performing the shows. Dancers should have training in a wide variety of dance genres and styles. With two performances or more per day, or twelve performances or more per week, production show dancers have a busy schedule. A production show dancer may have additional roles on nonproduction show evenings and other occasions such as greet passengers or lead and escort tours of the bridge and backstage areas. On cruise ships, which can be like a small city on the sea, show dancers must be ready for living in close quarters and get used to dancing on a stage that moves with the rocking motion of the ship. In their spare time, dancers have staff access on deck and to facilities such as the pool and the gym. If you love to travel, this is a job in which you can dance your way to new destinations.
Exploring Dance as Entertainment
Dance entertainment is a vast topic and an important component of dance. As a viewer of dance entertainment, you see the collaboration between dance artists, directors, and media or live production staff. These collaborators create ways to use dance choreography to entertain audiences or sell products or services in various settings. To prepare for dancing in commercial or entertainment settings, you have to be versatile as a dancer. You must study social dance, folk dance, cultural dance, street dance, ballet, modern dance, jazz, and tap dance. When you explore the section on dance unions in chapter 15 and on the web resource, you will see job listings that outline the dance genres a dancer needs to have for these jobs. A job can be for a one-performance event, or it might last for years, such as a musical theater performance on Broadway or a yearlong touring show. Commercial dancers who go from job to job are called dance gypsies, because their work is constantly changing from one show to another.
History of Dance as Entertainment
Professional dancers have worked as entertainers since prehistory. In ancient Egypt, the first recorded professional dancers, along with acrobats and musicians, entertained royalty. In ancient Greece dance was part of theater. From medieval times through the renaissance, dance was entertainment and amusement for nobles and peasants alike.
During modern history as dance moved onstage, dance as entertainment was part of other art forms or as interludes between dramas and operas. In the 19th century, dance continued to gain stature through entertainment such as minstrel shows, circuses, spectacles, fairs, variety shows, and vaudeville performances. Dance performances took place outdoors, in music and variety halls, theaters, and arenas. When the transcontinental railway system linked the nation from coast to coast, dance as entertainment exploded. Entire troupes or stock companies or self-contained companies who performed all types of entertainment forms, traveled the country by train; they stopped in cities and small towns to entertain people for the night. These companies were made up of versatile triple threat performers - those who did all the acting, dancing, and singing roles required in an evening's entertainment.
In the 20th century, the love of dance as entertainment grew in new directions. Broadway revues evolved into musical theater productions. With the invention of motion pictures and then television, dance moved into entertainment mass media.
For Broadway shows, dance artists and choreographers from ballet and modern dance companies created dances in early-20th-century follies (elaborate shows with music, songs, and dances), revues, and then musicals. As musical theater dance developed, it continued to absorb the styles of dance genres such as tap dance, ballet, modern dance, and jazz dance. Each musical theater production had its unique choreography using blended styles. Broadway shows tour throughout the world, bringing classical and contemporary musical theater productions to millions of people.
Dance movies have been popular since the early days of film. Producing these movies took hundreds of dancers, such as in the work of Busby Berkeley in the 1920s as a Broadway dance director and in 1930s movies where he directed musical numbers which led to his fame. Dance movies became an important area of commercial dance. Dancers and choreographers have entertained and educated audiences in historical dramas, animated movies, movie musicals, and science fiction movies alike. Animated movies in which characters danced were the invention of Walt Disney and his creative staff. Characters such as Snow White and the dancing dwarfs, princesses, and all kinds of creatures perform animated dances. In the 1950s, Gene Kelly bridged the gap between animation and live characters when he danced with an animated mouse in the film Anchors Away (1945).
With the advent of television, dance moved into variety shows, such as the Ed Sullivan Show. They showcased a wide variety of dance artists and choreographers and made them household names across America. As television programming expanded, so did the opportunities for dance shows. The popular Dance in America series brought ballet and modern dance companies to homes across America. Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) continues to provide diverse programming of dance as art, entertainment, and education.
Over the last decade, reality dance shows such as So You Think You Can Dance and Dancing With the Stars have expanded dance audiences and their appreciation of dance. Televised dance or drill team competitions and other associated dance competitions present another aspect of dance as entertainment. Television programming now includes an array of dance entertainment, including sitcoms and documentary series on dancers, their personal lives, musical theater, and dance genres from around the world.
After Disneyland opened in the 1950s, amusement and theme parks became another mass entertainment medium. Dance became an important feature in theme parks across the nation and the world. Dancing characters from the movies reside in different areas of these parks. In each park, one or more companies of dancers perform short entertainment shows throughout the day, every day. Dancers perform blended historical, cultural, or social dance styles to entertain park visitors. The Disney concept of performers - being in character and onstage while walking in the park or dancing - spurred an entire entertainment industry. Other live entertainment settings, including cruise ships, casinos, and resorts, provide multiple dancing stage shows as entertainment for guests.
When Internet technology expanded, another entertainment site emerged that would support dance films, recorded dance performance, and ways to interact in real time with dancers and choreographers across the globe. In the 20th century the term dance for the camera was coined to describe dance that was filmed as art, education, or entertainment. Productions of dance for the camera include documentaries of dancers and choreographers, historical and educational movies, concert and cultural dance companies, and performances of choreographed artistic dance films. These dance films are broadcast on television, shown in schools, or shown as fine art films. On the Internet, anyone can post a personal dance video to be viewed by the class, the school, and often the entire world. Dance for the camera has expanded into a whole new dimension that requires understanding dance as well as the art of filming it. To create dance for the camera, you need to grasp the artistic and production values, choices, and processes that are part of creating a filmed work.
Explore More
You can see from this brief overview that there is much to explore in dance as entertainment and its commercial sector. The Explore More sections on the web resource will explore three dance entertainment genres: dance or drill teams, dance in musical theater, and dance for the camera.
Dance or Drill Teams
Dance or drill teams range from students in middle school, high school, and college to professionals who perform at local sporting events to televised professional sports. Halftime shows for many sports feature dance or drill teams. Dance or drill teams perform for school games and community functions, and they take part in dance and drill team competitions. Their routines showcase their ensemble technique, spirit, and enthusiasm for the crowds. Training for dance and drill team requires athleticism and artistry. Dance and drill teams began as a Texas phenomenon that has spread across the United States and around the world. Visit the chapter 13 on the web resource to explore more about dance and drill teams.
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A dance team moves together to create a powerful effect.
Courtesy of Jennifer Dawson, Terri Ware, and Silver Star Dancers
Activity 13.2 Discover
Learn a Drill or Dance Team Combination
For this activity, your teacher or a classmate teaches one or more basic drill or dance combinations to the class. After everyone has learned and practiced the routine to music, take a few minutes to reflect on the experience. In your journal, write about what you enjoyed in the routine, what was challenging, and which type of routine you preferred and why. Share it with another student or in a group discussion.
Dance in Musical Theater
Musical theater dance spans school musicals, professional productions on the Broadway stage, and touring companies that travel to cities across the world. Becoming a musical theater dancer takes versatile dance training and other performing arts skills such as acting, music, and voice. The challenge in every musical theater production is to blend dancing, acting, and singing to portray your role. Visit the web resource to explore more about musical theater dance.
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Musical theater productions feature a blend of singing, dancing, and acting.
Jim West
Activity 13.3 Explore
Dance in Musical Theater
Choose a musical from the list provided by your teacher. Form a small group with other students who chose the same musical theater production. Together, search the Internet to find a video of a major dance sequence or dance combination from that musical. Your teacher may provide you with a list of dances from which to choose. View the dance number, then answer these questions:
- Identify each main character, and write a sentence or two about each person to describe their personality.
- Where does the dance take place?
- What inspires the characters to do this dance?
Describe the dance, the music, and whether it includes a song that is part of the musical number.
Collaborate as a group to develop, write, and present a 1- or 2-minute oral summary or a media presentation to the class to cover this information:
- Provide the story line (plot) of the musical.
- Identify the choreographer and give a very brief summary (two or three sentences) of the individual's contributions to the field.
- Indicate the main characters by writing a two- to three-sentence biography about each person.
- Describe the dance, the music, and the song in the musical number that you viewed.
Post a one-page summary of your group's information in the classroom or on the class web page. Add a picture that captures the meaning of the musical, or take a photo of your group in a memorable pose from the dance you researched. On your media presentation and one-page summary, cite the sources for your research.
Dance for the Camera
Dance in film, television, music videos, and other media forms provides entertainment for audiences. It also provides choreographers and dancers more media choices for presenting dance as an art form. Dance for the camera is term that covers entertainment, artistic, and multimedia forms of presenting dance. Filming dance has been instrumental in documenting its artists and works for the public to enjoy. Further, dance media has expanded dancers' views about how to complement or enhance a live performance. The final Explore More section investigates the types of media used in dance for the camera.
Learn more about Discovering Dance.
Discovering College and Career Preparation
Moving in new ways, remembering movement sequences, and executing them in time to music within changing formations and pathways is challenging.
Moving in new ways, remembering movement sequences, and executing them in time to music within changing formations and pathways is challenging. Dancing is a complicated process that requires mental and physical coordination, memorization, problem solving, refining, and performing. Like sports and many other fine arts, dancing demands that you juggle many factors to perform at your best. College and careers demand the same.
The processes of dancing, dance making, and dance appreciation fuel the discipline of dance. Across the arts the processes of creating, performing, responding, and interconnecting support other studies. Learning the movement languages of dance genres helps you not only in dance-related studies and careers but also in other arts-related disciplines and in life.
Activity 15.1 Research
College and Career Options
Write a list of two or three potential careers in dance, fine arts, or another discipline that you are interested in learning more about. Do an Internet search about each career, and note the following factors:
- Educational requirements
- Skills and abilities needed for this career
- Working conditions (for example, hours)
- Pay range and other benefits
- Personal benefits and values someone in this career would receive
After you have collected the answers to these questions for each career path, write a short descriptive paragraph about each career, and share it with the class.
In another document, write what appeals to you about this career. Also add what you think are your challenges in considering this career. Decide whether this career is a future possibility for further consideration or it is not a direction you wish to pursue.
Did You Know?
Dance Employment
The U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics posts the Occupational Outlook Handbook on its website (www.bls.gov). This handbook includes employment information about dancers and choreographers as part of the country's work force. These government data provide information about work environment, pay scale, and job outlook for the future as well as other information. In 2010 about 25,600 dancers and choreographers held jobs. Approximately 20 percent of dancers in performing arts companies and about 78 percent of choreographers work in a variety of schools and other places (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2012).
Employment of dancers is expected to increase at about 11 percent with a projected employment of 13,700 more people by 2020. This percentage is in the average range of all occupations. Employment of choreographers is projected to increase 24 percent with a projected employment of 16,400 by 2020. This is faster than the average for all occupations. The growing interest in dance as entertainment attracts people to enroll in dance classes. In turn, this growth in enrollment creates employment opportunities in television, movies, and other leisure settings.
Exploring Dance and Associated Careers
Imagine you are looking for a job, and you see an advertisement that reads, "Employer looking for creative, innovative, adaptive thinkers. If you are qualified, please apply." As a dancer, you can meet these and other requirements for work in the 21st century. Dancing, dance making, and thinking like a dancer train you in the skills you need for your education and career.
The time since the start of the new millennium has seen tremendous changes at a rapid pace. This quick pace is in part because of advances in technology that affect everyday lives and careers. Near the end of the 20th century, some of the world's greatest thinkers began to investigate what types of knowledge and skills 21st-century workers and citizens would need to be successful. As a result, they identified various types of learning and literacy such as financial, environmental, artistic, and others.
Across these categories, a series of broad topics reach from school to work, into the community, and the world:
- Communication
- Creativity
- Collaboration
- Critical thinking
The skills that support these four C's for 21st-century learning are presented in table 15.1.
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Scanning the entries in table 15.1 can be overwhelming. Pause a moment, and reflect on the assignments you did in the chapters of this book and your other class work. Then, recall the dance learning processes contained in the items listed. The point to remember is that the four topics contain major knowledge and skills that span dance and other disciplines of study as preparation for college and careers. In table 15.1 you will see that some of the skills identified cross one or more of the four categories.
Acquiring these attributes is a long-term process; it can take many years to complete. Reading these ideas gives you an understanding of how learning spans from the classroom through experiences in your community and life. These four C's are deeply embedded in dancing, dance making, and dance appreciation processes:
- Communicating through dance: In dance you communicate when you create, perform, or reflect on a dance work. In making a dance, the choreographer, dancers, and associated artistic staff need common arts vocabularies to effectively communicate, analytical skills to solve problems, and negotiation and teamwork skills along with an array of management skills to create and produce a dance performance.
- Creativity: When choreographers and dancers analyze and solve movement problems in a dance work, they use the creative process. The choreographer approaches an idea or theme for a dance and creatively seeks a choreographic design through which to communicate a cohesive artistic statement. The audience viewing a dance reflects and analyzes what they perceive as the meaning and the design of the dance work. Their feedback may be communicated to the dancers, choreographer, artistic staff, or the community. These responses can influence the direction of a choreographer's future works, artistic directions, or a company's finances.
- Collaboration: Collaboration is an integral part of dancing and creating artistic works with other artists. Improvisational structures and dance compositional forms require that dancers work as a highly functioning team to perform a dance. In dance making, choreographers strategically plan movement for dancers to communicate ideas. Associated artists join forces to present a unified message in an artistic work.
- Critical thinking: Through all dance processes, dancers and choreographers, associated artists, and audience members use critical thinking. Dancers have to make logical and quick decisions during a dance for safety or for artistic expression. Choreographers use analytical skills along with management and technology skills to make dances that satisfy an artistic mission and to meet business goals. Dance audiences determine whether attending a dance company performance will be a continuing venture.
Dance provides a wide range of professional career options in communities, cities, and around the world. Dance careers span areas of the arts and entertainment, media, fitness, recreation, business, education, technical fields, and other areas.
As you learned in chapter13, dance as entertainment is big business. Dance in education spans from preschool through university and graduate education, and into communities and people's lives across the nation as participation or through education, performance, and advocacy. Dance studios, gyms, recreation centers, and performing arts organizations have expanded their community contributions as more and more people realize the importance and contribution of dance and the other arts to their lives. Dance professional organizations provide continuing professional development for students, educators, artists, scientists, writers, and others interested or involved in dance as profession or associated professions. Dance professionals work as performers and in many roles that support dance performance. Often professionals with a dance background work in associated fields such as dance therapy, kinesiology, production, media, and arts administration. Their presence as dance professionals in these fields brings deeper perspectives to new audiences of how dance can play a role in other disciplines.
Transferring Dance Skills to Life Skills
Life and career skills - the skills you need in order to succeed in work and life - require four characteristics: flexibility, adaptability, taking initiative, and being self-directed. In school, work, and community you should demonstrate cross-cultural and leadership skills. In your school and career, you should be responsible, productive, and accountable for your work. In the dance class you cultivate dancer attributes that then apply in your dancing and personal development.
Your experience in dance develops a number of traits that apply to other life endeavors. Personal development through dance for future career directions beyond dance include these:
- Physical, intellectual, and kinesthetic awareness
- Fine-tuned observation skills
- Enhanced focus and concentration
- Extended self-discipline, responsibility, and empathy
- Perception and sensory awareness of personal movement and others' movement choices and styles
- Versatility, ability to adapt, and flexibility in various situations
- Expanded interpersonal (mental and physical attributes you share with others) and intrapersonal (the internal conversation you have with yourself) communication skills
Observation and Awareness
Observation skills are critical to learning dance and are essential in any career. Observational skills take time to develop. Concentrated observation helps you acquire visual, auditory, and sensory information. As a dancer you filter through this information and determine how it applies to get the desired result.
Dancers learn to coordinate movements of body parts in a step or movement. This complicated coordination of brain and body improves as you move through more complex exercises, combinations, dance sequences, and dances. When you memorize movement you initiate an internal cueing system that engages a complicated synergy of intellectual and body actions with the elements of space, time, energy, or effort. So, what you do in dance contributes directly to your personal development in dance and also to future directions beyond dance. When you take dance classes or perform, you develop these skills:
- Using interpersonal spatial awareness
- Having a physical and intellectual presence in space
- Creating movement as a result of being internally sensitive and intuitive
- Acquiring performance awareness and a professional attitude
- Reading movement and then reproducing the movement (translate it, transpose it) presented by the teacher or choreographer
- Memorizing movements and dances to create a memory bank
- Understanding movement systems, genres, and styles
Creativity and Communication
When composing a dance, you use the creative process to formulate a design and structure for dance movements. You use the creative process in dance when you experiment with the following:
- Determining movement patterns as part of choreography and choreographic designs in space and time using a range of energy or efforts
- Manipulating the order of movements to make a logical statement using seamless transitions
- Using choreographic structures and strategies for augmentations
- Connecting musical knowledge to movement sequences
- Relating visual design elements of patterns, relationships to dance, and identifying styles to apply or augment
- Applying movement, choreographic, and aesthetic principles to dancing and dance composition
- Employing stagecraft and media knowledge in producing the work
Producing a dance is a complicated process that combines design elements, problem-solving skills, and communication with artists and technicians. When you practice these processes, you enhance your abilities as a dancer and create conduits that relate to many associated dance careers.
Media and Artistic Literacy
When you view dances, you develop a visual and mental store of classical to contemporary dance works. Dancers and choreographers have used this system of "recording" to create a memory bank since before the common use of notation systems and electronic recording systems. These mental memories of movements combine with kinesthetic responses you receive from watching dancers perform. Your response to a dance in conversation, discussion, or written forms is also kinesthetic in nature. Translating movement experiences into descriptive and meaningful commentary supports and expands your dance and artistic literacy and your media literacy.
Artistic literacy is the knowledge and understanding required to participate authentically in the arts. Arts include dance, music, dramatic art, visual art, and media. The arts contain content, principles, and applications that are common to them as art forms. In artistic literacy, the processes of creating, performing (in dance, music, or theater), presenting (in the visual arts) or producing (in media arts), responding, and connecting reach across all of the arts. Learning these processes in various art forms contributes to your media literacy and to your experience (State Education Agency Directors of Arts Education 2013).
Media literacy is the ability to access, analyze, and evaluate media content. Viewing and responding to a dance performance includes both deconstruction and construction.
After you reflect upon the dance as a complete work, the next step is to take the dance apart. Deconstruction is analyzing or taking a dance performance apart. It is how you look at the components of the choreography, the dancers' performance, and the production elements of the work. Construction activities use the dance analysis (or deconstruction) as a basis for participating in a discussion about the dance, writing a dance report about a work you have viewed, or summarizing your findings and filing them in your memory bank along with your visual memories of the dance work.
When you attend a dance concert or view a video of a dance performance, you may have been assigned to write a dance report. A couple of strategies are useful for preparing you to write your response. Before you view the performance, read over the items or questions you have to cover in the report. When you view the dance, watch, hear, and feel the performance. Some people suggest reading the program notes about the dance after the concert. Your viewing experience of the dance provides the information from which to write your report.
In past centuries, literacy meant reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills. These skills remain foundational today; they have become the basis of 21st-century skills such as media literacy. When you gain an understanding of a media presentation and its components that create meaning, then you are engaging in media literacy.
Dance literacy includes knowledge of movement, music, theater, and arts terminology. Dance is multilingual through its various genres, their specific terminology, and the application of movement, choreographic, and aesthetic principles. Other facets of dance literacy include knowledge of rhythmic and musical languages, stagecraft and theater vocabularies, arts education, arts media processes, and production terminology. Dance literacy skills contribute to overall media literacy.
Activity 15.2 Explore
Analyzing a Dance Performance
When you view a dance performance, you use your skills in media literacy to analyze it. After you reflect on the dance as a complete work, the next step is to take the dance apart. It is how you look at the components of the choreography, the dancers' performance, and the production elements of the work. When you deconstruct a dance work, think about these questions:
- What do you think is the choreographer's message, idea, and theme?
- Were you able to discern the choreographic structure of the dance?
- How did the music interact or support the dance?
- Did the dancers' technique meet the requirements of the choreography?
- Did the dancers express the style of the choreography?
- Did the production elements of lighting and costuming support the presentation of the dance work and contribute to it as a work of art?
- Was the dance aesthetically moving to you?
- Would you consider this dance a work of art?
Multiple Intelligences
The theory of multiple intelligences (MI) and 21st-century educational theories have provided evidence that students acquire many ways of being smart through dance. These intelligences translate to other courses of study and into the workplace.
The theory of multiple intelligences was developed by an educational psychologist named Harold Gardner. Beginning in the 1980s, Gardner's original system of seven intelligences has expanded to nine; it continues to expand. The following list summarizes Gardner's nine intelligences. Your multiple intelligence quotient is really a combination of all of your intelligences. You may rate very high in certain intelligences and not as high in others. Gardner claims that you can strengthen and expand the intelligences that you ignore or challenge yourself (Gardner1983).
- Verbal-linguistic intelligence: Verbal skills and sensitivity to meaning and rhythm of words.
- Mathematical or logical intelligence: Conceptual and abstract thinking skills in both numerical and logic patterns.
- Musical intelligence: Understanding and ability to use rhythm, pitch, and texture.
- Visual-spatial intelligence: Thinking and visualizing using images in spatial and abstract configurations.
- Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence: Moving and handling objects with grace, skill, and artfulness.
- Interpersonal intelligence: Communicating appropriately with other people in relation to their moods, ideas, and directions.
- Intrapersonal intelligence: Self-awareness of feelings, values, and thinking processes.
- Naturalist intelligence: Recognizing and categorizing plants, animals, and other things in nature.
- Existential intelligence: Deep thinking about philosophical and essential questions about life and its meaning.
Adapted from http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/mi/index.html
Activity 15.3 Discover
Your Multiple Intelligences (MI)
Do you recognize some of your intelligences? The web resource includes a link to an MI test to take for fun and to find out the various ways you are smart. Then you can compare your MI with those of others in the class. Knowing your MI can give you insights into some possible career directions. Your MI can change over time as you develop other intelligences. Documenting your MI can be an interesting way to self-check and track your changes in the future.
Learn more about Discovering Dance.
Exploring Dance Composition
Dance composition is learning how to make a dance. During the dance composition process you explore a movement idea by creating dance movement or selecting steps in some dance genres, then you manipulate these elements and materials of dance into movement modules of various lengths to compose a dance.
Dance composition is learning how to make a dance. During the dance composition process you explore a movement idea by creating dance movement or selecting steps in some dance genres, then you manipulate these elements and materials of dance into movement modules of various lengths to compose a dance. To understand how to use your tools for composition, you need to be familiar with choreographic design principles, structures, and devices. For a dance work to have solidarity and value, the choreography should connect to aesthetic principles that underlie art works.
In the Movement Invention activity, you invented two contrasting dance phrases (a short series of movements that connect into a pattern) or longer sequences. In the next activities you will create a movement sequence (a group of movements that form a unit), and then you will develop a movement statement (similar to a sentence). All of these movement segments contain a beginning, a middle, and an end. Coupling movement sentences together builds a dance segment similar to a paragraph in writing. Regardless of how long or short it is, a dance composition focuses on the beginning, the middle, the end, and on the movement between these points. Creating and composing the movement is one part of the choreographic process. Checking to ensure choreographic principles underlie the dance modules requires you to analyze your composition during the process and when it is complete. Table 4.1 lists the basic choreographic principles that underlie a dance composition.
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The following sections lead you through the choreographic process as you compose your movement segments.
Creative and Choreographic Processes
Different dance scholars present similar creative and choreographic processes. Some scholars write about the creative process, while others write about the steps to create a dance. Both processes underlie making a dance.
The creative process in dance making requires a period of preparation in which you collect ideas. This preparation time should include time for developing choreographic ideas; in other words, you need to figure out the central idea and how to approach it. Next you have to experiment with movement for a deeper insight into the movement ideas. In later sessions, you evaluate the movement and determine what works and what does not work as part of the dance work. The final step in the process is elaborating on the movement ideas you have selected.
Another dance composition process uses similar steps. First, observe the world around you, and explore ways of imitating or symbolizing what you have observed using bodies and movement. Working by yourself, do movement explorations and collect external experiences by observing the work of others. During the composition process, group reflections and discussions provide feedback that should be sorted out as to how well it applies or transfers to the dance in progress. In creating a dance, use your synthesized information from exploration and reflection. After the performance, a final group reflection helps to analyze the process and the product. Then extend the group reflection to a journal of what you learned and what ideas have been sparked for future choreography.
You should know the reason behind your writing activities in relation to your movement activities. Choreographic journaling has been part of dance composition courses since at least the last quarter of the 20th century, and this type of journaling continues today.
In academic dance courses, you usually keep choreographic journals to collect written records of your observations, movement experiments, research, and findings as you go through the dance composition process. Often you write about personal goals in the class and challenges you have faced during a course. You also write about how as an individual or in a group you responded to the process or what you learned from it to help you frame or propose your next project.
With the creative and choreographic processes in mind, the next step is to survey your ingredients for making a dance. In chapter 3 you learned about the elements of dance that play a central role in creating a dance. However, other ingredients also contribute to dance composition.
Activity 4.2 Explore
Create a Movement Sequence
Using the locomotor movements from chapter 3, select two, three, or four even and uneven locomotor movements, and join them together into an 8-count movement sequence. Often movement sequences are parts of a longer movement statement. If a sequence appears to be complete, it may be referred to as a movement statement or sentence. This activity has two parts.
Part 1
Decide the order of the locomotor movements. Practice your movement sequence until you have it memorized. To add variety to the movement sequence, here are some ideas to try:
First, do the movement sequence as you created it. Repeat the sequence once at slow speed, then repeat it again at a faster speed. Changing the speed or timing on movements changes your energy or qualities of movement. Memorize these movement sequences in the order you chose.
Think about what energy, effort, or qualities you used in these repetitions and how they changed. Review the list of effort actions or movement qualities from chapter 3, and identify which ones you used. If you find a couple of undistinguishable efforts or movement qualities, try the movement again to clarify them.
Part 2
Now select two, three, or four different even and uneven locomotor movements or basic steps presented in chapter 3; these movements should be ones you are less comfortable with. Use these movements to create another movement sequence.Practice and memorize your new sequence. Again, perform the sequence four times using two or three different speeds. Then, do the first movement sequence followed by the second, or longer, sequence.
Reflect on these ideas about both movement phrases or sequences:
- The locomotor movements or steps you chose
- The differences in speeds
- How the energy, effort, effort actions, or movement qualities changed
How does the first movement sequence compare or contrast to your second movement sequence? Identify at least two similarities and two differences in movement, energy, effort, effort actions, and movement qualities when you changed the speed of your movement.
Summarize your reflections either on paper or in your mind. In a small group, take turns doing your two movement sequences following one another. Then present to the group your summary of the similarities and differences between the two movement sequences you created. Ask the group, "What did you see as similarities and differences after viewing my two movement sequences?"
Listening to the feedback of your peers may give you new ideas to try or to incorporate into your sequences. Observing others perform their movement inventions may give you more ideas to store away in your movement memory bank for future use.
Sources of Movement
Creating new dance movements comes from exploring and experimenting with movement possibilities. Exploring new ways to move may take you out of your comfort zone. As you mentally and physically record these experiments, keep in mind that they may or may not turn out to be movements you want to add to your movement memory bank. But don't let that stop you from experimenting. Although it does involve taking movement risks, your experiments are being done in the safe setting of a dance class.
Improvisation is creating movement or movement invention for making dances. Using different stimuli creates new movement. Internal stimuli could include exploring your spontaneous individual movements based on touch, auditory, or visual sources. External stimuli could come from music, a work of art, nature, or an everyday task.
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During improvisation, the teacher can provide valuable feedback or suggestions about the movement or poses being created.
When a group is looking for solutions to a problem, they often brainstorm, and together they consider a number of options. Improvisation is similar to brainstorming; in fact, it has been called body storming. You can practice body storming by yourself or with a group. Doing movement improvisation with a group can be a lot of fun, and it allows you to gather or share new movement ideas. While improvising, use the somatic movement awareness principles and Laban effort actions. Experiment with how these important actions connect to space, time, energy, and weight to create new dynamics in your dancing.
Sources for improvisation can be visual, words, poetry, tasks, senses, or someone else's movement or dances. These movement experiments or improvisations have several forms:
- Free-form improvisations are self-expression based on the premise of you moving and responding to music. This type of improvisational study can be a movement response to auditory, visual, textural, or a combination of stimuli.
- Semi-structured movement experiments solve a problem, answer the question, or have different points that the teacher or you determine as the criteria for composing the work.
- A structured improvisation is an experimental movement sequence that is loosely structured and practiced. Quite often a group work, the choreographer identifies movement sections or specific movement pictures that the group has developed during practice. These sections or pictures give the work an overall form and an artistic focus.
When you view or discuss an improvisation, you need a framework to help keep the discussion focused on the composition instead of on personal likes and dislikes. One system for discussing dance is known as RADS,which stands for using the following components: relationships, actions, dynamics, and use of space. Try it after a movement invention session or apply it as a self-analysis to your own movement improvisation.
Improvisation is a creative way to extend your personal movement repertory and styles. Practicing the many forms of improvisation helps you tap into your own creative force, enhancing your experience as a dancer and as a dance maker.
Learn more about Discovering Dance.
Discovering Cultural Dance
Dance has been called the universal language; you live in a world that dances.
Dance has been called the universal language; you live in a world that dances. Take a look at the map of the world and its continents (figure 8.1). Geographers have identified distinct natural and physical features (ecosystems) in regions throughout the world. Studying a geographic region that supports human culture is also known as cultural geography. Within these geographic regions are specific cultural regions of the world.
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Regions of the world.
In each of these cultural regions are countries, people of various racial and ethnic groups, and their cultural values. Their arts include dances from aboriginals or first people (the original people who inhabited the land since millennia ago) who migrated to these regions because of war, famine, economic hardship, or other reasons. The common elements of culture include the following (Blankenship in press):
- It is a way of life, learned and shared with future generations.
- It changes with time and is symbolic.
- The economy drives a culture.
Culture is a community or society's knowledge, beliefs, values, customs, and common heritage. If you were to look at the cultural geographic areas of the world, you would encounter commonalities and differences that make each country or region unique. People have many different views about defining and describing dance from geographic or cultural regions of the world. Some people consider dances from across these regions to be examples of world dance, while others might call these dances cultural dance. Regardless of where you live in the world, you participate in dances that reflect a lot or a little of the culture.
Activity 8.1 Explore
Dance Around the World
Using a map of the world, survey the geographic region that your teacher assigns to your group. Search a region's or country's website, then describe the physical features of each region or country. Next, research and describe the people of that area and their culture, and find examples of a traditional dance they perform. If you can locate a video performance of the dance, write a brief descriptive summary about it. In your summary include the following information:
- Background or history of the dance
- Who dances
- When and where the dance is performed
Describe the music that accompanies the dance and the dancers' clothing. Add a photo of the dancers performing, and list references or web links to your online sources.
Did You Know?
People Like Me
People Like Me is the arts education program of the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festivaland World Arts West. For 15 seasons this organization has presented an extraordinary festival featuring dancers and dance companies that represent cultures around the world. On their website, the festival provides their Online Encyclopedia of World Dance, which includes performers, information about selected dances and dance styles, musical instruments, and history of the dance style. Attending the festival to view cultural dance performances by artists from across the world would be an awesome experience. Visiting the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival and World Arts West website provides easy access to a virtual tour of dance around the world.
Exploring Cultural Dance
Specific countries have dances that identify with a region and its culture immediately. For example, African dances or Indian dances have styles that make them readily identifiable, as do other cultural dances from across the globe.
When you study dances as part of a culture, you are using different lenses to see each dance in its cultural context. Earlier in this chapter, you discovered that culture is a concept in human geography. It also has deep connections to the fields of cultural anthropology, ethnology, and ethnomusicology. Cultural anthropology is the study of humans and their culture, which includes social structures, languages, laws, religion, arts, and technology. Ethnology is the study of the cultural life of a community. An ethnologist lives in a community for several years to record the everyday life of the people and their culture. Ethnomusicology is the study of a people's music in relation to its culture or society. Ethnomusicologists may extend their study to dances performed to the music of the culture.
Countries all over the world have traditional dances, but they are actually evolving products of history, migration, wars, and political and societal changes of the people who perform them. Today, in one country you can encounter many cultural dances, including the following:
- Dances of aboriginals or first people.
- Dances of early settlers who migrated to the area and brought their culture to their new home. In various historical eras, the dances may have colonial or postcolonial versions.
- Blended dances created after wars changed a people and their culture. These dances are not created overnight. In an invaded country, the original people and the new arrivals may or may not embrace each other's cultures or dances. A cultural clash may occur, and the two groups may resist each other's influence. Blending outside influences into existing traditions takes place over time.
- Newer variations of traditional dances that evolve from generation to generation. These dances absorb and blend personal, group, and societal trends that can change a dance and its performance.
- Dances of tribes, first people, and ethnic groups who strive to keep their ancestral traditions alive in contemporary society. People preserve these dances to share their heritage with the young people of their community.
All cultural dances presented in the overview of dance types connect to the three common elements of a culture (see Discovering Cultural Dance).
If you add all these elements together, you get two deep understandings:
- Culture is about participating as a community; it can be related to ritual, spiritual, and life events and celebrations.
- Culture can be defined as a way of life that is learned, shared with future generations, and changes with time.
Participating, viewing, and learning about cultural dance and the roles it plays in societies leads to awareness and appreciation of other people and their cultural values.
Experiencing a cultural dance means taking a look at the movement from the perspectives of both the cultural dancer and the requirements of the dance. The ideas you have learned about other dance forms so far or will encounter in this book may not apply to cultural dances. So, discard your preconception of cultural dances, and involve yourself in perceiving and experiencing the movement. Then you will be poised to find the meaning or essence of the dance and gain some insights about the dancers who perform it. Experiencing cultural dance requires you to observe through a different kind of dance lens; you must see as an ethnologist would, paying attention to the dance in the context of its home culture.
Explore More
Take a virtual dance tour! On the web resource, you will visit a variety of countries across the globe. Each country provides an overview of its geography, history, and some of its most important dances. Key search terms in some of the dance genres provide ways to view and learn a dance or movement sequence. The dance tour provides an overview from which you can explore more through researching the countries and their wealth of dances.
Mexico
Mexico has a wealth of natural and cultural resources, with diverse landscapes from mountains to jungles, and historic traditions reaching back more than 3,000 years. Mexican dance captures the rhythm, emotion, and movement of a vibrant society with a heritage rich in tradition.
America
The United States is a country of vast natural and cultural resources and is populated by people from a vast variety of cultural heritage. Since prehistoric times, Native Americans have danced to express their traditions and cultural values. Contemporary urban dance forms began to express social changes in the United States during the latter 20th century.
Europe
Europe is a huge continent with many nationalities and their dances. Chapter 7 (Folk Dance) contains a variety of folk dances from countries throughout Europe, Russia, and other countries.
Africa
Africa is the second largest continent in the world with 54 countries. African people and cultures represent a diversity of economic and social structures with various beliefs, religions, and arts. For centuries African cultural dance has captured the spirit of life events, community and spiritual beliefs, and identities of tribes and clans of various regions.
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© Anke Van Wyk | Dreamstime.com
In Africa, dance is an integral part of ceremonies, festivals, and rites. African dances are done in many countries throughout the world.
India
India is the seventh largest country in the world. For nearly 3,000 years, dance art has existed in India and is a significant aspect in Indian culture. Classical Indian dance includes a wide range of forms and styles that reflect various geographic centers, history, and traditions.
Japan
Japan is a group of islands off the east coast of Asia. According to legend, Japan was founded in the 7th century BCE. Japanese cultural dances relate to religions and social eras in Japanese history. Japanese cultural dance forms and styles span historical court dances, religious dances, and traditional folk dances. In Japan, dance remains an integral part of historical theatrical entertainment.
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VWPics via AP Images
Japanese dances are passed from generation to generation.
Exploring these countries is just the starting place for learning about cultural dance. You may want to continue your virtual travels to other countries. These countries may connect to your family heritage, a place where a friend came from, or a country you hope to visit in the future. Whatever the reason, you can go there today and share what you learned with the class.
Activity 8.2 Explore
Learn a Cultural Dance
In a small group, find a dance from the country you visited on the web in the exploration activity Dance Around the World. The cultural dance you select could be
- a traditional dance,
- a folk dance,
- a social dance,
- a dance that provides entertainment for visitors, or
- a dance that is considered an art form or part of another art such as drama or theater.
Find two videos of the dance. After watching the videos, learn several movements, poses, a movement sequence, or the entire dance. Through your reading and research about this dance can you discover
- who dances,
- when and where they dance, and
- why they dance.
Identify a list of unique characteristics of the dance (review dance designs in chapter 5). Then, further explore the background and history of the dance to answer this question: How does the dance relate to or represent the people, their culture, and society?
Spotlight
Dance Diplomacy
In early 2010 modern and contemporary dance makers from the groups Urban Bush Women, ODC, and Evidence, a dance company, took part in the first U.S. pilot program to tour internationally as the gateway of cultural exchange among nations. The purpose of this "dance diplomacy" was to create a model cultural exchange initiative. The international tour, supported by the U.S. Department of State, reached global audiences of more than 15,000 in 16 cities of 9 countries in Southeast Asia, South America, and Africa. The second season in 2012 reached global audiences of 25,000 in 24 cities in 13 countries in Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia.
U.S. embassies and the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs partner with dance companies, leading cultural and community-based organizations, and educational institutions to host unique residencies that create opportunities for engagement and exchange. One of these cultural exchanges is DanceMotionUSA, which sends American dance companies overseas to connect with audiences through workshops, lecture demonstrations, and public performances.
Learn more about Discovering Dance.
Discovering Dance as Entertainment
As you read the introduction to this chapter, you may have recognized some of the forms of dance as entertainment that you knew or have even taken part in. Some of these forms are live performances, and others are performed for recorded media, yet others focus on commercial dance.
As you read the introduction to this chapter, you may have recognized some of the forms of dance as entertainment that you knew or have even taken part in. Some of these forms are live performances, and others are performed for recorded media, yet others focus on commercial dance.Your first activity is an exploration of a form of commercial dance.
Activity 13.1 Explore
Dance in Commercials
Many television commercials use dance to sell products or services. To begin this exploration, spend some time surfing television channels. Select two of your favorite commercials that include dance. Write a one-page paper about one of the commercials. Describe the dancers, the setting, the dance, and why they are dancing. What message do you think is being communicated through the dance? Are the music and dialogue effective parts of the commercial? What product is being featured in the commercial? Do you think the dancing makes connections to the product to sell it effectively? What appeals to you (or doesn't appeal to you) about the dance and the commercial? Write a paragraph to critique the commercial. Search for this commercial on the Internet. In your paper, include a photo and a link for viewing the commercial online.
As a class, share your commercial review papers in the classroom or on the school or class's webpage. If several people selected the same commercial, post them together. Then select two other commercials posted that you did not view but capture your interest. In a class discussion, determine the top three dance commercials, and provide a rationale for these choices using the same criteria you used for your commercial review. On a sheet of paper or the board, post these "awards" with that group of commercial reviews.
Did You Know?
Cruise Ship Performers
The top cruise lines vie for passengers by offering an array of dance, musical theater, and media entertainment options. From shortened versions of Broadway shows to aqua theaters where an underwater civilization comes to life, each cruise line has multiple entertainment options for travelers. Behind the scenes, the life for dancers and other entertainers revolves around rehearsing and performing the shows. Dancers should have training in a wide variety of dance genres and styles. With two performances or more per day, or twelve performances or more per week, production show dancers have a busy schedule. A production show dancer may have additional roles on nonproduction show evenings and other occasions such as greet passengers or lead and escort tours of the bridge and backstage areas. On cruise ships, which can be like a small city on the sea, show dancers must be ready for living in close quarters and get used to dancing on a stage that moves with the rocking motion of the ship. In their spare time, dancers have staff access on deck and to facilities such as the pool and the gym. If you love to travel, this is a job in which you can dance your way to new destinations.
Exploring Dance as Entertainment
Dance entertainment is a vast topic and an important component of dance. As a viewer of dance entertainment, you see the collaboration between dance artists, directors, and media or live production staff. These collaborators create ways to use dance choreography to entertain audiences or sell products or services in various settings. To prepare for dancing in commercial or entertainment settings, you have to be versatile as a dancer. You must study social dance, folk dance, cultural dance, street dance, ballet, modern dance, jazz, and tap dance. When you explore the section on dance unions in chapter 15 and on the web resource, you will see job listings that outline the dance genres a dancer needs to have for these jobs. A job can be for a one-performance event, or it might last for years, such as a musical theater performance on Broadway or a yearlong touring show. Commercial dancers who go from job to job are called dance gypsies, because their work is constantly changing from one show to another.
History of Dance as Entertainment
Professional dancers have worked as entertainers since prehistory. In ancient Egypt, the first recorded professional dancers, along with acrobats and musicians, entertained royalty. In ancient Greece dance was part of theater. From medieval times through the renaissance, dance was entertainment and amusement for nobles and peasants alike.
During modern history as dance moved onstage, dance as entertainment was part of other art forms or as interludes between dramas and operas. In the 19th century, dance continued to gain stature through entertainment such as minstrel shows, circuses, spectacles, fairs, variety shows, and vaudeville performances. Dance performances took place outdoors, in music and variety halls, theaters, and arenas. When the transcontinental railway system linked the nation from coast to coast, dance as entertainment exploded. Entire troupes or stock companies or self-contained companies who performed all types of entertainment forms, traveled the country by train; they stopped in cities and small towns to entertain people for the night. These companies were made up of versatile triple threat performers - those who did all the acting, dancing, and singing roles required in an evening's entertainment.
In the 20th century, the love of dance as entertainment grew in new directions. Broadway revues evolved into musical theater productions. With the invention of motion pictures and then television, dance moved into entertainment mass media.
For Broadway shows, dance artists and choreographers from ballet and modern dance companies created dances in early-20th-century follies (elaborate shows with music, songs, and dances), revues, and then musicals. As musical theater dance developed, it continued to absorb the styles of dance genres such as tap dance, ballet, modern dance, and jazz dance. Each musical theater production had its unique choreography using blended styles. Broadway shows tour throughout the world, bringing classical and contemporary musical theater productions to millions of people.
Dance movies have been popular since the early days of film. Producing these movies took hundreds of dancers, such as in the work of Busby Berkeley in the 1920s as a Broadway dance director and in 1930s movies where he directed musical numbers which led to his fame. Dance movies became an important area of commercial dance. Dancers and choreographers have entertained and educated audiences in historical dramas, animated movies, movie musicals, and science fiction movies alike. Animated movies in which characters danced were the invention of Walt Disney and his creative staff. Characters such as Snow White and the dancing dwarfs, princesses, and all kinds of creatures perform animated dances. In the 1950s, Gene Kelly bridged the gap between animation and live characters when he danced with an animated mouse in the film Anchors Away (1945).
With the advent of television, dance moved into variety shows, such as the Ed Sullivan Show. They showcased a wide variety of dance artists and choreographers and made them household names across America. As television programming expanded, so did the opportunities for dance shows. The popular Dance in America series brought ballet and modern dance companies to homes across America. Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) continues to provide diverse programming of dance as art, entertainment, and education.
Over the last decade, reality dance shows such as So You Think You Can Dance and Dancing With the Stars have expanded dance audiences and their appreciation of dance. Televised dance or drill team competitions and other associated dance competitions present another aspect of dance as entertainment. Television programming now includes an array of dance entertainment, including sitcoms and documentary series on dancers, their personal lives, musical theater, and dance genres from around the world.
After Disneyland opened in the 1950s, amusement and theme parks became another mass entertainment medium. Dance became an important feature in theme parks across the nation and the world. Dancing characters from the movies reside in different areas of these parks. In each park, one or more companies of dancers perform short entertainment shows throughout the day, every day. Dancers perform blended historical, cultural, or social dance styles to entertain park visitors. The Disney concept of performers - being in character and onstage while walking in the park or dancing - spurred an entire entertainment industry. Other live entertainment settings, including cruise ships, casinos, and resorts, provide multiple dancing stage shows as entertainment for guests.
When Internet technology expanded, another entertainment site emerged that would support dance films, recorded dance performance, and ways to interact in real time with dancers and choreographers across the globe. In the 20th century the term dance for the camera was coined to describe dance that was filmed as art, education, or entertainment. Productions of dance for the camera include documentaries of dancers and choreographers, historical and educational movies, concert and cultural dance companies, and performances of choreographed artistic dance films. These dance films are broadcast on television, shown in schools, or shown as fine art films. On the Internet, anyone can post a personal dance video to be viewed by the class, the school, and often the entire world. Dance for the camera has expanded into a whole new dimension that requires understanding dance as well as the art of filming it. To create dance for the camera, you need to grasp the artistic and production values, choices, and processes that are part of creating a filmed work.
Explore More
You can see from this brief overview that there is much to explore in dance as entertainment and its commercial sector. The Explore More sections on the web resource will explore three dance entertainment genres: dance or drill teams, dance in musical theater, and dance for the camera.
Dance or Drill Teams
Dance or drill teams range from students in middle school, high school, and college to professionals who perform at local sporting events to televised professional sports. Halftime shows for many sports feature dance or drill teams. Dance or drill teams perform for school games and community functions, and they take part in dance and drill team competitions. Their routines showcase their ensemble technique, spirit, and enthusiasm for the crowds. Training for dance and drill team requires athleticism and artistry. Dance and drill teams began as a Texas phenomenon that has spread across the United States and around the world. Visit the chapter 13 on the web resource to explore more about dance and drill teams.
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A dance team moves together to create a powerful effect.
Courtesy of Jennifer Dawson, Terri Ware, and Silver Star Dancers
Activity 13.2 Discover
Learn a Drill or Dance Team Combination
For this activity, your teacher or a classmate teaches one or more basic drill or dance combinations to the class. After everyone has learned and practiced the routine to music, take a few minutes to reflect on the experience. In your journal, write about what you enjoyed in the routine, what was challenging, and which type of routine you preferred and why. Share it with another student or in a group discussion.
Dance in Musical Theater
Musical theater dance spans school musicals, professional productions on the Broadway stage, and touring companies that travel to cities across the world. Becoming a musical theater dancer takes versatile dance training and other performing arts skills such as acting, music, and voice. The challenge in every musical theater production is to blend dancing, acting, and singing to portray your role. Visit the web resource to explore more about musical theater dance.
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Musical theater productions feature a blend of singing, dancing, and acting.
Jim West
Activity 13.3 Explore
Dance in Musical Theater
Choose a musical from the list provided by your teacher. Form a small group with other students who chose the same musical theater production. Together, search the Internet to find a video of a major dance sequence or dance combination from that musical. Your teacher may provide you with a list of dances from which to choose. View the dance number, then answer these questions:
- Identify each main character, and write a sentence or two about each person to describe their personality.
- Where does the dance take place?
- What inspires the characters to do this dance?
Describe the dance, the music, and whether it includes a song that is part of the musical number.
Collaborate as a group to develop, write, and present a 1- or 2-minute oral summary or a media presentation to the class to cover this information:
- Provide the story line (plot) of the musical.
- Identify the choreographer and give a very brief summary (two or three sentences) of the individual's contributions to the field.
- Indicate the main characters by writing a two- to three-sentence biography about each person.
- Describe the dance, the music, and the song in the musical number that you viewed.
Post a one-page summary of your group's information in the classroom or on the class web page. Add a picture that captures the meaning of the musical, or take a photo of your group in a memorable pose from the dance you researched. On your media presentation and one-page summary, cite the sources for your research.
Dance for the Camera
Dance in film, television, music videos, and other media forms provides entertainment for audiences. It also provides choreographers and dancers more media choices for presenting dance as an art form. Dance for the camera is term that covers entertainment, artistic, and multimedia forms of presenting dance. Filming dance has been instrumental in documenting its artists and works for the public to enjoy. Further, dance media has expanded dancers' views about how to complement or enhance a live performance. The final Explore More section investigates the types of media used in dance for the camera.
Learn more about Discovering Dance.
Discovering College and Career Preparation
Moving in new ways, remembering movement sequences, and executing them in time to music within changing formations and pathways is challenging.
Moving in new ways, remembering movement sequences, and executing them in time to music within changing formations and pathways is challenging. Dancing is a complicated process that requires mental and physical coordination, memorization, problem solving, refining, and performing. Like sports and many other fine arts, dancing demands that you juggle many factors to perform at your best. College and careers demand the same.
The processes of dancing, dance making, and dance appreciation fuel the discipline of dance. Across the arts the processes of creating, performing, responding, and interconnecting support other studies. Learning the movement languages of dance genres helps you not only in dance-related studies and careers but also in other arts-related disciplines and in life.
Activity 15.1 Research
College and Career Options
Write a list of two or three potential careers in dance, fine arts, or another discipline that you are interested in learning more about. Do an Internet search about each career, and note the following factors:
- Educational requirements
- Skills and abilities needed for this career
- Working conditions (for example, hours)
- Pay range and other benefits
- Personal benefits and values someone in this career would receive
After you have collected the answers to these questions for each career path, write a short descriptive paragraph about each career, and share it with the class.
In another document, write what appeals to you about this career. Also add what you think are your challenges in considering this career. Decide whether this career is a future possibility for further consideration or it is not a direction you wish to pursue.
Did You Know?
Dance Employment
The U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics posts the Occupational Outlook Handbook on its website (www.bls.gov). This handbook includes employment information about dancers and choreographers as part of the country's work force. These government data provide information about work environment, pay scale, and job outlook for the future as well as other information. In 2010 about 25,600 dancers and choreographers held jobs. Approximately 20 percent of dancers in performing arts companies and about 78 percent of choreographers work in a variety of schools and other places (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2012).
Employment of dancers is expected to increase at about 11 percent with a projected employment of 13,700 more people by 2020. This percentage is in the average range of all occupations. Employment of choreographers is projected to increase 24 percent with a projected employment of 16,400 by 2020. This is faster than the average for all occupations. The growing interest in dance as entertainment attracts people to enroll in dance classes. In turn, this growth in enrollment creates employment opportunities in television, movies, and other leisure settings.
Exploring Dance and Associated Careers
Imagine you are looking for a job, and you see an advertisement that reads, "Employer looking for creative, innovative, adaptive thinkers. If you are qualified, please apply." As a dancer, you can meet these and other requirements for work in the 21st century. Dancing, dance making, and thinking like a dancer train you in the skills you need for your education and career.
The time since the start of the new millennium has seen tremendous changes at a rapid pace. This quick pace is in part because of advances in technology that affect everyday lives and careers. Near the end of the 20th century, some of the world's greatest thinkers began to investigate what types of knowledge and skills 21st-century workers and citizens would need to be successful. As a result, they identified various types of learning and literacy such as financial, environmental, artistic, and others.
Across these categories, a series of broad topics reach from school to work, into the community, and the world:
- Communication
- Creativity
- Collaboration
- Critical thinking
The skills that support these four C's for 21st-century learning are presented in table 15.1.
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Scanning the entries in table 15.1 can be overwhelming. Pause a moment, and reflect on the assignments you did in the chapters of this book and your other class work. Then, recall the dance learning processes contained in the items listed. The point to remember is that the four topics contain major knowledge and skills that span dance and other disciplines of study as preparation for college and careers. In table 15.1 you will see that some of the skills identified cross one or more of the four categories.
Acquiring these attributes is a long-term process; it can take many years to complete. Reading these ideas gives you an understanding of how learning spans from the classroom through experiences in your community and life. These four C's are deeply embedded in dancing, dance making, and dance appreciation processes:
- Communicating through dance: In dance you communicate when you create, perform, or reflect on a dance work. In making a dance, the choreographer, dancers, and associated artistic staff need common arts vocabularies to effectively communicate, analytical skills to solve problems, and negotiation and teamwork skills along with an array of management skills to create and produce a dance performance.
- Creativity: When choreographers and dancers analyze and solve movement problems in a dance work, they use the creative process. The choreographer approaches an idea or theme for a dance and creatively seeks a choreographic design through which to communicate a cohesive artistic statement. The audience viewing a dance reflects and analyzes what they perceive as the meaning and the design of the dance work. Their feedback may be communicated to the dancers, choreographer, artistic staff, or the community. These responses can influence the direction of a choreographer's future works, artistic directions, or a company's finances.
- Collaboration: Collaboration is an integral part of dancing and creating artistic works with other artists. Improvisational structures and dance compositional forms require that dancers work as a highly functioning team to perform a dance. In dance making, choreographers strategically plan movement for dancers to communicate ideas. Associated artists join forces to present a unified message in an artistic work.
- Critical thinking: Through all dance processes, dancers and choreographers, associated artists, and audience members use critical thinking. Dancers have to make logical and quick decisions during a dance for safety or for artistic expression. Choreographers use analytical skills along with management and technology skills to make dances that satisfy an artistic mission and to meet business goals. Dance audiences determine whether attending a dance company performance will be a continuing venture.
Dance provides a wide range of professional career options in communities, cities, and around the world. Dance careers span areas of the arts and entertainment, media, fitness, recreation, business, education, technical fields, and other areas.
As you learned in chapter13, dance as entertainment is big business. Dance in education spans from preschool through university and graduate education, and into communities and people's lives across the nation as participation or through education, performance, and advocacy. Dance studios, gyms, recreation centers, and performing arts organizations have expanded their community contributions as more and more people realize the importance and contribution of dance and the other arts to their lives. Dance professional organizations provide continuing professional development for students, educators, artists, scientists, writers, and others interested or involved in dance as profession or associated professions. Dance professionals work as performers and in many roles that support dance performance. Often professionals with a dance background work in associated fields such as dance therapy, kinesiology, production, media, and arts administration. Their presence as dance professionals in these fields brings deeper perspectives to new audiences of how dance can play a role in other disciplines.
Transferring Dance Skills to Life Skills
Life and career skills - the skills you need in order to succeed in work and life - require four characteristics: flexibility, adaptability, taking initiative, and being self-directed. In school, work, and community you should demonstrate cross-cultural and leadership skills. In your school and career, you should be responsible, productive, and accountable for your work. In the dance class you cultivate dancer attributes that then apply in your dancing and personal development.
Your experience in dance develops a number of traits that apply to other life endeavors. Personal development through dance for future career directions beyond dance include these:
- Physical, intellectual, and kinesthetic awareness
- Fine-tuned observation skills
- Enhanced focus and concentration
- Extended self-discipline, responsibility, and empathy
- Perception and sensory awareness of personal movement and others' movement choices and styles
- Versatility, ability to adapt, and flexibility in various situations
- Expanded interpersonal (mental and physical attributes you share with others) and intrapersonal (the internal conversation you have with yourself) communication skills
Observation and Awareness
Observation skills are critical to learning dance and are essential in any career. Observational skills take time to develop. Concentrated observation helps you acquire visual, auditory, and sensory information. As a dancer you filter through this information and determine how it applies to get the desired result.
Dancers learn to coordinate movements of body parts in a step or movement. This complicated coordination of brain and body improves as you move through more complex exercises, combinations, dance sequences, and dances. When you memorize movement you initiate an internal cueing system that engages a complicated synergy of intellectual and body actions with the elements of space, time, energy, or effort. So, what you do in dance contributes directly to your personal development in dance and also to future directions beyond dance. When you take dance classes or perform, you develop these skills:
- Using interpersonal spatial awareness
- Having a physical and intellectual presence in space
- Creating movement as a result of being internally sensitive and intuitive
- Acquiring performance awareness and a professional attitude
- Reading movement and then reproducing the movement (translate it, transpose it) presented by the teacher or choreographer
- Memorizing movements and dances to create a memory bank
- Understanding movement systems, genres, and styles
Creativity and Communication
When composing a dance, you use the creative process to formulate a design and structure for dance movements. You use the creative process in dance when you experiment with the following:
- Determining movement patterns as part of choreography and choreographic designs in space and time using a range of energy or efforts
- Manipulating the order of movements to make a logical statement using seamless transitions
- Using choreographic structures and strategies for augmentations
- Connecting musical knowledge to movement sequences
- Relating visual design elements of patterns, relationships to dance, and identifying styles to apply or augment
- Applying movement, choreographic, and aesthetic principles to dancing and dance composition
- Employing stagecraft and media knowledge in producing the work
Producing a dance is a complicated process that combines design elements, problem-solving skills, and communication with artists and technicians. When you practice these processes, you enhance your abilities as a dancer and create conduits that relate to many associated dance careers.
Media and Artistic Literacy
When you view dances, you develop a visual and mental store of classical to contemporary dance works. Dancers and choreographers have used this system of "recording" to create a memory bank since before the common use of notation systems and electronic recording systems. These mental memories of movements combine with kinesthetic responses you receive from watching dancers perform. Your response to a dance in conversation, discussion, or written forms is also kinesthetic in nature. Translating movement experiences into descriptive and meaningful commentary supports and expands your dance and artistic literacy and your media literacy.
Artistic literacy is the knowledge and understanding required to participate authentically in the arts. Arts include dance, music, dramatic art, visual art, and media. The arts contain content, principles, and applications that are common to them as art forms. In artistic literacy, the processes of creating, performing (in dance, music, or theater), presenting (in the visual arts) or producing (in media arts), responding, and connecting reach across all of the arts. Learning these processes in various art forms contributes to your media literacy and to your experience (State Education Agency Directors of Arts Education 2013).
Media literacy is the ability to access, analyze, and evaluate media content. Viewing and responding to a dance performance includes both deconstruction and construction.
After you reflect upon the dance as a complete work, the next step is to take the dance apart. Deconstruction is analyzing or taking a dance performance apart. It is how you look at the components of the choreography, the dancers' performance, and the production elements of the work. Construction activities use the dance analysis (or deconstruction) as a basis for participating in a discussion about the dance, writing a dance report about a work you have viewed, or summarizing your findings and filing them in your memory bank along with your visual memories of the dance work.
When you attend a dance concert or view a video of a dance performance, you may have been assigned to write a dance report. A couple of strategies are useful for preparing you to write your response. Before you view the performance, read over the items or questions you have to cover in the report. When you view the dance, watch, hear, and feel the performance. Some people suggest reading the program notes about the dance after the concert. Your viewing experience of the dance provides the information from which to write your report.
In past centuries, literacy meant reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills. These skills remain foundational today; they have become the basis of 21st-century skills such as media literacy. When you gain an understanding of a media presentation and its components that create meaning, then you are engaging in media literacy.
Dance literacy includes knowledge of movement, music, theater, and arts terminology. Dance is multilingual through its various genres, their specific terminology, and the application of movement, choreographic, and aesthetic principles. Other facets of dance literacy include knowledge of rhythmic and musical languages, stagecraft and theater vocabularies, arts education, arts media processes, and production terminology. Dance literacy skills contribute to overall media literacy.
Activity 15.2 Explore
Analyzing a Dance Performance
When you view a dance performance, you use your skills in media literacy to analyze it. After you reflect on the dance as a complete work, the next step is to take the dance apart. It is how you look at the components of the choreography, the dancers' performance, and the production elements of the work. When you deconstruct a dance work, think about these questions:
- What do you think is the choreographer's message, idea, and theme?
- Were you able to discern the choreographic structure of the dance?
- How did the music interact or support the dance?
- Did the dancers' technique meet the requirements of the choreography?
- Did the dancers express the style of the choreography?
- Did the production elements of lighting and costuming support the presentation of the dance work and contribute to it as a work of art?
- Was the dance aesthetically moving to you?
- Would you consider this dance a work of art?
Multiple Intelligences
The theory of multiple intelligences (MI) and 21st-century educational theories have provided evidence that students acquire many ways of being smart through dance. These intelligences translate to other courses of study and into the workplace.
The theory of multiple intelligences was developed by an educational psychologist named Harold Gardner. Beginning in the 1980s, Gardner's original system of seven intelligences has expanded to nine; it continues to expand. The following list summarizes Gardner's nine intelligences. Your multiple intelligence quotient is really a combination of all of your intelligences. You may rate very high in certain intelligences and not as high in others. Gardner claims that you can strengthen and expand the intelligences that you ignore or challenge yourself (Gardner1983).
- Verbal-linguistic intelligence: Verbal skills and sensitivity to meaning and rhythm of words.
- Mathematical or logical intelligence: Conceptual and abstract thinking skills in both numerical and logic patterns.
- Musical intelligence: Understanding and ability to use rhythm, pitch, and texture.
- Visual-spatial intelligence: Thinking and visualizing using images in spatial and abstract configurations.
- Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence: Moving and handling objects with grace, skill, and artfulness.
- Interpersonal intelligence: Communicating appropriately with other people in relation to their moods, ideas, and directions.
- Intrapersonal intelligence: Self-awareness of feelings, values, and thinking processes.
- Naturalist intelligence: Recognizing and categorizing plants, animals, and other things in nature.
- Existential intelligence: Deep thinking about philosophical and essential questions about life and its meaning.
Adapted from http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/mi/index.html
Activity 15.3 Discover
Your Multiple Intelligences (MI)
Do you recognize some of your intelligences? The web resource includes a link to an MI test to take for fun and to find out the various ways you are smart. Then you can compare your MI with those of others in the class. Knowing your MI can give you insights into some possible career directions. Your MI can change over time as you develop other intelligences. Documenting your MI can be an interesting way to self-check and track your changes in the future.
Learn more about Discovering Dance.
Exploring Dance Composition
Dance composition is learning how to make a dance. During the dance composition process you explore a movement idea by creating dance movement or selecting steps in some dance genres, then you manipulate these elements and materials of dance into movement modules of various lengths to compose a dance.
Dance composition is learning how to make a dance. During the dance composition process you explore a movement idea by creating dance movement or selecting steps in some dance genres, then you manipulate these elements and materials of dance into movement modules of various lengths to compose a dance. To understand how to use your tools for composition, you need to be familiar with choreographic design principles, structures, and devices. For a dance work to have solidarity and value, the choreography should connect to aesthetic principles that underlie art works.
In the Movement Invention activity, you invented two contrasting dance phrases (a short series of movements that connect into a pattern) or longer sequences. In the next activities you will create a movement sequence (a group of movements that form a unit), and then you will develop a movement statement (similar to a sentence). All of these movement segments contain a beginning, a middle, and an end. Coupling movement sentences together builds a dance segment similar to a paragraph in writing. Regardless of how long or short it is, a dance composition focuses on the beginning, the middle, the end, and on the movement between these points. Creating and composing the movement is one part of the choreographic process. Checking to ensure choreographic principles underlie the dance modules requires you to analyze your composition during the process and when it is complete. Table 4.1 lists the basic choreographic principles that underlie a dance composition.
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The following sections lead you through the choreographic process as you compose your movement segments.
Creative and Choreographic Processes
Different dance scholars present similar creative and choreographic processes. Some scholars write about the creative process, while others write about the steps to create a dance. Both processes underlie making a dance.
The creative process in dance making requires a period of preparation in which you collect ideas. This preparation time should include time for developing choreographic ideas; in other words, you need to figure out the central idea and how to approach it. Next you have to experiment with movement for a deeper insight into the movement ideas. In later sessions, you evaluate the movement and determine what works and what does not work as part of the dance work. The final step in the process is elaborating on the movement ideas you have selected.
Another dance composition process uses similar steps. First, observe the world around you, and explore ways of imitating or symbolizing what you have observed using bodies and movement. Working by yourself, do movement explorations and collect external experiences by observing the work of others. During the composition process, group reflections and discussions provide feedback that should be sorted out as to how well it applies or transfers to the dance in progress. In creating a dance, use your synthesized information from exploration and reflection. After the performance, a final group reflection helps to analyze the process and the product. Then extend the group reflection to a journal of what you learned and what ideas have been sparked for future choreography.
You should know the reason behind your writing activities in relation to your movement activities. Choreographic journaling has been part of dance composition courses since at least the last quarter of the 20th century, and this type of journaling continues today.
In academic dance courses, you usually keep choreographic journals to collect written records of your observations, movement experiments, research, and findings as you go through the dance composition process. Often you write about personal goals in the class and challenges you have faced during a course. You also write about how as an individual or in a group you responded to the process or what you learned from it to help you frame or propose your next project.
With the creative and choreographic processes in mind, the next step is to survey your ingredients for making a dance. In chapter 3 you learned about the elements of dance that play a central role in creating a dance. However, other ingredients also contribute to dance composition.
Activity 4.2 Explore
Create a Movement Sequence
Using the locomotor movements from chapter 3, select two, three, or four even and uneven locomotor movements, and join them together into an 8-count movement sequence. Often movement sequences are parts of a longer movement statement. If a sequence appears to be complete, it may be referred to as a movement statement or sentence. This activity has two parts.
Part 1
Decide the order of the locomotor movements. Practice your movement sequence until you have it memorized. To add variety to the movement sequence, here are some ideas to try:
First, do the movement sequence as you created it. Repeat the sequence once at slow speed, then repeat it again at a faster speed. Changing the speed or timing on movements changes your energy or qualities of movement. Memorize these movement sequences in the order you chose.
Think about what energy, effort, or qualities you used in these repetitions and how they changed. Review the list of effort actions or movement qualities from chapter 3, and identify which ones you used. If you find a couple of undistinguishable efforts or movement qualities, try the movement again to clarify them.
Part 2
Now select two, three, or four different even and uneven locomotor movements or basic steps presented in chapter 3; these movements should be ones you are less comfortable with. Use these movements to create another movement sequence.Practice and memorize your new sequence. Again, perform the sequence four times using two or three different speeds. Then, do the first movement sequence followed by the second, or longer, sequence.
Reflect on these ideas about both movement phrases or sequences:
- The locomotor movements or steps you chose
- The differences in speeds
- How the energy, effort, effort actions, or movement qualities changed
How does the first movement sequence compare or contrast to your second movement sequence? Identify at least two similarities and two differences in movement, energy, effort, effort actions, and movement qualities when you changed the speed of your movement.
Summarize your reflections either on paper or in your mind. In a small group, take turns doing your two movement sequences following one another. Then present to the group your summary of the similarities and differences between the two movement sequences you created. Ask the group, "What did you see as similarities and differences after viewing my two movement sequences?"
Listening to the feedback of your peers may give you new ideas to try or to incorporate into your sequences. Observing others perform their movement inventions may give you more ideas to store away in your movement memory bank for future use.
Sources of Movement
Creating new dance movements comes from exploring and experimenting with movement possibilities. Exploring new ways to move may take you out of your comfort zone. As you mentally and physically record these experiments, keep in mind that they may or may not turn out to be movements you want to add to your movement memory bank. But don't let that stop you from experimenting. Although it does involve taking movement risks, your experiments are being done in the safe setting of a dance class.
Improvisation is creating movement or movement invention for making dances. Using different stimuli creates new movement. Internal stimuli could include exploring your spontaneous individual movements based on touch, auditory, or visual sources. External stimuli could come from music, a work of art, nature, or an everyday task.
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During improvisation, the teacher can provide valuable feedback or suggestions about the movement or poses being created.
When a group is looking for solutions to a problem, they often brainstorm, and together they consider a number of options. Improvisation is similar to brainstorming; in fact, it has been called body storming. You can practice body storming by yourself or with a group. Doing movement improvisation with a group can be a lot of fun, and it allows you to gather or share new movement ideas. While improvising, use the somatic movement awareness principles and Laban effort actions. Experiment with how these important actions connect to space, time, energy, and weight to create new dynamics in your dancing.
Sources for improvisation can be visual, words, poetry, tasks, senses, or someone else's movement or dances. These movement experiments or improvisations have several forms:
- Free-form improvisations are self-expression based on the premise of you moving and responding to music. This type of improvisational study can be a movement response to auditory, visual, textural, or a combination of stimuli.
- Semi-structured movement experiments solve a problem, answer the question, or have different points that the teacher or you determine as the criteria for composing the work.
- A structured improvisation is an experimental movement sequence that is loosely structured and practiced. Quite often a group work, the choreographer identifies movement sections or specific movement pictures that the group has developed during practice. These sections or pictures give the work an overall form and an artistic focus.
When you view or discuss an improvisation, you need a framework to help keep the discussion focused on the composition instead of on personal likes and dislikes. One system for discussing dance is known as RADS,which stands for using the following components: relationships, actions, dynamics, and use of space. Try it after a movement invention session or apply it as a self-analysis to your own movement improvisation.
Improvisation is a creative way to extend your personal movement repertory and styles. Practicing the many forms of improvisation helps you tap into your own creative force, enhancing your experience as a dancer and as a dance maker.
Learn more about Discovering Dance.
Discovering Cultural Dance
Dance has been called the universal language; you live in a world that dances.
Dance has been called the universal language; you live in a world that dances. Take a look at the map of the world and its continents (figure 8.1). Geographers have identified distinct natural and physical features (ecosystems) in regions throughout the world. Studying a geographic region that supports human culture is also known as cultural geography. Within these geographic regions are specific cultural regions of the world.
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Regions of the world.
In each of these cultural regions are countries, people of various racial and ethnic groups, and their cultural values. Their arts include dances from aboriginals or first people (the original people who inhabited the land since millennia ago) who migrated to these regions because of war, famine, economic hardship, or other reasons. The common elements of culture include the following (Blankenship in press):
- It is a way of life, learned and shared with future generations.
- It changes with time and is symbolic.
- The economy drives a culture.
Culture is a community or society's knowledge, beliefs, values, customs, and common heritage. If you were to look at the cultural geographic areas of the world, you would encounter commonalities and differences that make each country or region unique. People have many different views about defining and describing dance from geographic or cultural regions of the world. Some people consider dances from across these regions to be examples of world dance, while others might call these dances cultural dance. Regardless of where you live in the world, you participate in dances that reflect a lot or a little of the culture.
Activity 8.1 Explore
Dance Around the World
Using a map of the world, survey the geographic region that your teacher assigns to your group. Search a region's or country's website, then describe the physical features of each region or country. Next, research and describe the people of that area and their culture, and find examples of a traditional dance they perform. If you can locate a video performance of the dance, write a brief descriptive summary about it. In your summary include the following information:
- Background or history of the dance
- Who dances
- When and where the dance is performed
Describe the music that accompanies the dance and the dancers' clothing. Add a photo of the dancers performing, and list references or web links to your online sources.
Did You Know?
People Like Me
People Like Me is the arts education program of the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festivaland World Arts West. For 15 seasons this organization has presented an extraordinary festival featuring dancers and dance companies that represent cultures around the world. On their website, the festival provides their Online Encyclopedia of World Dance, which includes performers, information about selected dances and dance styles, musical instruments, and history of the dance style. Attending the festival to view cultural dance performances by artists from across the world would be an awesome experience. Visiting the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival and World Arts West website provides easy access to a virtual tour of dance around the world.
Exploring Cultural Dance
Specific countries have dances that identify with a region and its culture immediately. For example, African dances or Indian dances have styles that make them readily identifiable, as do other cultural dances from across the globe.
When you study dances as part of a culture, you are using different lenses to see each dance in its cultural context. Earlier in this chapter, you discovered that culture is a concept in human geography. It also has deep connections to the fields of cultural anthropology, ethnology, and ethnomusicology. Cultural anthropology is the study of humans and their culture, which includes social structures, languages, laws, religion, arts, and technology. Ethnology is the study of the cultural life of a community. An ethnologist lives in a community for several years to record the everyday life of the people and their culture. Ethnomusicology is the study of a people's music in relation to its culture or society. Ethnomusicologists may extend their study to dances performed to the music of the culture.
Countries all over the world have traditional dances, but they are actually evolving products of history, migration, wars, and political and societal changes of the people who perform them. Today, in one country you can encounter many cultural dances, including the following:
- Dances of aboriginals or first people.
- Dances of early settlers who migrated to the area and brought their culture to their new home. In various historical eras, the dances may have colonial or postcolonial versions.
- Blended dances created after wars changed a people and their culture. These dances are not created overnight. In an invaded country, the original people and the new arrivals may or may not embrace each other's cultures or dances. A cultural clash may occur, and the two groups may resist each other's influence. Blending outside influences into existing traditions takes place over time.
- Newer variations of traditional dances that evolve from generation to generation. These dances absorb and blend personal, group, and societal trends that can change a dance and its performance.
- Dances of tribes, first people, and ethnic groups who strive to keep their ancestral traditions alive in contemporary society. People preserve these dances to share their heritage with the young people of their community.
All cultural dances presented in the overview of dance types connect to the three common elements of a culture (see Discovering Cultural Dance).
If you add all these elements together, you get two deep understandings:
- Culture is about participating as a community; it can be related to ritual, spiritual, and life events and celebrations.
- Culture can be defined as a way of life that is learned, shared with future generations, and changes with time.
Participating, viewing, and learning about cultural dance and the roles it plays in societies leads to awareness and appreciation of other people and their cultural values.
Experiencing a cultural dance means taking a look at the movement from the perspectives of both the cultural dancer and the requirements of the dance. The ideas you have learned about other dance forms so far or will encounter in this book may not apply to cultural dances. So, discard your preconception of cultural dances, and involve yourself in perceiving and experiencing the movement. Then you will be poised to find the meaning or essence of the dance and gain some insights about the dancers who perform it. Experiencing cultural dance requires you to observe through a different kind of dance lens; you must see as an ethnologist would, paying attention to the dance in the context of its home culture.
Explore More
Take a virtual dance tour! On the web resource, you will visit a variety of countries across the globe. Each country provides an overview of its geography, history, and some of its most important dances. Key search terms in some of the dance genres provide ways to view and learn a dance or movement sequence. The dance tour provides an overview from which you can explore more through researching the countries and their wealth of dances.
Mexico
Mexico has a wealth of natural and cultural resources, with diverse landscapes from mountains to jungles, and historic traditions reaching back more than 3,000 years. Mexican dance captures the rhythm, emotion, and movement of a vibrant society with a heritage rich in tradition.
America
The United States is a country of vast natural and cultural resources and is populated by people from a vast variety of cultural heritage. Since prehistoric times, Native Americans have danced to express their traditions and cultural values. Contemporary urban dance forms began to express social changes in the United States during the latter 20th century.
Europe
Europe is a huge continent with many nationalities and their dances. Chapter 7 (Folk Dance) contains a variety of folk dances from countries throughout Europe, Russia, and other countries.
Africa
Africa is the second largest continent in the world with 54 countries. African people and cultures represent a diversity of economic and social structures with various beliefs, religions, and arts. For centuries African cultural dance has captured the spirit of life events, community and spiritual beliefs, and identities of tribes and clans of various regions.
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In Africa, dance is an integral part of ceremonies, festivals, and rites. African dances are done in many countries throughout the world.
India
India is the seventh largest country in the world. For nearly 3,000 years, dance art has existed in India and is a significant aspect in Indian culture. Classical Indian dance includes a wide range of forms and styles that reflect various geographic centers, history, and traditions.
Japan
Japan is a group of islands off the east coast of Asia. According to legend, Japan was founded in the 7th century BCE. Japanese cultural dances relate to religions and social eras in Japanese history. Japanese cultural dance forms and styles span historical court dances, religious dances, and traditional folk dances. In Japan, dance remains an integral part of historical theatrical entertainment.
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VWPics via AP Images
Japanese dances are passed from generation to generation.
Exploring these countries is just the starting place for learning about cultural dance. You may want to continue your virtual travels to other countries. These countries may connect to your family heritage, a place where a friend came from, or a country you hope to visit in the future. Whatever the reason, you can go there today and share what you learned with the class.
Activity 8.2 Explore
Learn a Cultural Dance
In a small group, find a dance from the country you visited on the web in the exploration activity Dance Around the World. The cultural dance you select could be
- a traditional dance,
- a folk dance,
- a social dance,
- a dance that provides entertainment for visitors, or
- a dance that is considered an art form or part of another art such as drama or theater.
Find two videos of the dance. After watching the videos, learn several movements, poses, a movement sequence, or the entire dance. Through your reading and research about this dance can you discover
- who dances,
- when and where they dance, and
- why they dance.
Identify a list of unique characteristics of the dance (review dance designs in chapter 5). Then, further explore the background and history of the dance to answer this question: How does the dance relate to or represent the people, their culture, and society?
Spotlight
Dance Diplomacy
In early 2010 modern and contemporary dance makers from the groups Urban Bush Women, ODC, and Evidence, a dance company, took part in the first U.S. pilot program to tour internationally as the gateway of cultural exchange among nations. The purpose of this "dance diplomacy" was to create a model cultural exchange initiative. The international tour, supported by the U.S. Department of State, reached global audiences of more than 15,000 in 16 cities of 9 countries in Southeast Asia, South America, and Africa. The second season in 2012 reached global audiences of 25,000 in 24 cities in 13 countries in Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia.
U.S. embassies and the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs partner with dance companies, leading cultural and community-based organizations, and educational institutions to host unique residencies that create opportunities for engagement and exchange. One of these cultural exchanges is DanceMotionUSA, which sends American dance companies overseas to connect with audiences through workshops, lecture demonstrations, and public performances.
Learn more about Discovering Dance.
Discovering Dance as Entertainment
As you read the introduction to this chapter, you may have recognized some of the forms of dance as entertainment that you knew or have even taken part in. Some of these forms are live performances, and others are performed for recorded media, yet others focus on commercial dance.
As you read the introduction to this chapter, you may have recognized some of the forms of dance as entertainment that you knew or have even taken part in. Some of these forms are live performances, and others are performed for recorded media, yet others focus on commercial dance.Your first activity is an exploration of a form of commercial dance.
Activity 13.1 Explore
Dance in Commercials
Many television commercials use dance to sell products or services. To begin this exploration, spend some time surfing television channels. Select two of your favorite commercials that include dance. Write a one-page paper about one of the commercials. Describe the dancers, the setting, the dance, and why they are dancing. What message do you think is being communicated through the dance? Are the music and dialogue effective parts of the commercial? What product is being featured in the commercial? Do you think the dancing makes connections to the product to sell it effectively? What appeals to you (or doesn't appeal to you) about the dance and the commercial? Write a paragraph to critique the commercial. Search for this commercial on the Internet. In your paper, include a photo and a link for viewing the commercial online.
As a class, share your commercial review papers in the classroom or on the school or class's webpage. If several people selected the same commercial, post them together. Then select two other commercials posted that you did not view but capture your interest. In a class discussion, determine the top three dance commercials, and provide a rationale for these choices using the same criteria you used for your commercial review. On a sheet of paper or the board, post these "awards" with that group of commercial reviews.
Did You Know?
Cruise Ship Performers
The top cruise lines vie for passengers by offering an array of dance, musical theater, and media entertainment options. From shortened versions of Broadway shows to aqua theaters where an underwater civilization comes to life, each cruise line has multiple entertainment options for travelers. Behind the scenes, the life for dancers and other entertainers revolves around rehearsing and performing the shows. Dancers should have training in a wide variety of dance genres and styles. With two performances or more per day, or twelve performances or more per week, production show dancers have a busy schedule. A production show dancer may have additional roles on nonproduction show evenings and other occasions such as greet passengers or lead and escort tours of the bridge and backstage areas. On cruise ships, which can be like a small city on the sea, show dancers must be ready for living in close quarters and get used to dancing on a stage that moves with the rocking motion of the ship. In their spare time, dancers have staff access on deck and to facilities such as the pool and the gym. If you love to travel, this is a job in which you can dance your way to new destinations.
Exploring Dance as Entertainment
Dance entertainment is a vast topic and an important component of dance. As a viewer of dance entertainment, you see the collaboration between dance artists, directors, and media or live production staff. These collaborators create ways to use dance choreography to entertain audiences or sell products or services in various settings. To prepare for dancing in commercial or entertainment settings, you have to be versatile as a dancer. You must study social dance, folk dance, cultural dance, street dance, ballet, modern dance, jazz, and tap dance. When you explore the section on dance unions in chapter 15 and on the web resource, you will see job listings that outline the dance genres a dancer needs to have for these jobs. A job can be for a one-performance event, or it might last for years, such as a musical theater performance on Broadway or a yearlong touring show. Commercial dancers who go from job to job are called dance gypsies, because their work is constantly changing from one show to another.
History of Dance as Entertainment
Professional dancers have worked as entertainers since prehistory. In ancient Egypt, the first recorded professional dancers, along with acrobats and musicians, entertained royalty. In ancient Greece dance was part of theater. From medieval times through the renaissance, dance was entertainment and amusement for nobles and peasants alike.
During modern history as dance moved onstage, dance as entertainment was part of other art forms or as interludes between dramas and operas. In the 19th century, dance continued to gain stature through entertainment such as minstrel shows, circuses, spectacles, fairs, variety shows, and vaudeville performances. Dance performances took place outdoors, in music and variety halls, theaters, and arenas. When the transcontinental railway system linked the nation from coast to coast, dance as entertainment exploded. Entire troupes or stock companies or self-contained companies who performed all types of entertainment forms, traveled the country by train; they stopped in cities and small towns to entertain people for the night. These companies were made up of versatile triple threat performers - those who did all the acting, dancing, and singing roles required in an evening's entertainment.
In the 20th century, the love of dance as entertainment grew in new directions. Broadway revues evolved into musical theater productions. With the invention of motion pictures and then television, dance moved into entertainment mass media.
For Broadway shows, dance artists and choreographers from ballet and modern dance companies created dances in early-20th-century follies (elaborate shows with music, songs, and dances), revues, and then musicals. As musical theater dance developed, it continued to absorb the styles of dance genres such as tap dance, ballet, modern dance, and jazz dance. Each musical theater production had its unique choreography using blended styles. Broadway shows tour throughout the world, bringing classical and contemporary musical theater productions to millions of people.
Dance movies have been popular since the early days of film. Producing these movies took hundreds of dancers, such as in the work of Busby Berkeley in the 1920s as a Broadway dance director and in 1930s movies where he directed musical numbers which led to his fame. Dance movies became an important area of commercial dance. Dancers and choreographers have entertained and educated audiences in historical dramas, animated movies, movie musicals, and science fiction movies alike. Animated movies in which characters danced were the invention of Walt Disney and his creative staff. Characters such as Snow White and the dancing dwarfs, princesses, and all kinds of creatures perform animated dances. In the 1950s, Gene Kelly bridged the gap between animation and live characters when he danced with an animated mouse in the film Anchors Away (1945).
With the advent of television, dance moved into variety shows, such as the Ed Sullivan Show. They showcased a wide variety of dance artists and choreographers and made them household names across America. As television programming expanded, so did the opportunities for dance shows. The popular Dance in America series brought ballet and modern dance companies to homes across America. Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) continues to provide diverse programming of dance as art, entertainment, and education.
Over the last decade, reality dance shows such as So You Think You Can Dance and Dancing With the Stars have expanded dance audiences and their appreciation of dance. Televised dance or drill team competitions and other associated dance competitions present another aspect of dance as entertainment. Television programming now includes an array of dance entertainment, including sitcoms and documentary series on dancers, their personal lives, musical theater, and dance genres from around the world.
After Disneyland opened in the 1950s, amusement and theme parks became another mass entertainment medium. Dance became an important feature in theme parks across the nation and the world. Dancing characters from the movies reside in different areas of these parks. In each park, one or more companies of dancers perform short entertainment shows throughout the day, every day. Dancers perform blended historical, cultural, or social dance styles to entertain park visitors. The Disney concept of performers - being in character and onstage while walking in the park or dancing - spurred an entire entertainment industry. Other live entertainment settings, including cruise ships, casinos, and resorts, provide multiple dancing stage shows as entertainment for guests.
When Internet technology expanded, another entertainment site emerged that would support dance films, recorded dance performance, and ways to interact in real time with dancers and choreographers across the globe. In the 20th century the term dance for the camera was coined to describe dance that was filmed as art, education, or entertainment. Productions of dance for the camera include documentaries of dancers and choreographers, historical and educational movies, concert and cultural dance companies, and performances of choreographed artistic dance films. These dance films are broadcast on television, shown in schools, or shown as fine art films. On the Internet, anyone can post a personal dance video to be viewed by the class, the school, and often the entire world. Dance for the camera has expanded into a whole new dimension that requires understanding dance as well as the art of filming it. To create dance for the camera, you need to grasp the artistic and production values, choices, and processes that are part of creating a filmed work.
Explore More
You can see from this brief overview that there is much to explore in dance as entertainment and its commercial sector. The Explore More sections on the web resource will explore three dance entertainment genres: dance or drill teams, dance in musical theater, and dance for the camera.
Dance or Drill Teams
Dance or drill teams range from students in middle school, high school, and college to professionals who perform at local sporting events to televised professional sports. Halftime shows for many sports feature dance or drill teams. Dance or drill teams perform for school games and community functions, and they take part in dance and drill team competitions. Their routines showcase their ensemble technique, spirit, and enthusiasm for the crowds. Training for dance and drill team requires athleticism and artistry. Dance and drill teams began as a Texas phenomenon that has spread across the United States and around the world. Visit the chapter 13 on the web resource to explore more about dance and drill teams.
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A dance team moves together to create a powerful effect.
Courtesy of Jennifer Dawson, Terri Ware, and Silver Star Dancers
Activity 13.2 Discover
Learn a Drill or Dance Team Combination
For this activity, your teacher or a classmate teaches one or more basic drill or dance combinations to the class. After everyone has learned and practiced the routine to music, take a few minutes to reflect on the experience. In your journal, write about what you enjoyed in the routine, what was challenging, and which type of routine you preferred and why. Share it with another student or in a group discussion.
Dance in Musical Theater
Musical theater dance spans school musicals, professional productions on the Broadway stage, and touring companies that travel to cities across the world. Becoming a musical theater dancer takes versatile dance training and other performing arts skills such as acting, music, and voice. The challenge in every musical theater production is to blend dancing, acting, and singing to portray your role. Visit the web resource to explore more about musical theater dance.
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Musical theater productions feature a blend of singing, dancing, and acting.
Jim West
Activity 13.3 Explore
Dance in Musical Theater
Choose a musical from the list provided by your teacher. Form a small group with other students who chose the same musical theater production. Together, search the Internet to find a video of a major dance sequence or dance combination from that musical. Your teacher may provide you with a list of dances from which to choose. View the dance number, then answer these questions:
- Identify each main character, and write a sentence or two about each person to describe their personality.
- Where does the dance take place?
- What inspires the characters to do this dance?
Describe the dance, the music, and whether it includes a song that is part of the musical number.
Collaborate as a group to develop, write, and present a 1- or 2-minute oral summary or a media presentation to the class to cover this information:
- Provide the story line (plot) of the musical.
- Identify the choreographer and give a very brief summary (two or three sentences) of the individual's contributions to the field.
- Indicate the main characters by writing a two- to three-sentence biography about each person.
- Describe the dance, the music, and the song in the musical number that you viewed.
Post a one-page summary of your group's information in the classroom or on the class web page. Add a picture that captures the meaning of the musical, or take a photo of your group in a memorable pose from the dance you researched. On your media presentation and one-page summary, cite the sources for your research.
Dance for the Camera
Dance in film, television, music videos, and other media forms provides entertainment for audiences. It also provides choreographers and dancers more media choices for presenting dance as an art form. Dance for the camera is term that covers entertainment, artistic, and multimedia forms of presenting dance. Filming dance has been instrumental in documenting its artists and works for the public to enjoy. Further, dance media has expanded dancers' views about how to complement or enhance a live performance. The final Explore More section investigates the types of media used in dance for the camera.
Learn more about Discovering Dance.
Discovering College and Career Preparation
Moving in new ways, remembering movement sequences, and executing them in time to music within changing formations and pathways is challenging.
Moving in new ways, remembering movement sequences, and executing them in time to music within changing formations and pathways is challenging. Dancing is a complicated process that requires mental and physical coordination, memorization, problem solving, refining, and performing. Like sports and many other fine arts, dancing demands that you juggle many factors to perform at your best. College and careers demand the same.
The processes of dancing, dance making, and dance appreciation fuel the discipline of dance. Across the arts the processes of creating, performing, responding, and interconnecting support other studies. Learning the movement languages of dance genres helps you not only in dance-related studies and careers but also in other arts-related disciplines and in life.
Activity 15.1 Research
College and Career Options
Write a list of two or three potential careers in dance, fine arts, or another discipline that you are interested in learning more about. Do an Internet search about each career, and note the following factors:
- Educational requirements
- Skills and abilities needed for this career
- Working conditions (for example, hours)
- Pay range and other benefits
- Personal benefits and values someone in this career would receive
After you have collected the answers to these questions for each career path, write a short descriptive paragraph about each career, and share it with the class.
In another document, write what appeals to you about this career. Also add what you think are your challenges in considering this career. Decide whether this career is a future possibility for further consideration or it is not a direction you wish to pursue.
Did You Know?
Dance Employment
The U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics posts the Occupational Outlook Handbook on its website (www.bls.gov). This handbook includes employment information about dancers and choreographers as part of the country's work force. These government data provide information about work environment, pay scale, and job outlook for the future as well as other information. In 2010 about 25,600 dancers and choreographers held jobs. Approximately 20 percent of dancers in performing arts companies and about 78 percent of choreographers work in a variety of schools and other places (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2012).
Employment of dancers is expected to increase at about 11 percent with a projected employment of 13,700 more people by 2020. This percentage is in the average range of all occupations. Employment of choreographers is projected to increase 24 percent with a projected employment of 16,400 by 2020. This is faster than the average for all occupations. The growing interest in dance as entertainment attracts people to enroll in dance classes. In turn, this growth in enrollment creates employment opportunities in television, movies, and other leisure settings.
Exploring Dance and Associated Careers
Imagine you are looking for a job, and you see an advertisement that reads, "Employer looking for creative, innovative, adaptive thinkers. If you are qualified, please apply." As a dancer, you can meet these and other requirements for work in the 21st century. Dancing, dance making, and thinking like a dancer train you in the skills you need for your education and career.
The time since the start of the new millennium has seen tremendous changes at a rapid pace. This quick pace is in part because of advances in technology that affect everyday lives and careers. Near the end of the 20th century, some of the world's greatest thinkers began to investigate what types of knowledge and skills 21st-century workers and citizens would need to be successful. As a result, they identified various types of learning and literacy such as financial, environmental, artistic, and others.
Across these categories, a series of broad topics reach from school to work, into the community, and the world:
- Communication
- Creativity
- Collaboration
- Critical thinking
The skills that support these four C's for 21st-century learning are presented in table 15.1.
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Scanning the entries in table 15.1 can be overwhelming. Pause a moment, and reflect on the assignments you did in the chapters of this book and your other class work. Then, recall the dance learning processes contained in the items listed. The point to remember is that the four topics contain major knowledge and skills that span dance and other disciplines of study as preparation for college and careers. In table 15.1 you will see that some of the skills identified cross one or more of the four categories.
Acquiring these attributes is a long-term process; it can take many years to complete. Reading these ideas gives you an understanding of how learning spans from the classroom through experiences in your community and life. These four C's are deeply embedded in dancing, dance making, and dance appreciation processes:
- Communicating through dance: In dance you communicate when you create, perform, or reflect on a dance work. In making a dance, the choreographer, dancers, and associated artistic staff need common arts vocabularies to effectively communicate, analytical skills to solve problems, and negotiation and teamwork skills along with an array of management skills to create and produce a dance performance.
- Creativity: When choreographers and dancers analyze and solve movement problems in a dance work, they use the creative process. The choreographer approaches an idea or theme for a dance and creatively seeks a choreographic design through which to communicate a cohesive artistic statement. The audience viewing a dance reflects and analyzes what they perceive as the meaning and the design of the dance work. Their feedback may be communicated to the dancers, choreographer, artistic staff, or the community. These responses can influence the direction of a choreographer's future works, artistic directions, or a company's finances.
- Collaboration: Collaboration is an integral part of dancing and creating artistic works with other artists. Improvisational structures and dance compositional forms require that dancers work as a highly functioning team to perform a dance. In dance making, choreographers strategically plan movement for dancers to communicate ideas. Associated artists join forces to present a unified message in an artistic work.
- Critical thinking: Through all dance processes, dancers and choreographers, associated artists, and audience members use critical thinking. Dancers have to make logical and quick decisions during a dance for safety or for artistic expression. Choreographers use analytical skills along with management and technology skills to make dances that satisfy an artistic mission and to meet business goals. Dance audiences determine whether attending a dance company performance will be a continuing venture.
Dance provides a wide range of professional career options in communities, cities, and around the world. Dance careers span areas of the arts and entertainment, media, fitness, recreation, business, education, technical fields, and other areas.
As you learned in chapter13, dance as entertainment is big business. Dance in education spans from preschool through university and graduate education, and into communities and people's lives across the nation as participation or through education, performance, and advocacy. Dance studios, gyms, recreation centers, and performing arts organizations have expanded their community contributions as more and more people realize the importance and contribution of dance and the other arts to their lives. Dance professional organizations provide continuing professional development for students, educators, artists, scientists, writers, and others interested or involved in dance as profession or associated professions. Dance professionals work as performers and in many roles that support dance performance. Often professionals with a dance background work in associated fields such as dance therapy, kinesiology, production, media, and arts administration. Their presence as dance professionals in these fields brings deeper perspectives to new audiences of how dance can play a role in other disciplines.
Transferring Dance Skills to Life Skills
Life and career skills - the skills you need in order to succeed in work and life - require four characteristics: flexibility, adaptability, taking initiative, and being self-directed. In school, work, and community you should demonstrate cross-cultural and leadership skills. In your school and career, you should be responsible, productive, and accountable for your work. In the dance class you cultivate dancer attributes that then apply in your dancing and personal development.
Your experience in dance develops a number of traits that apply to other life endeavors. Personal development through dance for future career directions beyond dance include these:
- Physical, intellectual, and kinesthetic awareness
- Fine-tuned observation skills
- Enhanced focus and concentration
- Extended self-discipline, responsibility, and empathy
- Perception and sensory awareness of personal movement and others' movement choices and styles
- Versatility, ability to adapt, and flexibility in various situations
- Expanded interpersonal (mental and physical attributes you share with others) and intrapersonal (the internal conversation you have with yourself) communication skills
Observation and Awareness
Observation skills are critical to learning dance and are essential in any career. Observational skills take time to develop. Concentrated observation helps you acquire visual, auditory, and sensory information. As a dancer you filter through this information and determine how it applies to get the desired result.
Dancers learn to coordinate movements of body parts in a step or movement. This complicated coordination of brain and body improves as you move through more complex exercises, combinations, dance sequences, and dances. When you memorize movement you initiate an internal cueing system that engages a complicated synergy of intellectual and body actions with the elements of space, time, energy, or effort. So, what you do in dance contributes directly to your personal development in dance and also to future directions beyond dance. When you take dance classes or perform, you develop these skills:
- Using interpersonal spatial awareness
- Having a physical and intellectual presence in space
- Creating movement as a result of being internally sensitive and intuitive
- Acquiring performance awareness and a professional attitude
- Reading movement and then reproducing the movement (translate it, transpose it) presented by the teacher or choreographer
- Memorizing movements and dances to create a memory bank
- Understanding movement systems, genres, and styles
Creativity and Communication
When composing a dance, you use the creative process to formulate a design and structure for dance movements. You use the creative process in dance when you experiment with the following:
- Determining movement patterns as part of choreography and choreographic designs in space and time using a range of energy or efforts
- Manipulating the order of movements to make a logical statement using seamless transitions
- Using choreographic structures and strategies for augmentations
- Connecting musical knowledge to movement sequences
- Relating visual design elements of patterns, relationships to dance, and identifying styles to apply or augment
- Applying movement, choreographic, and aesthetic principles to dancing and dance composition
- Employing stagecraft and media knowledge in producing the work
Producing a dance is a complicated process that combines design elements, problem-solving skills, and communication with artists and technicians. When you practice these processes, you enhance your abilities as a dancer and create conduits that relate to many associated dance careers.
Media and Artistic Literacy
When you view dances, you develop a visual and mental store of classical to contemporary dance works. Dancers and choreographers have used this system of "recording" to create a memory bank since before the common use of notation systems and electronic recording systems. These mental memories of movements combine with kinesthetic responses you receive from watching dancers perform. Your response to a dance in conversation, discussion, or written forms is also kinesthetic in nature. Translating movement experiences into descriptive and meaningful commentary supports and expands your dance and artistic literacy and your media literacy.
Artistic literacy is the knowledge and understanding required to participate authentically in the arts. Arts include dance, music, dramatic art, visual art, and media. The arts contain content, principles, and applications that are common to them as art forms. In artistic literacy, the processes of creating, performing (in dance, music, or theater), presenting (in the visual arts) or producing (in media arts), responding, and connecting reach across all of the arts. Learning these processes in various art forms contributes to your media literacy and to your experience (State Education Agency Directors of Arts Education 2013).
Media literacy is the ability to access, analyze, and evaluate media content. Viewing and responding to a dance performance includes both deconstruction and construction.
After you reflect upon the dance as a complete work, the next step is to take the dance apart. Deconstruction is analyzing or taking a dance performance apart. It is how you look at the components of the choreography, the dancers' performance, and the production elements of the work. Construction activities use the dance analysis (or deconstruction) as a basis for participating in a discussion about the dance, writing a dance report about a work you have viewed, or summarizing your findings and filing them in your memory bank along with your visual memories of the dance work.
When you attend a dance concert or view a video of a dance performance, you may have been assigned to write a dance report. A couple of strategies are useful for preparing you to write your response. Before you view the performance, read over the items or questions you have to cover in the report. When you view the dance, watch, hear, and feel the performance. Some people suggest reading the program notes about the dance after the concert. Your viewing experience of the dance provides the information from which to write your report.
In past centuries, literacy meant reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills. These skills remain foundational today; they have become the basis of 21st-century skills such as media literacy. When you gain an understanding of a media presentation and its components that create meaning, then you are engaging in media literacy.
Dance literacy includes knowledge of movement, music, theater, and arts terminology. Dance is multilingual through its various genres, their specific terminology, and the application of movement, choreographic, and aesthetic principles. Other facets of dance literacy include knowledge of rhythmic and musical languages, stagecraft and theater vocabularies, arts education, arts media processes, and production terminology. Dance literacy skills contribute to overall media literacy.
Activity 15.2 Explore
Analyzing a Dance Performance
When you view a dance performance, you use your skills in media literacy to analyze it. After you reflect on the dance as a complete work, the next step is to take the dance apart. It is how you look at the components of the choreography, the dancers' performance, and the production elements of the work. When you deconstruct a dance work, think about these questions:
- What do you think is the choreographer's message, idea, and theme?
- Were you able to discern the choreographic structure of the dance?
- How did the music interact or support the dance?
- Did the dancers' technique meet the requirements of the choreography?
- Did the dancers express the style of the choreography?
- Did the production elements of lighting and costuming support the presentation of the dance work and contribute to it as a work of art?
- Was the dance aesthetically moving to you?
- Would you consider this dance a work of art?
Multiple Intelligences
The theory of multiple intelligences (MI) and 21st-century educational theories have provided evidence that students acquire many ways of being smart through dance. These intelligences translate to other courses of study and into the workplace.
The theory of multiple intelligences was developed by an educational psychologist named Harold Gardner. Beginning in the 1980s, Gardner's original system of seven intelligences has expanded to nine; it continues to expand. The following list summarizes Gardner's nine intelligences. Your multiple intelligence quotient is really a combination of all of your intelligences. You may rate very high in certain intelligences and not as high in others. Gardner claims that you can strengthen and expand the intelligences that you ignore or challenge yourself (Gardner1983).
- Verbal-linguistic intelligence: Verbal skills and sensitivity to meaning and rhythm of words.
- Mathematical or logical intelligence: Conceptual and abstract thinking skills in both numerical and logic patterns.
- Musical intelligence: Understanding and ability to use rhythm, pitch, and texture.
- Visual-spatial intelligence: Thinking and visualizing using images in spatial and abstract configurations.
- Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence: Moving and handling objects with grace, skill, and artfulness.
- Interpersonal intelligence: Communicating appropriately with other people in relation to their moods, ideas, and directions.
- Intrapersonal intelligence: Self-awareness of feelings, values, and thinking processes.
- Naturalist intelligence: Recognizing and categorizing plants, animals, and other things in nature.
- Existential intelligence: Deep thinking about philosophical and essential questions about life and its meaning.
Adapted from http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/mi/index.html
Activity 15.3 Discover
Your Multiple Intelligences (MI)
Do you recognize some of your intelligences? The web resource includes a link to an MI test to take for fun and to find out the various ways you are smart. Then you can compare your MI with those of others in the class. Knowing your MI can give you insights into some possible career directions. Your MI can change over time as you develop other intelligences. Documenting your MI can be an interesting way to self-check and track your changes in the future.
Learn more about Discovering Dance.
Exploring Dance Composition
Dance composition is learning how to make a dance. During the dance composition process you explore a movement idea by creating dance movement or selecting steps in some dance genres, then you manipulate these elements and materials of dance into movement modules of various lengths to compose a dance.
Dance composition is learning how to make a dance. During the dance composition process you explore a movement idea by creating dance movement or selecting steps in some dance genres, then you manipulate these elements and materials of dance into movement modules of various lengths to compose a dance. To understand how to use your tools for composition, you need to be familiar with choreographic design principles, structures, and devices. For a dance work to have solidarity and value, the choreography should connect to aesthetic principles that underlie art works.
In the Movement Invention activity, you invented two contrasting dance phrases (a short series of movements that connect into a pattern) or longer sequences. In the next activities you will create a movement sequence (a group of movements that form a unit), and then you will develop a movement statement (similar to a sentence). All of these movement segments contain a beginning, a middle, and an end. Coupling movement sentences together builds a dance segment similar to a paragraph in writing. Regardless of how long or short it is, a dance composition focuses on the beginning, the middle, the end, and on the movement between these points. Creating and composing the movement is one part of the choreographic process. Checking to ensure choreographic principles underlie the dance modules requires you to analyze your composition during the process and when it is complete. Table 4.1 lists the basic choreographic principles that underlie a dance composition.
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The following sections lead you through the choreographic process as you compose your movement segments.
Creative and Choreographic Processes
Different dance scholars present similar creative and choreographic processes. Some scholars write about the creative process, while others write about the steps to create a dance. Both processes underlie making a dance.
The creative process in dance making requires a period of preparation in which you collect ideas. This preparation time should include time for developing choreographic ideas; in other words, you need to figure out the central idea and how to approach it. Next you have to experiment with movement for a deeper insight into the movement ideas. In later sessions, you evaluate the movement and determine what works and what does not work as part of the dance work. The final step in the process is elaborating on the movement ideas you have selected.
Another dance composition process uses similar steps. First, observe the world around you, and explore ways of imitating or symbolizing what you have observed using bodies and movement. Working by yourself, do movement explorations and collect external experiences by observing the work of others. During the composition process, group reflections and discussions provide feedback that should be sorted out as to how well it applies or transfers to the dance in progress. In creating a dance, use your synthesized information from exploration and reflection. After the performance, a final group reflection helps to analyze the process and the product. Then extend the group reflection to a journal of what you learned and what ideas have been sparked for future choreography.
You should know the reason behind your writing activities in relation to your movement activities. Choreographic journaling has been part of dance composition courses since at least the last quarter of the 20th century, and this type of journaling continues today.
In academic dance courses, you usually keep choreographic journals to collect written records of your observations, movement experiments, research, and findings as you go through the dance composition process. Often you write about personal goals in the class and challenges you have faced during a course. You also write about how as an individual or in a group you responded to the process or what you learned from it to help you frame or propose your next project.
With the creative and choreographic processes in mind, the next step is to survey your ingredients for making a dance. In chapter 3 you learned about the elements of dance that play a central role in creating a dance. However, other ingredients also contribute to dance composition.
Activity 4.2 Explore
Create a Movement Sequence
Using the locomotor movements from chapter 3, select two, three, or four even and uneven locomotor movements, and join them together into an 8-count movement sequence. Often movement sequences are parts of a longer movement statement. If a sequence appears to be complete, it may be referred to as a movement statement or sentence. This activity has two parts.
Part 1
Decide the order of the locomotor movements. Practice your movement sequence until you have it memorized. To add variety to the movement sequence, here are some ideas to try:
First, do the movement sequence as you created it. Repeat the sequence once at slow speed, then repeat it again at a faster speed. Changing the speed or timing on movements changes your energy or qualities of movement. Memorize these movement sequences in the order you chose.
Think about what energy, effort, or qualities you used in these repetitions and how they changed. Review the list of effort actions or movement qualities from chapter 3, and identify which ones you used. If you find a couple of undistinguishable efforts or movement qualities, try the movement again to clarify them.
Part 2
Now select two, three, or four different even and uneven locomotor movements or basic steps presented in chapter 3; these movements should be ones you are less comfortable with. Use these movements to create another movement sequence.Practice and memorize your new sequence. Again, perform the sequence four times using two or three different speeds. Then, do the first movement sequence followed by the second, or longer, sequence.
Reflect on these ideas about both movement phrases or sequences:
- The locomotor movements or steps you chose
- The differences in speeds
- How the energy, effort, effort actions, or movement qualities changed
How does the first movement sequence compare or contrast to your second movement sequence? Identify at least two similarities and two differences in movement, energy, effort, effort actions, and movement qualities when you changed the speed of your movement.
Summarize your reflections either on paper or in your mind. In a small group, take turns doing your two movement sequences following one another. Then present to the group your summary of the similarities and differences between the two movement sequences you created. Ask the group, "What did you see as similarities and differences after viewing my two movement sequences?"
Listening to the feedback of your peers may give you new ideas to try or to incorporate into your sequences. Observing others perform their movement inventions may give you more ideas to store away in your movement memory bank for future use.
Sources of Movement
Creating new dance movements comes from exploring and experimenting with movement possibilities. Exploring new ways to move may take you out of your comfort zone. As you mentally and physically record these experiments, keep in mind that they may or may not turn out to be movements you want to add to your movement memory bank. But don't let that stop you from experimenting. Although it does involve taking movement risks, your experiments are being done in the safe setting of a dance class.
Improvisation is creating movement or movement invention for making dances. Using different stimuli creates new movement. Internal stimuli could include exploring your spontaneous individual movements based on touch, auditory, or visual sources. External stimuli could come from music, a work of art, nature, or an everyday task.
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During improvisation, the teacher can provide valuable feedback or suggestions about the movement or poses being created.
When a group is looking for solutions to a problem, they often brainstorm, and together they consider a number of options. Improvisation is similar to brainstorming; in fact, it has been called body storming. You can practice body storming by yourself or with a group. Doing movement improvisation with a group can be a lot of fun, and it allows you to gather or share new movement ideas. While improvising, use the somatic movement awareness principles and Laban effort actions. Experiment with how these important actions connect to space, time, energy, and weight to create new dynamics in your dancing.
Sources for improvisation can be visual, words, poetry, tasks, senses, or someone else's movement or dances. These movement experiments or improvisations have several forms:
- Free-form improvisations are self-expression based on the premise of you moving and responding to music. This type of improvisational study can be a movement response to auditory, visual, textural, or a combination of stimuli.
- Semi-structured movement experiments solve a problem, answer the question, or have different points that the teacher or you determine as the criteria for composing the work.
- A structured improvisation is an experimental movement sequence that is loosely structured and practiced. Quite often a group work, the choreographer identifies movement sections or specific movement pictures that the group has developed during practice. These sections or pictures give the work an overall form and an artistic focus.
When you view or discuss an improvisation, you need a framework to help keep the discussion focused on the composition instead of on personal likes and dislikes. One system for discussing dance is known as RADS,which stands for using the following components: relationships, actions, dynamics, and use of space. Try it after a movement invention session or apply it as a self-analysis to your own movement improvisation.
Improvisation is a creative way to extend your personal movement repertory and styles. Practicing the many forms of improvisation helps you tap into your own creative force, enhancing your experience as a dancer and as a dance maker.
Learn more about Discovering Dance.
Discovering Cultural Dance
Dance has been called the universal language; you live in a world that dances.
Dance has been called the universal language; you live in a world that dances. Take a look at the map of the world and its continents (figure 8.1). Geographers have identified distinct natural and physical features (ecosystems) in regions throughout the world. Studying a geographic region that supports human culture is also known as cultural geography. Within these geographic regions are specific cultural regions of the world.
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Regions of the world.
In each of these cultural regions are countries, people of various racial and ethnic groups, and their cultural values. Their arts include dances from aboriginals or first people (the original people who inhabited the land since millennia ago) who migrated to these regions because of war, famine, economic hardship, or other reasons. The common elements of culture include the following (Blankenship in press):
- It is a way of life, learned and shared with future generations.
- It changes with time and is symbolic.
- The economy drives a culture.
Culture is a community or society's knowledge, beliefs, values, customs, and common heritage. If you were to look at the cultural geographic areas of the world, you would encounter commonalities and differences that make each country or region unique. People have many different views about defining and describing dance from geographic or cultural regions of the world. Some people consider dances from across these regions to be examples of world dance, while others might call these dances cultural dance. Regardless of where you live in the world, you participate in dances that reflect a lot or a little of the culture.
Activity 8.1 Explore
Dance Around the World
Using a map of the world, survey the geographic region that your teacher assigns to your group. Search a region's or country's website, then describe the physical features of each region or country. Next, research and describe the people of that area and their culture, and find examples of a traditional dance they perform. If you can locate a video performance of the dance, write a brief descriptive summary about it. In your summary include the following information:
- Background or history of the dance
- Who dances
- When and where the dance is performed
Describe the music that accompanies the dance and the dancers' clothing. Add a photo of the dancers performing, and list references or web links to your online sources.
Did You Know?
People Like Me
People Like Me is the arts education program of the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festivaland World Arts West. For 15 seasons this organization has presented an extraordinary festival featuring dancers and dance companies that represent cultures around the world. On their website, the festival provides their Online Encyclopedia of World Dance, which includes performers, information about selected dances and dance styles, musical instruments, and history of the dance style. Attending the festival to view cultural dance performances by artists from across the world would be an awesome experience. Visiting the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival and World Arts West website provides easy access to a virtual tour of dance around the world.
Exploring Cultural Dance
Specific countries have dances that identify with a region and its culture immediately. For example, African dances or Indian dances have styles that make them readily identifiable, as do other cultural dances from across the globe.
When you study dances as part of a culture, you are using different lenses to see each dance in its cultural context. Earlier in this chapter, you discovered that culture is a concept in human geography. It also has deep connections to the fields of cultural anthropology, ethnology, and ethnomusicology. Cultural anthropology is the study of humans and their culture, which includes social structures, languages, laws, religion, arts, and technology. Ethnology is the study of the cultural life of a community. An ethnologist lives in a community for several years to record the everyday life of the people and their culture. Ethnomusicology is the study of a people's music in relation to its culture or society. Ethnomusicologists may extend their study to dances performed to the music of the culture.
Countries all over the world have traditional dances, but they are actually evolving products of history, migration, wars, and political and societal changes of the people who perform them. Today, in one country you can encounter many cultural dances, including the following:
- Dances of aboriginals or first people.
- Dances of early settlers who migrated to the area and brought their culture to their new home. In various historical eras, the dances may have colonial or postcolonial versions.
- Blended dances created after wars changed a people and their culture. These dances are not created overnight. In an invaded country, the original people and the new arrivals may or may not embrace each other's cultures or dances. A cultural clash may occur, and the two groups may resist each other's influence. Blending outside influences into existing traditions takes place over time.
- Newer variations of traditional dances that evolve from generation to generation. These dances absorb and blend personal, group, and societal trends that can change a dance and its performance.
- Dances of tribes, first people, and ethnic groups who strive to keep their ancestral traditions alive in contemporary society. People preserve these dances to share their heritage with the young people of their community.
All cultural dances presented in the overview of dance types connect to the three common elements of a culture (see Discovering Cultural Dance).
If you add all these elements together, you get two deep understandings:
- Culture is about participating as a community; it can be related to ritual, spiritual, and life events and celebrations.
- Culture can be defined as a way of life that is learned, shared with future generations, and changes with time.
Participating, viewing, and learning about cultural dance and the roles it plays in societies leads to awareness and appreciation of other people and their cultural values.
Experiencing a cultural dance means taking a look at the movement from the perspectives of both the cultural dancer and the requirements of the dance. The ideas you have learned about other dance forms so far or will encounter in this book may not apply to cultural dances. So, discard your preconception of cultural dances, and involve yourself in perceiving and experiencing the movement. Then you will be poised to find the meaning or essence of the dance and gain some insights about the dancers who perform it. Experiencing cultural dance requires you to observe through a different kind of dance lens; you must see as an ethnologist would, paying attention to the dance in the context of its home culture.
Explore More
Take a virtual dance tour! On the web resource, you will visit a variety of countries across the globe. Each country provides an overview of its geography, history, and some of its most important dances. Key search terms in some of the dance genres provide ways to view and learn a dance or movement sequence. The dance tour provides an overview from which you can explore more through researching the countries and their wealth of dances.
Mexico
Mexico has a wealth of natural and cultural resources, with diverse landscapes from mountains to jungles, and historic traditions reaching back more than 3,000 years. Mexican dance captures the rhythm, emotion, and movement of a vibrant society with a heritage rich in tradition.
America
The United States is a country of vast natural and cultural resources and is populated by people from a vast variety of cultural heritage. Since prehistoric times, Native Americans have danced to express their traditions and cultural values. Contemporary urban dance forms began to express social changes in the United States during the latter 20th century.
Europe
Europe is a huge continent with many nationalities and their dances. Chapter 7 (Folk Dance) contains a variety of folk dances from countries throughout Europe, Russia, and other countries.
Africa
Africa is the second largest continent in the world with 54 countries. African people and cultures represent a diversity of economic and social structures with various beliefs, religions, and arts. For centuries African cultural dance has captured the spirit of life events, community and spiritual beliefs, and identities of tribes and clans of various regions.
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© Anke Van Wyk | Dreamstime.com
In Africa, dance is an integral part of ceremonies, festivals, and rites. African dances are done in many countries throughout the world.
India
India is the seventh largest country in the world. For nearly 3,000 years, dance art has existed in India and is a significant aspect in Indian culture. Classical Indian dance includes a wide range of forms and styles that reflect various geographic centers, history, and traditions.
Japan
Japan is a group of islands off the east coast of Asia. According to legend, Japan was founded in the 7th century BCE. Japanese cultural dances relate to religions and social eras in Japanese history. Japanese cultural dance forms and styles span historical court dances, religious dances, and traditional folk dances. In Japan, dance remains an integral part of historical theatrical entertainment.
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VWPics via AP Images
Japanese dances are passed from generation to generation.
Exploring these countries is just the starting place for learning about cultural dance. You may want to continue your virtual travels to other countries. These countries may connect to your family heritage, a place where a friend came from, or a country you hope to visit in the future. Whatever the reason, you can go there today and share what you learned with the class.
Activity 8.2 Explore
Learn a Cultural Dance
In a small group, find a dance from the country you visited on the web in the exploration activity Dance Around the World. The cultural dance you select could be
- a traditional dance,
- a folk dance,
- a social dance,
- a dance that provides entertainment for visitors, or
- a dance that is considered an art form or part of another art such as drama or theater.
Find two videos of the dance. After watching the videos, learn several movements, poses, a movement sequence, or the entire dance. Through your reading and research about this dance can you discover
- who dances,
- when and where they dance, and
- why they dance.
Identify a list of unique characteristics of the dance (review dance designs in chapter 5). Then, further explore the background and history of the dance to answer this question: How does the dance relate to or represent the people, their culture, and society?
Spotlight
Dance Diplomacy
In early 2010 modern and contemporary dance makers from the groups Urban Bush Women, ODC, and Evidence, a dance company, took part in the first U.S. pilot program to tour internationally as the gateway of cultural exchange among nations. The purpose of this "dance diplomacy" was to create a model cultural exchange initiative. The international tour, supported by the U.S. Department of State, reached global audiences of more than 15,000 in 16 cities of 9 countries in Southeast Asia, South America, and Africa. The second season in 2012 reached global audiences of 25,000 in 24 cities in 13 countries in Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia.
U.S. embassies and the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs partner with dance companies, leading cultural and community-based organizations, and educational institutions to host unique residencies that create opportunities for engagement and exchange. One of these cultural exchanges is DanceMotionUSA, which sends American dance companies overseas to connect with audiences through workshops, lecture demonstrations, and public performances.
Learn more about Discovering Dance.
Discovering Dance as Entertainment
As you read the introduction to this chapter, you may have recognized some of the forms of dance as entertainment that you knew or have even taken part in. Some of these forms are live performances, and others are performed for recorded media, yet others focus on commercial dance.
As you read the introduction to this chapter, you may have recognized some of the forms of dance as entertainment that you knew or have even taken part in. Some of these forms are live performances, and others are performed for recorded media, yet others focus on commercial dance.Your first activity is an exploration of a form of commercial dance.
Activity 13.1 Explore
Dance in Commercials
Many television commercials use dance to sell products or services. To begin this exploration, spend some time surfing television channels. Select two of your favorite commercials that include dance. Write a one-page paper about one of the commercials. Describe the dancers, the setting, the dance, and why they are dancing. What message do you think is being communicated through the dance? Are the music and dialogue effective parts of the commercial? What product is being featured in the commercial? Do you think the dancing makes connections to the product to sell it effectively? What appeals to you (or doesn't appeal to you) about the dance and the commercial? Write a paragraph to critique the commercial. Search for this commercial on the Internet. In your paper, include a photo and a link for viewing the commercial online.
As a class, share your commercial review papers in the classroom or on the school or class's webpage. If several people selected the same commercial, post them together. Then select two other commercials posted that you did not view but capture your interest. In a class discussion, determine the top three dance commercials, and provide a rationale for these choices using the same criteria you used for your commercial review. On a sheet of paper or the board, post these "awards" with that group of commercial reviews.
Did You Know?
Cruise Ship Performers
The top cruise lines vie for passengers by offering an array of dance, musical theater, and media entertainment options. From shortened versions of Broadway shows to aqua theaters where an underwater civilization comes to life, each cruise line has multiple entertainment options for travelers. Behind the scenes, the life for dancers and other entertainers revolves around rehearsing and performing the shows. Dancers should have training in a wide variety of dance genres and styles. With two performances or more per day, or twelve performances or more per week, production show dancers have a busy schedule. A production show dancer may have additional roles on nonproduction show evenings and other occasions such as greet passengers or lead and escort tours of the bridge and backstage areas. On cruise ships, which can be like a small city on the sea, show dancers must be ready for living in close quarters and get used to dancing on a stage that moves with the rocking motion of the ship. In their spare time, dancers have staff access on deck and to facilities such as the pool and the gym. If you love to travel, this is a job in which you can dance your way to new destinations.
Exploring Dance as Entertainment
Dance entertainment is a vast topic and an important component of dance. As a viewer of dance entertainment, you see the collaboration between dance artists, directors, and media or live production staff. These collaborators create ways to use dance choreography to entertain audiences or sell products or services in various settings. To prepare for dancing in commercial or entertainment settings, you have to be versatile as a dancer. You must study social dance, folk dance, cultural dance, street dance, ballet, modern dance, jazz, and tap dance. When you explore the section on dance unions in chapter 15 and on the web resource, you will see job listings that outline the dance genres a dancer needs to have for these jobs. A job can be for a one-performance event, or it might last for years, such as a musical theater performance on Broadway or a yearlong touring show. Commercial dancers who go from job to job are called dance gypsies, because their work is constantly changing from one show to another.
History of Dance as Entertainment
Professional dancers have worked as entertainers since prehistory. In ancient Egypt, the first recorded professional dancers, along with acrobats and musicians, entertained royalty. In ancient Greece dance was part of theater. From medieval times through the renaissance, dance was entertainment and amusement for nobles and peasants alike.
During modern history as dance moved onstage, dance as entertainment was part of other art forms or as interludes between dramas and operas. In the 19th century, dance continued to gain stature through entertainment such as minstrel shows, circuses, spectacles, fairs, variety shows, and vaudeville performances. Dance performances took place outdoors, in music and variety halls, theaters, and arenas. When the transcontinental railway system linked the nation from coast to coast, dance as entertainment exploded. Entire troupes or stock companies or self-contained companies who performed all types of entertainment forms, traveled the country by train; they stopped in cities and small towns to entertain people for the night. These companies were made up of versatile triple threat performers - those who did all the acting, dancing, and singing roles required in an evening's entertainment.
In the 20th century, the love of dance as entertainment grew in new directions. Broadway revues evolved into musical theater productions. With the invention of motion pictures and then television, dance moved into entertainment mass media.
For Broadway shows, dance artists and choreographers from ballet and modern dance companies created dances in early-20th-century follies (elaborate shows with music, songs, and dances), revues, and then musicals. As musical theater dance developed, it continued to absorb the styles of dance genres such as tap dance, ballet, modern dance, and jazz dance. Each musical theater production had its unique choreography using blended styles. Broadway shows tour throughout the world, bringing classical and contemporary musical theater productions to millions of people.
Dance movies have been popular since the early days of film. Producing these movies took hundreds of dancers, such as in the work of Busby Berkeley in the 1920s as a Broadway dance director and in 1930s movies where he directed musical numbers which led to his fame. Dance movies became an important area of commercial dance. Dancers and choreographers have entertained and educated audiences in historical dramas, animated movies, movie musicals, and science fiction movies alike. Animated movies in which characters danced were the invention of Walt Disney and his creative staff. Characters such as Snow White and the dancing dwarfs, princesses, and all kinds of creatures perform animated dances. In the 1950s, Gene Kelly bridged the gap between animation and live characters when he danced with an animated mouse in the film Anchors Away (1945).
With the advent of television, dance moved into variety shows, such as the Ed Sullivan Show. They showcased a wide variety of dance artists and choreographers and made them household names across America. As television programming expanded, so did the opportunities for dance shows. The popular Dance in America series brought ballet and modern dance companies to homes across America. Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) continues to provide diverse programming of dance as art, entertainment, and education.
Over the last decade, reality dance shows such as So You Think You Can Dance and Dancing With the Stars have expanded dance audiences and their appreciation of dance. Televised dance or drill team competitions and other associated dance competitions present another aspect of dance as entertainment. Television programming now includes an array of dance entertainment, including sitcoms and documentary series on dancers, their personal lives, musical theater, and dance genres from around the world.
After Disneyland opened in the 1950s, amusement and theme parks became another mass entertainment medium. Dance became an important feature in theme parks across the nation and the world. Dancing characters from the movies reside in different areas of these parks. In each park, one or more companies of dancers perform short entertainment shows throughout the day, every day. Dancers perform blended historical, cultural, or social dance styles to entertain park visitors. The Disney concept of performers - being in character and onstage while walking in the park or dancing - spurred an entire entertainment industry. Other live entertainment settings, including cruise ships, casinos, and resorts, provide multiple dancing stage shows as entertainment for guests.
When Internet technology expanded, another entertainment site emerged that would support dance films, recorded dance performance, and ways to interact in real time with dancers and choreographers across the globe. In the 20th century the term dance for the camera was coined to describe dance that was filmed as art, education, or entertainment. Productions of dance for the camera include documentaries of dancers and choreographers, historical and educational movies, concert and cultural dance companies, and performances of choreographed artistic dance films. These dance films are broadcast on television, shown in schools, or shown as fine art films. On the Internet, anyone can post a personal dance video to be viewed by the class, the school, and often the entire world. Dance for the camera has expanded into a whole new dimension that requires understanding dance as well as the art of filming it. To create dance for the camera, you need to grasp the artistic and production values, choices, and processes that are part of creating a filmed work.
Explore More
You can see from this brief overview that there is much to explore in dance as entertainment and its commercial sector. The Explore More sections on the web resource will explore three dance entertainment genres: dance or drill teams, dance in musical theater, and dance for the camera.
Dance or Drill Teams
Dance or drill teams range from students in middle school, high school, and college to professionals who perform at local sporting events to televised professional sports. Halftime shows for many sports feature dance or drill teams. Dance or drill teams perform for school games and community functions, and they take part in dance and drill team competitions. Their routines showcase their ensemble technique, spirit, and enthusiasm for the crowds. Training for dance and drill team requires athleticism and artistry. Dance and drill teams began as a Texas phenomenon that has spread across the United States and around the world. Visit the chapter 13 on the web resource to explore more about dance and drill teams.
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A dance team moves together to create a powerful effect.
Courtesy of Jennifer Dawson, Terri Ware, and Silver Star Dancers
Activity 13.2 Discover
Learn a Drill or Dance Team Combination
For this activity, your teacher or a classmate teaches one or more basic drill or dance combinations to the class. After everyone has learned and practiced the routine to music, take a few minutes to reflect on the experience. In your journal, write about what you enjoyed in the routine, what was challenging, and which type of routine you preferred and why. Share it with another student or in a group discussion.
Dance in Musical Theater
Musical theater dance spans school musicals, professional productions on the Broadway stage, and touring companies that travel to cities across the world. Becoming a musical theater dancer takes versatile dance training and other performing arts skills such as acting, music, and voice. The challenge in every musical theater production is to blend dancing, acting, and singing to portray your role. Visit the web resource to explore more about musical theater dance.
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Musical theater productions feature a blend of singing, dancing, and acting.
Jim West
Activity 13.3 Explore
Dance in Musical Theater
Choose a musical from the list provided by your teacher. Form a small group with other students who chose the same musical theater production. Together, search the Internet to find a video of a major dance sequence or dance combination from that musical. Your teacher may provide you with a list of dances from which to choose. View the dance number, then answer these questions:
- Identify each main character, and write a sentence or two about each person to describe their personality.
- Where does the dance take place?
- What inspires the characters to do this dance?
Describe the dance, the music, and whether it includes a song that is part of the musical number.
Collaborate as a group to develop, write, and present a 1- or 2-minute oral summary or a media presentation to the class to cover this information:
- Provide the story line (plot) of the musical.
- Identify the choreographer and give a very brief summary (two or three sentences) of the individual's contributions to the field.
- Indicate the main characters by writing a two- to three-sentence biography about each person.
- Describe the dance, the music, and the song in the musical number that you viewed.
Post a one-page summary of your group's information in the classroom or on the class web page. Add a picture that captures the meaning of the musical, or take a photo of your group in a memorable pose from the dance you researched. On your media presentation and one-page summary, cite the sources for your research.
Dance for the Camera
Dance in film, television, music videos, and other media forms provides entertainment for audiences. It also provides choreographers and dancers more media choices for presenting dance as an art form. Dance for the camera is term that covers entertainment, artistic, and multimedia forms of presenting dance. Filming dance has been instrumental in documenting its artists and works for the public to enjoy. Further, dance media has expanded dancers' views about how to complement or enhance a live performance. The final Explore More section investigates the types of media used in dance for the camera.
Learn more about Discovering Dance.
Discovering College and Career Preparation
Moving in new ways, remembering movement sequences, and executing them in time to music within changing formations and pathways is challenging.
Moving in new ways, remembering movement sequences, and executing them in time to music within changing formations and pathways is challenging. Dancing is a complicated process that requires mental and physical coordination, memorization, problem solving, refining, and performing. Like sports and many other fine arts, dancing demands that you juggle many factors to perform at your best. College and careers demand the same.
The processes of dancing, dance making, and dance appreciation fuel the discipline of dance. Across the arts the processes of creating, performing, responding, and interconnecting support other studies. Learning the movement languages of dance genres helps you not only in dance-related studies and careers but also in other arts-related disciplines and in life.
Activity 15.1 Research
College and Career Options
Write a list of two or three potential careers in dance, fine arts, or another discipline that you are interested in learning more about. Do an Internet search about each career, and note the following factors:
- Educational requirements
- Skills and abilities needed for this career
- Working conditions (for example, hours)
- Pay range and other benefits
- Personal benefits and values someone in this career would receive
After you have collected the answers to these questions for each career path, write a short descriptive paragraph about each career, and share it with the class.
In another document, write what appeals to you about this career. Also add what you think are your challenges in considering this career. Decide whether this career is a future possibility for further consideration or it is not a direction you wish to pursue.
Did You Know?
Dance Employment
The U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics posts the Occupational Outlook Handbook on its website (www.bls.gov). This handbook includes employment information about dancers and choreographers as part of the country's work force. These government data provide information about work environment, pay scale, and job outlook for the future as well as other information. In 2010 about 25,600 dancers and choreographers held jobs. Approximately 20 percent of dancers in performing arts companies and about 78 percent of choreographers work in a variety of schools and other places (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2012).
Employment of dancers is expected to increase at about 11 percent with a projected employment of 13,700 more people by 2020. This percentage is in the average range of all occupations. Employment of choreographers is projected to increase 24 percent with a projected employment of 16,400 by 2020. This is faster than the average for all occupations. The growing interest in dance as entertainment attracts people to enroll in dance classes. In turn, this growth in enrollment creates employment opportunities in television, movies, and other leisure settings.
Exploring Dance and Associated Careers
Imagine you are looking for a job, and you see an advertisement that reads, "Employer looking for creative, innovative, adaptive thinkers. If you are qualified, please apply." As a dancer, you can meet these and other requirements for work in the 21st century. Dancing, dance making, and thinking like a dancer train you in the skills you need for your education and career.
The time since the start of the new millennium has seen tremendous changes at a rapid pace. This quick pace is in part because of advances in technology that affect everyday lives and careers. Near the end of the 20th century, some of the world's greatest thinkers began to investigate what types of knowledge and skills 21st-century workers and citizens would need to be successful. As a result, they identified various types of learning and literacy such as financial, environmental, artistic, and others.
Across these categories, a series of broad topics reach from school to work, into the community, and the world:
- Communication
- Creativity
- Collaboration
- Critical thinking
The skills that support these four C's for 21st-century learning are presented in table 15.1.
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Scanning the entries in table 15.1 can be overwhelming. Pause a moment, and reflect on the assignments you did in the chapters of this book and your other class work. Then, recall the dance learning processes contained in the items listed. The point to remember is that the four topics contain major knowledge and skills that span dance and other disciplines of study as preparation for college and careers. In table 15.1 you will see that some of the skills identified cross one or more of the four categories.
Acquiring these attributes is a long-term process; it can take many years to complete. Reading these ideas gives you an understanding of how learning spans from the classroom through experiences in your community and life. These four C's are deeply embedded in dancing, dance making, and dance appreciation processes:
- Communicating through dance: In dance you communicate when you create, perform, or reflect on a dance work. In making a dance, the choreographer, dancers, and associated artistic staff need common arts vocabularies to effectively communicate, analytical skills to solve problems, and negotiation and teamwork skills along with an array of management skills to create and produce a dance performance.
- Creativity: When choreographers and dancers analyze and solve movement problems in a dance work, they use the creative process. The choreographer approaches an idea or theme for a dance and creatively seeks a choreographic design through which to communicate a cohesive artistic statement. The audience viewing a dance reflects and analyzes what they perceive as the meaning and the design of the dance work. Their feedback may be communicated to the dancers, choreographer, artistic staff, or the community. These responses can influence the direction of a choreographer's future works, artistic directions, or a company's finances.
- Collaboration: Collaboration is an integral part of dancing and creating artistic works with other artists. Improvisational structures and dance compositional forms require that dancers work as a highly functioning team to perform a dance. In dance making, choreographers strategically plan movement for dancers to communicate ideas. Associated artists join forces to present a unified message in an artistic work.
- Critical thinking: Through all dance processes, dancers and choreographers, associated artists, and audience members use critical thinking. Dancers have to make logical and quick decisions during a dance for safety or for artistic expression. Choreographers use analytical skills along with management and technology skills to make dances that satisfy an artistic mission and to meet business goals. Dance audiences determine whether attending a dance company performance will be a continuing venture.
Dance provides a wide range of professional career options in communities, cities, and around the world. Dance careers span areas of the arts and entertainment, media, fitness, recreation, business, education, technical fields, and other areas.
As you learned in chapter13, dance as entertainment is big business. Dance in education spans from preschool through university and graduate education, and into communities and people's lives across the nation as participation or through education, performance, and advocacy. Dance studios, gyms, recreation centers, and performing arts organizations have expanded their community contributions as more and more people realize the importance and contribution of dance and the other arts to their lives. Dance professional organizations provide continuing professional development for students, educators, artists, scientists, writers, and others interested or involved in dance as profession or associated professions. Dance professionals work as performers and in many roles that support dance performance. Often professionals with a dance background work in associated fields such as dance therapy, kinesiology, production, media, and arts administration. Their presence as dance professionals in these fields brings deeper perspectives to new audiences of how dance can play a role in other disciplines.
Transferring Dance Skills to Life Skills
Life and career skills - the skills you need in order to succeed in work and life - require four characteristics: flexibility, adaptability, taking initiative, and being self-directed. In school, work, and community you should demonstrate cross-cultural and leadership skills. In your school and career, you should be responsible, productive, and accountable for your work. In the dance class you cultivate dancer attributes that then apply in your dancing and personal development.
Your experience in dance develops a number of traits that apply to other life endeavors. Personal development through dance for future career directions beyond dance include these:
- Physical, intellectual, and kinesthetic awareness
- Fine-tuned observation skills
- Enhanced focus and concentration
- Extended self-discipline, responsibility, and empathy
- Perception and sensory awareness of personal movement and others' movement choices and styles
- Versatility, ability to adapt, and flexibility in various situations
- Expanded interpersonal (mental and physical attributes you share with others) and intrapersonal (the internal conversation you have with yourself) communication skills
Observation and Awareness
Observation skills are critical to learning dance and are essential in any career. Observational skills take time to develop. Concentrated observation helps you acquire visual, auditory, and sensory information. As a dancer you filter through this information and determine how it applies to get the desired result.
Dancers learn to coordinate movements of body parts in a step or movement. This complicated coordination of brain and body improves as you move through more complex exercises, combinations, dance sequences, and dances. When you memorize movement you initiate an internal cueing system that engages a complicated synergy of intellectual and body actions with the elements of space, time, energy, or effort. So, what you do in dance contributes directly to your personal development in dance and also to future directions beyond dance. When you take dance classes or perform, you develop these skills:
- Using interpersonal spatial awareness
- Having a physical and intellectual presence in space
- Creating movement as a result of being internally sensitive and intuitive
- Acquiring performance awareness and a professional attitude
- Reading movement and then reproducing the movement (translate it, transpose it) presented by the teacher or choreographer
- Memorizing movements and dances to create a memory bank
- Understanding movement systems, genres, and styles
Creativity and Communication
When composing a dance, you use the creative process to formulate a design and structure for dance movements. You use the creative process in dance when you experiment with the following:
- Determining movement patterns as part of choreography and choreographic designs in space and time using a range of energy or efforts
- Manipulating the order of movements to make a logical statement using seamless transitions
- Using choreographic structures and strategies for augmentations
- Connecting musical knowledge to movement sequences
- Relating visual design elements of patterns, relationships to dance, and identifying styles to apply or augment
- Applying movement, choreographic, and aesthetic principles to dancing and dance composition
- Employing stagecraft and media knowledge in producing the work
Producing a dance is a complicated process that combines design elements, problem-solving skills, and communication with artists and technicians. When you practice these processes, you enhance your abilities as a dancer and create conduits that relate to many associated dance careers.
Media and Artistic Literacy
When you view dances, you develop a visual and mental store of classical to contemporary dance works. Dancers and choreographers have used this system of "recording" to create a memory bank since before the common use of notation systems and electronic recording systems. These mental memories of movements combine with kinesthetic responses you receive from watching dancers perform. Your response to a dance in conversation, discussion, or written forms is also kinesthetic in nature. Translating movement experiences into descriptive and meaningful commentary supports and expands your dance and artistic literacy and your media literacy.
Artistic literacy is the knowledge and understanding required to participate authentically in the arts. Arts include dance, music, dramatic art, visual art, and media. The arts contain content, principles, and applications that are common to them as art forms. In artistic literacy, the processes of creating, performing (in dance, music, or theater), presenting (in the visual arts) or producing (in media arts), responding, and connecting reach across all of the arts. Learning these processes in various art forms contributes to your media literacy and to your experience (State Education Agency Directors of Arts Education 2013).
Media literacy is the ability to access, analyze, and evaluate media content. Viewing and responding to a dance performance includes both deconstruction and construction.
After you reflect upon the dance as a complete work, the next step is to take the dance apart. Deconstruction is analyzing or taking a dance performance apart. It is how you look at the components of the choreography, the dancers' performance, and the production elements of the work. Construction activities use the dance analysis (or deconstruction) as a basis for participating in a discussion about the dance, writing a dance report about a work you have viewed, or summarizing your findings and filing them in your memory bank along with your visual memories of the dance work.
When you attend a dance concert or view a video of a dance performance, you may have been assigned to write a dance report. A couple of strategies are useful for preparing you to write your response. Before you view the performance, read over the items or questions you have to cover in the report. When you view the dance, watch, hear, and feel the performance. Some people suggest reading the program notes about the dance after the concert. Your viewing experience of the dance provides the information from which to write your report.
In past centuries, literacy meant reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills. These skills remain foundational today; they have become the basis of 21st-century skills such as media literacy. When you gain an understanding of a media presentation and its components that create meaning, then you are engaging in media literacy.
Dance literacy includes knowledge of movement, music, theater, and arts terminology. Dance is multilingual through its various genres, their specific terminology, and the application of movement, choreographic, and aesthetic principles. Other facets of dance literacy include knowledge of rhythmic and musical languages, stagecraft and theater vocabularies, arts education, arts media processes, and production terminology. Dance literacy skills contribute to overall media literacy.
Activity 15.2 Explore
Analyzing a Dance Performance
When you view a dance performance, you use your skills in media literacy to analyze it. After you reflect on the dance as a complete work, the next step is to take the dance apart. It is how you look at the components of the choreography, the dancers' performance, and the production elements of the work. When you deconstruct a dance work, think about these questions:
- What do you think is the choreographer's message, idea, and theme?
- Were you able to discern the choreographic structure of the dance?
- How did the music interact or support the dance?
- Did the dancers' technique meet the requirements of the choreography?
- Did the dancers express the style of the choreography?
- Did the production elements of lighting and costuming support the presentation of the dance work and contribute to it as a work of art?
- Was the dance aesthetically moving to you?
- Would you consider this dance a work of art?
Multiple Intelligences
The theory of multiple intelligences (MI) and 21st-century educational theories have provided evidence that students acquire many ways of being smart through dance. These intelligences translate to other courses of study and into the workplace.
The theory of multiple intelligences was developed by an educational psychologist named Harold Gardner. Beginning in the 1980s, Gardner's original system of seven intelligences has expanded to nine; it continues to expand. The following list summarizes Gardner's nine intelligences. Your multiple intelligence quotient is really a combination of all of your intelligences. You may rate very high in certain intelligences and not as high in others. Gardner claims that you can strengthen and expand the intelligences that you ignore or challenge yourself (Gardner1983).
- Verbal-linguistic intelligence: Verbal skills and sensitivity to meaning and rhythm of words.
- Mathematical or logical intelligence: Conceptual and abstract thinking skills in both numerical and logic patterns.
- Musical intelligence: Understanding and ability to use rhythm, pitch, and texture.
- Visual-spatial intelligence: Thinking and visualizing using images in spatial and abstract configurations.
- Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence: Moving and handling objects with grace, skill, and artfulness.
- Interpersonal intelligence: Communicating appropriately with other people in relation to their moods, ideas, and directions.
- Intrapersonal intelligence: Self-awareness of feelings, values, and thinking processes.
- Naturalist intelligence: Recognizing and categorizing plants, animals, and other things in nature.
- Existential intelligence: Deep thinking about philosophical and essential questions about life and its meaning.
Adapted from http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/mi/index.html
Activity 15.3 Discover
Your Multiple Intelligences (MI)
Do you recognize some of your intelligences? The web resource includes a link to an MI test to take for fun and to find out the various ways you are smart. Then you can compare your MI with those of others in the class. Knowing your MI can give you insights into some possible career directions. Your MI can change over time as you develop other intelligences. Documenting your MI can be an interesting way to self-check and track your changes in the future.
Learn more about Discovering Dance.
Exploring Dance Composition
Dance composition is learning how to make a dance. During the dance composition process you explore a movement idea by creating dance movement or selecting steps in some dance genres, then you manipulate these elements and materials of dance into movement modules of various lengths to compose a dance.
Dance composition is learning how to make a dance. During the dance composition process you explore a movement idea by creating dance movement or selecting steps in some dance genres, then you manipulate these elements and materials of dance into movement modules of various lengths to compose a dance. To understand how to use your tools for composition, you need to be familiar with choreographic design principles, structures, and devices. For a dance work to have solidarity and value, the choreography should connect to aesthetic principles that underlie art works.
In the Movement Invention activity, you invented two contrasting dance phrases (a short series of movements that connect into a pattern) or longer sequences. In the next activities you will create a movement sequence (a group of movements that form a unit), and then you will develop a movement statement (similar to a sentence). All of these movement segments contain a beginning, a middle, and an end. Coupling movement sentences together builds a dance segment similar to a paragraph in writing. Regardless of how long or short it is, a dance composition focuses on the beginning, the middle, the end, and on the movement between these points. Creating and composing the movement is one part of the choreographic process. Checking to ensure choreographic principles underlie the dance modules requires you to analyze your composition during the process and when it is complete. Table 4.1 lists the basic choreographic principles that underlie a dance composition.
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The following sections lead you through the choreographic process as you compose your movement segments.
Creative and Choreographic Processes
Different dance scholars present similar creative and choreographic processes. Some scholars write about the creative process, while others write about the steps to create a dance. Both processes underlie making a dance.
The creative process in dance making requires a period of preparation in which you collect ideas. This preparation time should include time for developing choreographic ideas; in other words, you need to figure out the central idea and how to approach it. Next you have to experiment with movement for a deeper insight into the movement ideas. In later sessions, you evaluate the movement and determine what works and what does not work as part of the dance work. The final step in the process is elaborating on the movement ideas you have selected.
Another dance composition process uses similar steps. First, observe the world around you, and explore ways of imitating or symbolizing what you have observed using bodies and movement. Working by yourself, do movement explorations and collect external experiences by observing the work of others. During the composition process, group reflections and discussions provide feedback that should be sorted out as to how well it applies or transfers to the dance in progress. In creating a dance, use your synthesized information from exploration and reflection. After the performance, a final group reflection helps to analyze the process and the product. Then extend the group reflection to a journal of what you learned and what ideas have been sparked for future choreography.
You should know the reason behind your writing activities in relation to your movement activities. Choreographic journaling has been part of dance composition courses since at least the last quarter of the 20th century, and this type of journaling continues today.
In academic dance courses, you usually keep choreographic journals to collect written records of your observations, movement experiments, research, and findings as you go through the dance composition process. Often you write about personal goals in the class and challenges you have faced during a course. You also write about how as an individual or in a group you responded to the process or what you learned from it to help you frame or propose your next project.
With the creative and choreographic processes in mind, the next step is to survey your ingredients for making a dance. In chapter 3 you learned about the elements of dance that play a central role in creating a dance. However, other ingredients also contribute to dance composition.
Activity 4.2 Explore
Create a Movement Sequence
Using the locomotor movements from chapter 3, select two, three, or four even and uneven locomotor movements, and join them together into an 8-count movement sequence. Often movement sequences are parts of a longer movement statement. If a sequence appears to be complete, it may be referred to as a movement statement or sentence. This activity has two parts.
Part 1
Decide the order of the locomotor movements. Practice your movement sequence until you have it memorized. To add variety to the movement sequence, here are some ideas to try:
First, do the movement sequence as you created it. Repeat the sequence once at slow speed, then repeat it again at a faster speed. Changing the speed or timing on movements changes your energy or qualities of movement. Memorize these movement sequences in the order you chose.
Think about what energy, effort, or qualities you used in these repetitions and how they changed. Review the list of effort actions or movement qualities from chapter 3, and identify which ones you used. If you find a couple of undistinguishable efforts or movement qualities, try the movement again to clarify them.
Part 2
Now select two, three, or four different even and uneven locomotor movements or basic steps presented in chapter 3; these movements should be ones you are less comfortable with. Use these movements to create another movement sequence.Practice and memorize your new sequence. Again, perform the sequence four times using two or three different speeds. Then, do the first movement sequence followed by the second, or longer, sequence.
Reflect on these ideas about both movement phrases or sequences:
- The locomotor movements or steps you chose
- The differences in speeds
- How the energy, effort, effort actions, or movement qualities changed
How does the first movement sequence compare or contrast to your second movement sequence? Identify at least two similarities and two differences in movement, energy, effort, effort actions, and movement qualities when you changed the speed of your movement.
Summarize your reflections either on paper or in your mind. In a small group, take turns doing your two movement sequences following one another. Then present to the group your summary of the similarities and differences between the two movement sequences you created. Ask the group, "What did you see as similarities and differences after viewing my two movement sequences?"
Listening to the feedback of your peers may give you new ideas to try or to incorporate into your sequences. Observing others perform their movement inventions may give you more ideas to store away in your movement memory bank for future use.
Sources of Movement
Creating new dance movements comes from exploring and experimenting with movement possibilities. Exploring new ways to move may take you out of your comfort zone. As you mentally and physically record these experiments, keep in mind that they may or may not turn out to be movements you want to add to your movement memory bank. But don't let that stop you from experimenting. Although it does involve taking movement risks, your experiments are being done in the safe setting of a dance class.
Improvisation is creating movement or movement invention for making dances. Using different stimuli creates new movement. Internal stimuli could include exploring your spontaneous individual movements based on touch, auditory, or visual sources. External stimuli could come from music, a work of art, nature, or an everyday task.
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During improvisation, the teacher can provide valuable feedback or suggestions about the movement or poses being created.
When a group is looking for solutions to a problem, they often brainstorm, and together they consider a number of options. Improvisation is similar to brainstorming; in fact, it has been called body storming. You can practice body storming by yourself or with a group. Doing movement improvisation with a group can be a lot of fun, and it allows you to gather or share new movement ideas. While improvising, use the somatic movement awareness principles and Laban effort actions. Experiment with how these important actions connect to space, time, energy, and weight to create new dynamics in your dancing.
Sources for improvisation can be visual, words, poetry, tasks, senses, or someone else's movement or dances. These movement experiments or improvisations have several forms:
- Free-form improvisations are self-expression based on the premise of you moving and responding to music. This type of improvisational study can be a movement response to auditory, visual, textural, or a combination of stimuli.
- Semi-structured movement experiments solve a problem, answer the question, or have different points that the teacher or you determine as the criteria for composing the work.
- A structured improvisation is an experimental movement sequence that is loosely structured and practiced. Quite often a group work, the choreographer identifies movement sections or specific movement pictures that the group has developed during practice. These sections or pictures give the work an overall form and an artistic focus.
When you view or discuss an improvisation, you need a framework to help keep the discussion focused on the composition instead of on personal likes and dislikes. One system for discussing dance is known as RADS,which stands for using the following components: relationships, actions, dynamics, and use of space. Try it after a movement invention session or apply it as a self-analysis to your own movement improvisation.
Improvisation is a creative way to extend your personal movement repertory and styles. Practicing the many forms of improvisation helps you tap into your own creative force, enhancing your experience as a dancer and as a dance maker.
Learn more about Discovering Dance.
Discovering Cultural Dance
Dance has been called the universal language; you live in a world that dances.
Dance has been called the universal language; you live in a world that dances. Take a look at the map of the world and its continents (figure 8.1). Geographers have identified distinct natural and physical features (ecosystems) in regions throughout the world. Studying a geographic region that supports human culture is also known as cultural geography. Within these geographic regions are specific cultural regions of the world.
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Regions of the world.
In each of these cultural regions are countries, people of various racial and ethnic groups, and their cultural values. Their arts include dances from aboriginals or first people (the original people who inhabited the land since millennia ago) who migrated to these regions because of war, famine, economic hardship, or other reasons. The common elements of culture include the following (Blankenship in press):
- It is a way of life, learned and shared with future generations.
- It changes with time and is symbolic.
- The economy drives a culture.
Culture is a community or society's knowledge, beliefs, values, customs, and common heritage. If you were to look at the cultural geographic areas of the world, you would encounter commonalities and differences that make each country or region unique. People have many different views about defining and describing dance from geographic or cultural regions of the world. Some people consider dances from across these regions to be examples of world dance, while others might call these dances cultural dance. Regardless of where you live in the world, you participate in dances that reflect a lot or a little of the culture.
Activity 8.1 Explore
Dance Around the World
Using a map of the world, survey the geographic region that your teacher assigns to your group. Search a region's or country's website, then describe the physical features of each region or country. Next, research and describe the people of that area and their culture, and find examples of a traditional dance they perform. If you can locate a video performance of the dance, write a brief descriptive summary about it. In your summary include the following information:
- Background or history of the dance
- Who dances
- When and where the dance is performed
Describe the music that accompanies the dance and the dancers' clothing. Add a photo of the dancers performing, and list references or web links to your online sources.
Did You Know?
People Like Me
People Like Me is the arts education program of the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festivaland World Arts West. For 15 seasons this organization has presented an extraordinary festival featuring dancers and dance companies that represent cultures around the world. On their website, the festival provides their Online Encyclopedia of World Dance, which includes performers, information about selected dances and dance styles, musical instruments, and history of the dance style. Attending the festival to view cultural dance performances by artists from across the world would be an awesome experience. Visiting the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival and World Arts West website provides easy access to a virtual tour of dance around the world.
Exploring Cultural Dance
Specific countries have dances that identify with a region and its culture immediately. For example, African dances or Indian dances have styles that make them readily identifiable, as do other cultural dances from across the globe.
When you study dances as part of a culture, you are using different lenses to see each dance in its cultural context. Earlier in this chapter, you discovered that culture is a concept in human geography. It also has deep connections to the fields of cultural anthropology, ethnology, and ethnomusicology. Cultural anthropology is the study of humans and their culture, which includes social structures, languages, laws, religion, arts, and technology. Ethnology is the study of the cultural life of a community. An ethnologist lives in a community for several years to record the everyday life of the people and their culture. Ethnomusicology is the study of a people's music in relation to its culture or society. Ethnomusicologists may extend their study to dances performed to the music of the culture.
Countries all over the world have traditional dances, but they are actually evolving products of history, migration, wars, and political and societal changes of the people who perform them. Today, in one country you can encounter many cultural dances, including the following:
- Dances of aboriginals or first people.
- Dances of early settlers who migrated to the area and brought their culture to their new home. In various historical eras, the dances may have colonial or postcolonial versions.
- Blended dances created after wars changed a people and their culture. These dances are not created overnight. In an invaded country, the original people and the new arrivals may or may not embrace each other's cultures or dances. A cultural clash may occur, and the two groups may resist each other's influence. Blending outside influences into existing traditions takes place over time.
- Newer variations of traditional dances that evolve from generation to generation. These dances absorb and blend personal, group, and societal trends that can change a dance and its performance.
- Dances of tribes, first people, and ethnic groups who strive to keep their ancestral traditions alive in contemporary society. People preserve these dances to share their heritage with the young people of their community.
All cultural dances presented in the overview of dance types connect to the three common elements of a culture (see Discovering Cultural Dance).
If you add all these elements together, you get two deep understandings:
- Culture is about participating as a community; it can be related to ritual, spiritual, and life events and celebrations.
- Culture can be defined as a way of life that is learned, shared with future generations, and changes with time.
Participating, viewing, and learning about cultural dance and the roles it plays in societies leads to awareness and appreciation of other people and their cultural values.
Experiencing a cultural dance means taking a look at the movement from the perspectives of both the cultural dancer and the requirements of the dance. The ideas you have learned about other dance forms so far or will encounter in this book may not apply to cultural dances. So, discard your preconception of cultural dances, and involve yourself in perceiving and experiencing the movement. Then you will be poised to find the meaning or essence of the dance and gain some insights about the dancers who perform it. Experiencing cultural dance requires you to observe through a different kind of dance lens; you must see as an ethnologist would, paying attention to the dance in the context of its home culture.
Explore More
Take a virtual dance tour! On the web resource, you will visit a variety of countries across the globe. Each country provides an overview of its geography, history, and some of its most important dances. Key search terms in some of the dance genres provide ways to view and learn a dance or movement sequence. The dance tour provides an overview from which you can explore more through researching the countries and their wealth of dances.
Mexico
Mexico has a wealth of natural and cultural resources, with diverse landscapes from mountains to jungles, and historic traditions reaching back more than 3,000 years. Mexican dance captures the rhythm, emotion, and movement of a vibrant society with a heritage rich in tradition.
America
The United States is a country of vast natural and cultural resources and is populated by people from a vast variety of cultural heritage. Since prehistoric times, Native Americans have danced to express their traditions and cultural values. Contemporary urban dance forms began to express social changes in the United States during the latter 20th century.
Europe
Europe is a huge continent with many nationalities and their dances. Chapter 7 (Folk Dance) contains a variety of folk dances from countries throughout Europe, Russia, and other countries.
Africa
Africa is the second largest continent in the world with 54 countries. African people and cultures represent a diversity of economic and social structures with various beliefs, religions, and arts. For centuries African cultural dance has captured the spirit of life events, community and spiritual beliefs, and identities of tribes and clans of various regions.
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In Africa, dance is an integral part of ceremonies, festivals, and rites. African dances are done in many countries throughout the world.
India
India is the seventh largest country in the world. For nearly 3,000 years, dance art has existed in India and is a significant aspect in Indian culture. Classical Indian dance includes a wide range of forms and styles that reflect various geographic centers, history, and traditions.
Japan
Japan is a group of islands off the east coast of Asia. According to legend, Japan was founded in the 7th century BCE. Japanese cultural dances relate to religions and social eras in Japanese history. Japanese cultural dance forms and styles span historical court dances, religious dances, and traditional folk dances. In Japan, dance remains an integral part of historical theatrical entertainment.
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Japanese dances are passed from generation to generation.
Exploring these countries is just the starting place for learning about cultural dance. You may want to continue your virtual travels to other countries. These countries may connect to your family heritage, a place where a friend came from, or a country you hope to visit in the future. Whatever the reason, you can go there today and share what you learned with the class.
Activity 8.2 Explore
Learn a Cultural Dance
In a small group, find a dance from the country you visited on the web in the exploration activity Dance Around the World. The cultural dance you select could be
- a traditional dance,
- a folk dance,
- a social dance,
- a dance that provides entertainment for visitors, or
- a dance that is considered an art form or part of another art such as drama or theater.
Find two videos of the dance. After watching the videos, learn several movements, poses, a movement sequence, or the entire dance. Through your reading and research about this dance can you discover
- who dances,
- when and where they dance, and
- why they dance.
Identify a list of unique characteristics of the dance (review dance designs in chapter 5). Then, further explore the background and history of the dance to answer this question: How does the dance relate to or represent the people, their culture, and society?
Spotlight
Dance Diplomacy
In early 2010 modern and contemporary dance makers from the groups Urban Bush Women, ODC, and Evidence, a dance company, took part in the first U.S. pilot program to tour internationally as the gateway of cultural exchange among nations. The purpose of this "dance diplomacy" was to create a model cultural exchange initiative. The international tour, supported by the U.S. Department of State, reached global audiences of more than 15,000 in 16 cities of 9 countries in Southeast Asia, South America, and Africa. The second season in 2012 reached global audiences of 25,000 in 24 cities in 13 countries in Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia.
U.S. embassies and the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs partner with dance companies, leading cultural and community-based organizations, and educational institutions to host unique residencies that create opportunities for engagement and exchange. One of these cultural exchanges is DanceMotionUSA, which sends American dance companies overseas to connect with audiences through workshops, lecture demonstrations, and public performances.
Learn more about Discovering Dance.
Discovering Dance as Entertainment
As you read the introduction to this chapter, you may have recognized some of the forms of dance as entertainment that you knew or have even taken part in. Some of these forms are live performances, and others are performed for recorded media, yet others focus on commercial dance.
As you read the introduction to this chapter, you may have recognized some of the forms of dance as entertainment that you knew or have even taken part in. Some of these forms are live performances, and others are performed for recorded media, yet others focus on commercial dance.Your first activity is an exploration of a form of commercial dance.
Activity 13.1 Explore
Dance in Commercials
Many television commercials use dance to sell products or services. To begin this exploration, spend some time surfing television channels. Select two of your favorite commercials that include dance. Write a one-page paper about one of the commercials. Describe the dancers, the setting, the dance, and why they are dancing. What message do you think is being communicated through the dance? Are the music and dialogue effective parts of the commercial? What product is being featured in the commercial? Do you think the dancing makes connections to the product to sell it effectively? What appeals to you (or doesn't appeal to you) about the dance and the commercial? Write a paragraph to critique the commercial. Search for this commercial on the Internet. In your paper, include a photo and a link for viewing the commercial online.
As a class, share your commercial review papers in the classroom or on the school or class's webpage. If several people selected the same commercial, post them together. Then select two other commercials posted that you did not view but capture your interest. In a class discussion, determine the top three dance commercials, and provide a rationale for these choices using the same criteria you used for your commercial review. On a sheet of paper or the board, post these "awards" with that group of commercial reviews.
Did You Know?
Cruise Ship Performers
The top cruise lines vie for passengers by offering an array of dance, musical theater, and media entertainment options. From shortened versions of Broadway shows to aqua theaters where an underwater civilization comes to life, each cruise line has multiple entertainment options for travelers. Behind the scenes, the life for dancers and other entertainers revolves around rehearsing and performing the shows. Dancers should have training in a wide variety of dance genres and styles. With two performances or more per day, or twelve performances or more per week, production show dancers have a busy schedule. A production show dancer may have additional roles on nonproduction show evenings and other occasions such as greet passengers or lead and escort tours of the bridge and backstage areas. On cruise ships, which can be like a small city on the sea, show dancers must be ready for living in close quarters and get used to dancing on a stage that moves with the rocking motion of the ship. In their spare time, dancers have staff access on deck and to facilities such as the pool and the gym. If you love to travel, this is a job in which you can dance your way to new destinations.
Exploring Dance as Entertainment
Dance entertainment is a vast topic and an important component of dance. As a viewer of dance entertainment, you see the collaboration between dance artists, directors, and media or live production staff. These collaborators create ways to use dance choreography to entertain audiences or sell products or services in various settings. To prepare for dancing in commercial or entertainment settings, you have to be versatile as a dancer. You must study social dance, folk dance, cultural dance, street dance, ballet, modern dance, jazz, and tap dance. When you explore the section on dance unions in chapter 15 and on the web resource, you will see job listings that outline the dance genres a dancer needs to have for these jobs. A job can be for a one-performance event, or it might last for years, such as a musical theater performance on Broadway or a yearlong touring show. Commercial dancers who go from job to job are called dance gypsies, because their work is constantly changing from one show to another.
History of Dance as Entertainment
Professional dancers have worked as entertainers since prehistory. In ancient Egypt, the first recorded professional dancers, along with acrobats and musicians, entertained royalty. In ancient Greece dance was part of theater. From medieval times through the renaissance, dance was entertainment and amusement for nobles and peasants alike.
During modern history as dance moved onstage, dance as entertainment was part of other art forms or as interludes between dramas and operas. In the 19th century, dance continued to gain stature through entertainment such as minstrel shows, circuses, spectacles, fairs, variety shows, and vaudeville performances. Dance performances took place outdoors, in music and variety halls, theaters, and arenas. When the transcontinental railway system linked the nation from coast to coast, dance as entertainment exploded. Entire troupes or stock companies or self-contained companies who performed all types of entertainment forms, traveled the country by train; they stopped in cities and small towns to entertain people for the night. These companies were made up of versatile triple threat performers - those who did all the acting, dancing, and singing roles required in an evening's entertainment.
In the 20th century, the love of dance as entertainment grew in new directions. Broadway revues evolved into musical theater productions. With the invention of motion pictures and then television, dance moved into entertainment mass media.
For Broadway shows, dance artists and choreographers from ballet and modern dance companies created dances in early-20th-century follies (elaborate shows with music, songs, and dances), revues, and then musicals. As musical theater dance developed, it continued to absorb the styles of dance genres such as tap dance, ballet, modern dance, and jazz dance. Each musical theater production had its unique choreography using blended styles. Broadway shows tour throughout the world, bringing classical and contemporary musical theater productions to millions of people.
Dance movies have been popular since the early days of film. Producing these movies took hundreds of dancers, such as in the work of Busby Berkeley in the 1920s as a Broadway dance director and in 1930s movies where he directed musical numbers which led to his fame. Dance movies became an important area of commercial dance. Dancers and choreographers have entertained and educated audiences in historical dramas, animated movies, movie musicals, and science fiction movies alike. Animated movies in which characters danced were the invention of Walt Disney and his creative staff. Characters such as Snow White and the dancing dwarfs, princesses, and all kinds of creatures perform animated dances. In the 1950s, Gene Kelly bridged the gap between animation and live characters when he danced with an animated mouse in the film Anchors Away (1945).
With the advent of television, dance moved into variety shows, such as the Ed Sullivan Show. They showcased a wide variety of dance artists and choreographers and made them household names across America. As television programming expanded, so did the opportunities for dance shows. The popular Dance in America series brought ballet and modern dance companies to homes across America. Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) continues to provide diverse programming of dance as art, entertainment, and education.
Over the last decade, reality dance shows such as So You Think You Can Dance and Dancing With the Stars have expanded dance audiences and their appreciation of dance. Televised dance or drill team competitions and other associated dance competitions present another aspect of dance as entertainment. Television programming now includes an array of dance entertainment, including sitcoms and documentary series on dancers, their personal lives, musical theater, and dance genres from around the world.
After Disneyland opened in the 1950s, amusement and theme parks became another mass entertainment medium. Dance became an important feature in theme parks across the nation and the world. Dancing characters from the movies reside in different areas of these parks. In each park, one or more companies of dancers perform short entertainment shows throughout the day, every day. Dancers perform blended historical, cultural, or social dance styles to entertain park visitors. The Disney concept of performers - being in character and onstage while walking in the park or dancing - spurred an entire entertainment industry. Other live entertainment settings, including cruise ships, casinos, and resorts, provide multiple dancing stage shows as entertainment for guests.
When Internet technology expanded, another entertainment site emerged that would support dance films, recorded dance performance, and ways to interact in real time with dancers and choreographers across the globe. In the 20th century the term dance for the camera was coined to describe dance that was filmed as art, education, or entertainment. Productions of dance for the camera include documentaries of dancers and choreographers, historical and educational movies, concert and cultural dance companies, and performances of choreographed artistic dance films. These dance films are broadcast on television, shown in schools, or shown as fine art films. On the Internet, anyone can post a personal dance video to be viewed by the class, the school, and often the entire world. Dance for the camera has expanded into a whole new dimension that requires understanding dance as well as the art of filming it. To create dance for the camera, you need to grasp the artistic and production values, choices, and processes that are part of creating a filmed work.
Explore More
You can see from this brief overview that there is much to explore in dance as entertainment and its commercial sector. The Explore More sections on the web resource will explore three dance entertainment genres: dance or drill teams, dance in musical theater, and dance for the camera.
Dance or Drill Teams
Dance or drill teams range from students in middle school, high school, and college to professionals who perform at local sporting events to televised professional sports. Halftime shows for many sports feature dance or drill teams. Dance or drill teams perform for school games and community functions, and they take part in dance and drill team competitions. Their routines showcase their ensemble technique, spirit, and enthusiasm for the crowds. Training for dance and drill team requires athleticism and artistry. Dance and drill teams began as a Texas phenomenon that has spread across the United States and around the world. Visit the chapter 13 on the web resource to explore more about dance and drill teams.
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A dance team moves together to create a powerful effect.
Courtesy of Jennifer Dawson, Terri Ware, and Silver Star Dancers
Activity 13.2 Discover
Learn a Drill or Dance Team Combination
For this activity, your teacher or a classmate teaches one or more basic drill or dance combinations to the class. After everyone has learned and practiced the routine to music, take a few minutes to reflect on the experience. In your journal, write about what you enjoyed in the routine, what was challenging, and which type of routine you preferred and why. Share it with another student or in a group discussion.
Dance in Musical Theater
Musical theater dance spans school musicals, professional productions on the Broadway stage, and touring companies that travel to cities across the world. Becoming a musical theater dancer takes versatile dance training and other performing arts skills such as acting, music, and voice. The challenge in every musical theater production is to blend dancing, acting, and singing to portray your role. Visit the web resource to explore more about musical theater dance.
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Musical theater productions feature a blend of singing, dancing, and acting.
Jim West
Activity 13.3 Explore
Dance in Musical Theater
Choose a musical from the list provided by your teacher. Form a small group with other students who chose the same musical theater production. Together, search the Internet to find a video of a major dance sequence or dance combination from that musical. Your teacher may provide you with a list of dances from which to choose. View the dance number, then answer these questions:
- Identify each main character, and write a sentence or two about each person to describe their personality.
- Where does the dance take place?
- What inspires the characters to do this dance?
Describe the dance, the music, and whether it includes a song that is part of the musical number.
Collaborate as a group to develop, write, and present a 1- or 2-minute oral summary or a media presentation to the class to cover this information:
- Provide the story line (plot) of the musical.
- Identify the choreographer and give a very brief summary (two or three sentences) of the individual's contributions to the field.
- Indicate the main characters by writing a two- to three-sentence biography about each person.
- Describe the dance, the music, and the song in the musical number that you viewed.
Post a one-page summary of your group's information in the classroom or on the class web page. Add a picture that captures the meaning of the musical, or take a photo of your group in a memorable pose from the dance you researched. On your media presentation and one-page summary, cite the sources for your research.
Dance for the Camera
Dance in film, television, music videos, and other media forms provides entertainment for audiences. It also provides choreographers and dancers more media choices for presenting dance as an art form. Dance for the camera is term that covers entertainment, artistic, and multimedia forms of presenting dance. Filming dance has been instrumental in documenting its artists and works for the public to enjoy. Further, dance media has expanded dancers' views about how to complement or enhance a live performance. The final Explore More section investigates the types of media used in dance for the camera.
Learn more about Discovering Dance.
Discovering College and Career Preparation
Moving in new ways, remembering movement sequences, and executing them in time to music within changing formations and pathways is challenging.
Moving in new ways, remembering movement sequences, and executing them in time to music within changing formations and pathways is challenging. Dancing is a complicated process that requires mental and physical coordination, memorization, problem solving, refining, and performing. Like sports and many other fine arts, dancing demands that you juggle many factors to perform at your best. College and careers demand the same.
The processes of dancing, dance making, and dance appreciation fuel the discipline of dance. Across the arts the processes of creating, performing, responding, and interconnecting support other studies. Learning the movement languages of dance genres helps you not only in dance-related studies and careers but also in other arts-related disciplines and in life.
Activity 15.1 Research
College and Career Options
Write a list of two or three potential careers in dance, fine arts, or another discipline that you are interested in learning more about. Do an Internet search about each career, and note the following factors:
- Educational requirements
- Skills and abilities needed for this career
- Working conditions (for example, hours)
- Pay range and other benefits
- Personal benefits and values someone in this career would receive
After you have collected the answers to these questions for each career path, write a short descriptive paragraph about each career, and share it with the class.
In another document, write what appeals to you about this career. Also add what you think are your challenges in considering this career. Decide whether this career is a future possibility for further consideration or it is not a direction you wish to pursue.
Did You Know?
Dance Employment
The U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics posts the Occupational Outlook Handbook on its website (www.bls.gov). This handbook includes employment information about dancers and choreographers as part of the country's work force. These government data provide information about work environment, pay scale, and job outlook for the future as well as other information. In 2010 about 25,600 dancers and choreographers held jobs. Approximately 20 percent of dancers in performing arts companies and about 78 percent of choreographers work in a variety of schools and other places (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2012).
Employment of dancers is expected to increase at about 11 percent with a projected employment of 13,700 more people by 2020. This percentage is in the average range of all occupations. Employment of choreographers is projected to increase 24 percent with a projected employment of 16,400 by 2020. This is faster than the average for all occupations. The growing interest in dance as entertainment attracts people to enroll in dance classes. In turn, this growth in enrollment creates employment opportunities in television, movies, and other leisure settings.
Exploring Dance and Associated Careers
Imagine you are looking for a job, and you see an advertisement that reads, "Employer looking for creative, innovative, adaptive thinkers. If you are qualified, please apply." As a dancer, you can meet these and other requirements for work in the 21st century. Dancing, dance making, and thinking like a dancer train you in the skills you need for your education and career.
The time since the start of the new millennium has seen tremendous changes at a rapid pace. This quick pace is in part because of advances in technology that affect everyday lives and careers. Near the end of the 20th century, some of the world's greatest thinkers began to investigate what types of knowledge and skills 21st-century workers and citizens would need to be successful. As a result, they identified various types of learning and literacy such as financial, environmental, artistic, and others.
Across these categories, a series of broad topics reach from school to work, into the community, and the world:
- Communication
- Creativity
- Collaboration
- Critical thinking
The skills that support these four C's for 21st-century learning are presented in table 15.1.
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Scanning the entries in table 15.1 can be overwhelming. Pause a moment, and reflect on the assignments you did in the chapters of this book and your other class work. Then, recall the dance learning processes contained in the items listed. The point to remember is that the four topics contain major knowledge and skills that span dance and other disciplines of study as preparation for college and careers. In table 15.1 you will see that some of the skills identified cross one or more of the four categories.
Acquiring these attributes is a long-term process; it can take many years to complete. Reading these ideas gives you an understanding of how learning spans from the classroom through experiences in your community and life. These four C's are deeply embedded in dancing, dance making, and dance appreciation processes:
- Communicating through dance: In dance you communicate when you create, perform, or reflect on a dance work. In making a dance, the choreographer, dancers, and associated artistic staff need common arts vocabularies to effectively communicate, analytical skills to solve problems, and negotiation and teamwork skills along with an array of management skills to create and produce a dance performance.
- Creativity: When choreographers and dancers analyze and solve movement problems in a dance work, they use the creative process. The choreographer approaches an idea or theme for a dance and creatively seeks a choreographic design through which to communicate a cohesive artistic statement. The audience viewing a dance reflects and analyzes what they perceive as the meaning and the design of the dance work. Their feedback may be communicated to the dancers, choreographer, artistic staff, or the community. These responses can influence the direction of a choreographer's future works, artistic directions, or a company's finances.
- Collaboration: Collaboration is an integral part of dancing and creating artistic works with other artists. Improvisational structures and dance compositional forms require that dancers work as a highly functioning team to perform a dance. In dance making, choreographers strategically plan movement for dancers to communicate ideas. Associated artists join forces to present a unified message in an artistic work.
- Critical thinking: Through all dance processes, dancers and choreographers, associated artists, and audience members use critical thinking. Dancers have to make logical and quick decisions during a dance for safety or for artistic expression. Choreographers use analytical skills along with management and technology skills to make dances that satisfy an artistic mission and to meet business goals. Dance audiences determine whether attending a dance company performance will be a continuing venture.
Dance provides a wide range of professional career options in communities, cities, and around the world. Dance careers span areas of the arts and entertainment, media, fitness, recreation, business, education, technical fields, and other areas.
As you learned in chapter13, dance as entertainment is big business. Dance in education spans from preschool through university and graduate education, and into communities and people's lives across the nation as participation or through education, performance, and advocacy. Dance studios, gyms, recreation centers, and performing arts organizations have expanded their community contributions as more and more people realize the importance and contribution of dance and the other arts to their lives. Dance professional organizations provide continuing professional development for students, educators, artists, scientists, writers, and others interested or involved in dance as profession or associated professions. Dance professionals work as performers and in many roles that support dance performance. Often professionals with a dance background work in associated fields such as dance therapy, kinesiology, production, media, and arts administration. Their presence as dance professionals in these fields brings deeper perspectives to new audiences of how dance can play a role in other disciplines.
Transferring Dance Skills to Life Skills
Life and career skills - the skills you need in order to succeed in work and life - require four characteristics: flexibility, adaptability, taking initiative, and being self-directed. In school, work, and community you should demonstrate cross-cultural and leadership skills. In your school and career, you should be responsible, productive, and accountable for your work. In the dance class you cultivate dancer attributes that then apply in your dancing and personal development.
Your experience in dance develops a number of traits that apply to other life endeavors. Personal development through dance for future career directions beyond dance include these:
- Physical, intellectual, and kinesthetic awareness
- Fine-tuned observation skills
- Enhanced focus and concentration
- Extended self-discipline, responsibility, and empathy
- Perception and sensory awareness of personal movement and others' movement choices and styles
- Versatility, ability to adapt, and flexibility in various situations
- Expanded interpersonal (mental and physical attributes you share with others) and intrapersonal (the internal conversation you have with yourself) communication skills
Observation and Awareness
Observation skills are critical to learning dance and are essential in any career. Observational skills take time to develop. Concentrated observation helps you acquire visual, auditory, and sensory information. As a dancer you filter through this information and determine how it applies to get the desired result.
Dancers learn to coordinate movements of body parts in a step or movement. This complicated coordination of brain and body improves as you move through more complex exercises, combinations, dance sequences, and dances. When you memorize movement you initiate an internal cueing system that engages a complicated synergy of intellectual and body actions with the elements of space, time, energy, or effort. So, what you do in dance contributes directly to your personal development in dance and also to future directions beyond dance. When you take dance classes or perform, you develop these skills:
- Using interpersonal spatial awareness
- Having a physical and intellectual presence in space
- Creating movement as a result of being internally sensitive and intuitive
- Acquiring performance awareness and a professional attitude
- Reading movement and then reproducing the movement (translate it, transpose it) presented by the teacher or choreographer
- Memorizing movements and dances to create a memory bank
- Understanding movement systems, genres, and styles
Creativity and Communication
When composing a dance, you use the creative process to formulate a design and structure for dance movements. You use the creative process in dance when you experiment with the following:
- Determining movement patterns as part of choreography and choreographic designs in space and time using a range of energy or efforts
- Manipulating the order of movements to make a logical statement using seamless transitions
- Using choreographic structures and strategies for augmentations
- Connecting musical knowledge to movement sequences
- Relating visual design elements of patterns, relationships to dance, and identifying styles to apply or augment
- Applying movement, choreographic, and aesthetic principles to dancing and dance composition
- Employing stagecraft and media knowledge in producing the work
Producing a dance is a complicated process that combines design elements, problem-solving skills, and communication with artists and technicians. When you practice these processes, you enhance your abilities as a dancer and create conduits that relate to many associated dance careers.
Media and Artistic Literacy
When you view dances, you develop a visual and mental store of classical to contemporary dance works. Dancers and choreographers have used this system of "recording" to create a memory bank since before the common use of notation systems and electronic recording systems. These mental memories of movements combine with kinesthetic responses you receive from watching dancers perform. Your response to a dance in conversation, discussion, or written forms is also kinesthetic in nature. Translating movement experiences into descriptive and meaningful commentary supports and expands your dance and artistic literacy and your media literacy.
Artistic literacy is the knowledge and understanding required to participate authentically in the arts. Arts include dance, music, dramatic art, visual art, and media. The arts contain content, principles, and applications that are common to them as art forms. In artistic literacy, the processes of creating, performing (in dance, music, or theater), presenting (in the visual arts) or producing (in media arts), responding, and connecting reach across all of the arts. Learning these processes in various art forms contributes to your media literacy and to your experience (State Education Agency Directors of Arts Education 2013).
Media literacy is the ability to access, analyze, and evaluate media content. Viewing and responding to a dance performance includes both deconstruction and construction.
After you reflect upon the dance as a complete work, the next step is to take the dance apart. Deconstruction is analyzing or taking a dance performance apart. It is how you look at the components of the choreography, the dancers' performance, and the production elements of the work. Construction activities use the dance analysis (or deconstruction) as a basis for participating in a discussion about the dance, writing a dance report about a work you have viewed, or summarizing your findings and filing them in your memory bank along with your visual memories of the dance work.
When you attend a dance concert or view a video of a dance performance, you may have been assigned to write a dance report. A couple of strategies are useful for preparing you to write your response. Before you view the performance, read over the items or questions you have to cover in the report. When you view the dance, watch, hear, and feel the performance. Some people suggest reading the program notes about the dance after the concert. Your viewing experience of the dance provides the information from which to write your report.
In past centuries, literacy meant reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills. These skills remain foundational today; they have become the basis of 21st-century skills such as media literacy. When you gain an understanding of a media presentation and its components that create meaning, then you are engaging in media literacy.
Dance literacy includes knowledge of movement, music, theater, and arts terminology. Dance is multilingual through its various genres, their specific terminology, and the application of movement, choreographic, and aesthetic principles. Other facets of dance literacy include knowledge of rhythmic and musical languages, stagecraft and theater vocabularies, arts education, arts media processes, and production terminology. Dance literacy skills contribute to overall media literacy.
Activity 15.2 Explore
Analyzing a Dance Performance
When you view a dance performance, you use your skills in media literacy to analyze it. After you reflect on the dance as a complete work, the next step is to take the dance apart. It is how you look at the components of the choreography, the dancers' performance, and the production elements of the work. When you deconstruct a dance work, think about these questions:
- What do you think is the choreographer's message, idea, and theme?
- Were you able to discern the choreographic structure of the dance?
- How did the music interact or support the dance?
- Did the dancers' technique meet the requirements of the choreography?
- Did the dancers express the style of the choreography?
- Did the production elements of lighting and costuming support the presentation of the dance work and contribute to it as a work of art?
- Was the dance aesthetically moving to you?
- Would you consider this dance a work of art?
Multiple Intelligences
The theory of multiple intelligences (MI) and 21st-century educational theories have provided evidence that students acquire many ways of being smart through dance. These intelligences translate to other courses of study and into the workplace.
The theory of multiple intelligences was developed by an educational psychologist named Harold Gardner. Beginning in the 1980s, Gardner's original system of seven intelligences has expanded to nine; it continues to expand. The following list summarizes Gardner's nine intelligences. Your multiple intelligence quotient is really a combination of all of your intelligences. You may rate very high in certain intelligences and not as high in others. Gardner claims that you can strengthen and expand the intelligences that you ignore or challenge yourself (Gardner1983).
- Verbal-linguistic intelligence: Verbal skills and sensitivity to meaning and rhythm of words.
- Mathematical or logical intelligence: Conceptual and abstract thinking skills in both numerical and logic patterns.
- Musical intelligence: Understanding and ability to use rhythm, pitch, and texture.
- Visual-spatial intelligence: Thinking and visualizing using images in spatial and abstract configurations.
- Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence: Moving and handling objects with grace, skill, and artfulness.
- Interpersonal intelligence: Communicating appropriately with other people in relation to their moods, ideas, and directions.
- Intrapersonal intelligence: Self-awareness of feelings, values, and thinking processes.
- Naturalist intelligence: Recognizing and categorizing plants, animals, and other things in nature.
- Existential intelligence: Deep thinking about philosophical and essential questions about life and its meaning.
Adapted from http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/mi/index.html
Activity 15.3 Discover
Your Multiple Intelligences (MI)
Do you recognize some of your intelligences? The web resource includes a link to an MI test to take for fun and to find out the various ways you are smart. Then you can compare your MI with those of others in the class. Knowing your MI can give you insights into some possible career directions. Your MI can change over time as you develop other intelligences. Documenting your MI can be an interesting way to self-check and track your changes in the future.
Learn more about Discovering Dance.
Exploring Dance Composition
Dance composition is learning how to make a dance. During the dance composition process you explore a movement idea by creating dance movement or selecting steps in some dance genres, then you manipulate these elements and materials of dance into movement modules of various lengths to compose a dance.
Dance composition is learning how to make a dance. During the dance composition process you explore a movement idea by creating dance movement or selecting steps in some dance genres, then you manipulate these elements and materials of dance into movement modules of various lengths to compose a dance. To understand how to use your tools for composition, you need to be familiar with choreographic design principles, structures, and devices. For a dance work to have solidarity and value, the choreography should connect to aesthetic principles that underlie art works.
In the Movement Invention activity, you invented two contrasting dance phrases (a short series of movements that connect into a pattern) or longer sequences. In the next activities you will create a movement sequence (a group of movements that form a unit), and then you will develop a movement statement (similar to a sentence). All of these movement segments contain a beginning, a middle, and an end. Coupling movement sentences together builds a dance segment similar to a paragraph in writing. Regardless of how long or short it is, a dance composition focuses on the beginning, the middle, the end, and on the movement between these points. Creating and composing the movement is one part of the choreographic process. Checking to ensure choreographic principles underlie the dance modules requires you to analyze your composition during the process and when it is complete. Table 4.1 lists the basic choreographic principles that underlie a dance composition.
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The following sections lead you through the choreographic process as you compose your movement segments.
Creative and Choreographic Processes
Different dance scholars present similar creative and choreographic processes. Some scholars write about the creative process, while others write about the steps to create a dance. Both processes underlie making a dance.
The creative process in dance making requires a period of preparation in which you collect ideas. This preparation time should include time for developing choreographic ideas; in other words, you need to figure out the central idea and how to approach it. Next you have to experiment with movement for a deeper insight into the movement ideas. In later sessions, you evaluate the movement and determine what works and what does not work as part of the dance work. The final step in the process is elaborating on the movement ideas you have selected.
Another dance composition process uses similar steps. First, observe the world around you, and explore ways of imitating or symbolizing what you have observed using bodies and movement. Working by yourself, do movement explorations and collect external experiences by observing the work of others. During the composition process, group reflections and discussions provide feedback that should be sorted out as to how well it applies or transfers to the dance in progress. In creating a dance, use your synthesized information from exploration and reflection. After the performance, a final group reflection helps to analyze the process and the product. Then extend the group reflection to a journal of what you learned and what ideas have been sparked for future choreography.
You should know the reason behind your writing activities in relation to your movement activities. Choreographic journaling has been part of dance composition courses since at least the last quarter of the 20th century, and this type of journaling continues today.
In academic dance courses, you usually keep choreographic journals to collect written records of your observations, movement experiments, research, and findings as you go through the dance composition process. Often you write about personal goals in the class and challenges you have faced during a course. You also write about how as an individual or in a group you responded to the process or what you learned from it to help you frame or propose your next project.
With the creative and choreographic processes in mind, the next step is to survey your ingredients for making a dance. In chapter 3 you learned about the elements of dance that play a central role in creating a dance. However, other ingredients also contribute to dance composition.
Activity 4.2 Explore
Create a Movement Sequence
Using the locomotor movements from chapter 3, select two, three, or four even and uneven locomotor movements, and join them together into an 8-count movement sequence. Often movement sequences are parts of a longer movement statement. If a sequence appears to be complete, it may be referred to as a movement statement or sentence. This activity has two parts.
Part 1
Decide the order of the locomotor movements. Practice your movement sequence until you have it memorized. To add variety to the movement sequence, here are some ideas to try:
First, do the movement sequence as you created it. Repeat the sequence once at slow speed, then repeat it again at a faster speed. Changing the speed or timing on movements changes your energy or qualities of movement. Memorize these movement sequences in the order you chose.
Think about what energy, effort, or qualities you used in these repetitions and how they changed. Review the list of effort actions or movement qualities from chapter 3, and identify which ones you used. If you find a couple of undistinguishable efforts or movement qualities, try the movement again to clarify them.
Part 2
Now select two, three, or four different even and uneven locomotor movements or basic steps presented in chapter 3; these movements should be ones you are less comfortable with. Use these movements to create another movement sequence.Practice and memorize your new sequence. Again, perform the sequence four times using two or three different speeds. Then, do the first movement sequence followed by the second, or longer, sequence.
Reflect on these ideas about both movement phrases or sequences:
- The locomotor movements or steps you chose
- The differences in speeds
- How the energy, effort, effort actions, or movement qualities changed
How does the first movement sequence compare or contrast to your second movement sequence? Identify at least two similarities and two differences in movement, energy, effort, effort actions, and movement qualities when you changed the speed of your movement.
Summarize your reflections either on paper or in your mind. In a small group, take turns doing your two movement sequences following one another. Then present to the group your summary of the similarities and differences between the two movement sequences you created. Ask the group, "What did you see as similarities and differences after viewing my two movement sequences?"
Listening to the feedback of your peers may give you new ideas to try or to incorporate into your sequences. Observing others perform their movement inventions may give you more ideas to store away in your movement memory bank for future use.
Sources of Movement
Creating new dance movements comes from exploring and experimenting with movement possibilities. Exploring new ways to move may take you out of your comfort zone. As you mentally and physically record these experiments, keep in mind that they may or may not turn out to be movements you want to add to your movement memory bank. But don't let that stop you from experimenting. Although it does involve taking movement risks, your experiments are being done in the safe setting of a dance class.
Improvisation is creating movement or movement invention for making dances. Using different stimuli creates new movement. Internal stimuli could include exploring your spontaneous individual movements based on touch, auditory, or visual sources. External stimuli could come from music, a work of art, nature, or an everyday task.
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During improvisation, the teacher can provide valuable feedback or suggestions about the movement or poses being created.
When a group is looking for solutions to a problem, they often brainstorm, and together they consider a number of options. Improvisation is similar to brainstorming; in fact, it has been called body storming. You can practice body storming by yourself or with a group. Doing movement improvisation with a group can be a lot of fun, and it allows you to gather or share new movement ideas. While improvising, use the somatic movement awareness principles and Laban effort actions. Experiment with how these important actions connect to space, time, energy, and weight to create new dynamics in your dancing.
Sources for improvisation can be visual, words, poetry, tasks, senses, or someone else's movement or dances. These movement experiments or improvisations have several forms:
- Free-form improvisations are self-expression based on the premise of you moving and responding to music. This type of improvisational study can be a movement response to auditory, visual, textural, or a combination of stimuli.
- Semi-structured movement experiments solve a problem, answer the question, or have different points that the teacher or you determine as the criteria for composing the work.
- A structured improvisation is an experimental movement sequence that is loosely structured and practiced. Quite often a group work, the choreographer identifies movement sections or specific movement pictures that the group has developed during practice. These sections or pictures give the work an overall form and an artistic focus.
When you view or discuss an improvisation, you need a framework to help keep the discussion focused on the composition instead of on personal likes and dislikes. One system for discussing dance is known as RADS,which stands for using the following components: relationships, actions, dynamics, and use of space. Try it after a movement invention session or apply it as a self-analysis to your own movement improvisation.
Improvisation is a creative way to extend your personal movement repertory and styles. Practicing the many forms of improvisation helps you tap into your own creative force, enhancing your experience as a dancer and as a dance maker.
Learn more about Discovering Dance.
Discovering Cultural Dance
Dance has been called the universal language; you live in a world that dances.
Dance has been called the universal language; you live in a world that dances. Take a look at the map of the world and its continents (figure 8.1). Geographers have identified distinct natural and physical features (ecosystems) in regions throughout the world. Studying a geographic region that supports human culture is also known as cultural geography. Within these geographic regions are specific cultural regions of the world.
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Regions of the world.
In each of these cultural regions are countries, people of various racial and ethnic groups, and their cultural values. Their arts include dances from aboriginals or first people (the original people who inhabited the land since millennia ago) who migrated to these regions because of war, famine, economic hardship, or other reasons. The common elements of culture include the following (Blankenship in press):
- It is a way of life, learned and shared with future generations.
- It changes with time and is symbolic.
- The economy drives a culture.
Culture is a community or society's knowledge, beliefs, values, customs, and common heritage. If you were to look at the cultural geographic areas of the world, you would encounter commonalities and differences that make each country or region unique. People have many different views about defining and describing dance from geographic or cultural regions of the world. Some people consider dances from across these regions to be examples of world dance, while others might call these dances cultural dance. Regardless of where you live in the world, you participate in dances that reflect a lot or a little of the culture.
Activity 8.1 Explore
Dance Around the World
Using a map of the world, survey the geographic region that your teacher assigns to your group. Search a region's or country's website, then describe the physical features of each region or country. Next, research and describe the people of that area and their culture, and find examples of a traditional dance they perform. If you can locate a video performance of the dance, write a brief descriptive summary about it. In your summary include the following information:
- Background or history of the dance
- Who dances
- When and where the dance is performed
Describe the music that accompanies the dance and the dancers' clothing. Add a photo of the dancers performing, and list references or web links to your online sources.
Did You Know?
People Like Me
People Like Me is the arts education program of the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festivaland World Arts West. For 15 seasons this organization has presented an extraordinary festival featuring dancers and dance companies that represent cultures around the world. On their website, the festival provides their Online Encyclopedia of World Dance, which includes performers, information about selected dances and dance styles, musical instruments, and history of the dance style. Attending the festival to view cultural dance performances by artists from across the world would be an awesome experience. Visiting the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival and World Arts West website provides easy access to a virtual tour of dance around the world.
Exploring Cultural Dance
Specific countries have dances that identify with a region and its culture immediately. For example, African dances or Indian dances have styles that make them readily identifiable, as do other cultural dances from across the globe.
When you study dances as part of a culture, you are using different lenses to see each dance in its cultural context. Earlier in this chapter, you discovered that culture is a concept in human geography. It also has deep connections to the fields of cultural anthropology, ethnology, and ethnomusicology. Cultural anthropology is the study of humans and their culture, which includes social structures, languages, laws, religion, arts, and technology. Ethnology is the study of the cultural life of a community. An ethnologist lives in a community for several years to record the everyday life of the people and their culture. Ethnomusicology is the study of a people's music in relation to its culture or society. Ethnomusicologists may extend their study to dances performed to the music of the culture.
Countries all over the world have traditional dances, but they are actually evolving products of history, migration, wars, and political and societal changes of the people who perform them. Today, in one country you can encounter many cultural dances, including the following:
- Dances of aboriginals or first people.
- Dances of early settlers who migrated to the area and brought their culture to their new home. In various historical eras, the dances may have colonial or postcolonial versions.
- Blended dances created after wars changed a people and their culture. These dances are not created overnight. In an invaded country, the original people and the new arrivals may or may not embrace each other's cultures or dances. A cultural clash may occur, and the two groups may resist each other's influence. Blending outside influences into existing traditions takes place over time.
- Newer variations of traditional dances that evolve from generation to generation. These dances absorb and blend personal, group, and societal trends that can change a dance and its performance.
- Dances of tribes, first people, and ethnic groups who strive to keep their ancestral traditions alive in contemporary society. People preserve these dances to share their heritage with the young people of their community.
All cultural dances presented in the overview of dance types connect to the three common elements of a culture (see Discovering Cultural Dance).
If you add all these elements together, you get two deep understandings:
- Culture is about participating as a community; it can be related to ritual, spiritual, and life events and celebrations.
- Culture can be defined as a way of life that is learned, shared with future generations, and changes with time.
Participating, viewing, and learning about cultural dance and the roles it plays in societies leads to awareness and appreciation of other people and their cultural values.
Experiencing a cultural dance means taking a look at the movement from the perspectives of both the cultural dancer and the requirements of the dance. The ideas you have learned about other dance forms so far or will encounter in this book may not apply to cultural dances. So, discard your preconception of cultural dances, and involve yourself in perceiving and experiencing the movement. Then you will be poised to find the meaning or essence of the dance and gain some insights about the dancers who perform it. Experiencing cultural dance requires you to observe through a different kind of dance lens; you must see as an ethnologist would, paying attention to the dance in the context of its home culture.
Explore More
Take a virtual dance tour! On the web resource, you will visit a variety of countries across the globe. Each country provides an overview of its geography, history, and some of its most important dances. Key search terms in some of the dance genres provide ways to view and learn a dance or movement sequence. The dance tour provides an overview from which you can explore more through researching the countries and their wealth of dances.
Mexico
Mexico has a wealth of natural and cultural resources, with diverse landscapes from mountains to jungles, and historic traditions reaching back more than 3,000 years. Mexican dance captures the rhythm, emotion, and movement of a vibrant society with a heritage rich in tradition.
America
The United States is a country of vast natural and cultural resources and is populated by people from a vast variety of cultural heritage. Since prehistoric times, Native Americans have danced to express their traditions and cultural values. Contemporary urban dance forms began to express social changes in the United States during the latter 20th century.
Europe
Europe is a huge continent with many nationalities and their dances. Chapter 7 (Folk Dance) contains a variety of folk dances from countries throughout Europe, Russia, and other countries.
Africa
Africa is the second largest continent in the world with 54 countries. African people and cultures represent a diversity of economic and social structures with various beliefs, religions, and arts. For centuries African cultural dance has captured the spirit of life events, community and spiritual beliefs, and identities of tribes and clans of various regions.
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© Anke Van Wyk | Dreamstime.com
In Africa, dance is an integral part of ceremonies, festivals, and rites. African dances are done in many countries throughout the world.
India
India is the seventh largest country in the world. For nearly 3,000 years, dance art has existed in India and is a significant aspect in Indian culture. Classical Indian dance includes a wide range of forms and styles that reflect various geographic centers, history, and traditions.
Japan
Japan is a group of islands off the east coast of Asia. According to legend, Japan was founded in the 7th century BCE. Japanese cultural dances relate to religions and social eras in Japanese history. Japanese cultural dance forms and styles span historical court dances, religious dances, and traditional folk dances. In Japan, dance remains an integral part of historical theatrical entertainment.
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Japanese dances are passed from generation to generation.
Exploring these countries is just the starting place for learning about cultural dance. You may want to continue your virtual travels to other countries. These countries may connect to your family heritage, a place where a friend came from, or a country you hope to visit in the future. Whatever the reason, you can go there today and share what you learned with the class.
Activity 8.2 Explore
Learn a Cultural Dance
In a small group, find a dance from the country you visited on the web in the exploration activity Dance Around the World. The cultural dance you select could be
- a traditional dance,
- a folk dance,
- a social dance,
- a dance that provides entertainment for visitors, or
- a dance that is considered an art form or part of another art such as drama or theater.
Find two videos of the dance. After watching the videos, learn several movements, poses, a movement sequence, or the entire dance. Through your reading and research about this dance can you discover
- who dances,
- when and where they dance, and
- why they dance.
Identify a list of unique characteristics of the dance (review dance designs in chapter 5). Then, further explore the background and history of the dance to answer this question: How does the dance relate to or represent the people, their culture, and society?
Spotlight
Dance Diplomacy
In early 2010 modern and contemporary dance makers from the groups Urban Bush Women, ODC, and Evidence, a dance company, took part in the first U.S. pilot program to tour internationally as the gateway of cultural exchange among nations. The purpose of this "dance diplomacy" was to create a model cultural exchange initiative. The international tour, supported by the U.S. Department of State, reached global audiences of more than 15,000 in 16 cities of 9 countries in Southeast Asia, South America, and Africa. The second season in 2012 reached global audiences of 25,000 in 24 cities in 13 countries in Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia.
U.S. embassies and the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs partner with dance companies, leading cultural and community-based organizations, and educational institutions to host unique residencies that create opportunities for engagement and exchange. One of these cultural exchanges is DanceMotionUSA, which sends American dance companies overseas to connect with audiences through workshops, lecture demonstrations, and public performances.
Learn more about Discovering Dance.
Discovering Dance as Entertainment
As you read the introduction to this chapter, you may have recognized some of the forms of dance as entertainment that you knew or have even taken part in. Some of these forms are live performances, and others are performed for recorded media, yet others focus on commercial dance.
As you read the introduction to this chapter, you may have recognized some of the forms of dance as entertainment that you knew or have even taken part in. Some of these forms are live performances, and others are performed for recorded media, yet others focus on commercial dance.Your first activity is an exploration of a form of commercial dance.
Activity 13.1 Explore
Dance in Commercials
Many television commercials use dance to sell products or services. To begin this exploration, spend some time surfing television channels. Select two of your favorite commercials that include dance. Write a one-page paper about one of the commercials. Describe the dancers, the setting, the dance, and why they are dancing. What message do you think is being communicated through the dance? Are the music and dialogue effective parts of the commercial? What product is being featured in the commercial? Do you think the dancing makes connections to the product to sell it effectively? What appeals to you (or doesn't appeal to you) about the dance and the commercial? Write a paragraph to critique the commercial. Search for this commercial on the Internet. In your paper, include a photo and a link for viewing the commercial online.
As a class, share your commercial review papers in the classroom or on the school or class's webpage. If several people selected the same commercial, post them together. Then select two other commercials posted that you did not view but capture your interest. In a class discussion, determine the top three dance commercials, and provide a rationale for these choices using the same criteria you used for your commercial review. On a sheet of paper or the board, post these "awards" with that group of commercial reviews.
Did You Know?
Cruise Ship Performers
The top cruise lines vie for passengers by offering an array of dance, musical theater, and media entertainment options. From shortened versions of Broadway shows to aqua theaters where an underwater civilization comes to life, each cruise line has multiple entertainment options for travelers. Behind the scenes, the life for dancers and other entertainers revolves around rehearsing and performing the shows. Dancers should have training in a wide variety of dance genres and styles. With two performances or more per day, or twelve performances or more per week, production show dancers have a busy schedule. A production show dancer may have additional roles on nonproduction show evenings and other occasions such as greet passengers or lead and escort tours of the bridge and backstage areas. On cruise ships, which can be like a small city on the sea, show dancers must be ready for living in close quarters and get used to dancing on a stage that moves with the rocking motion of the ship. In their spare time, dancers have staff access on deck and to facilities such as the pool and the gym. If you love to travel, this is a job in which you can dance your way to new destinations.
Exploring Dance as Entertainment
Dance entertainment is a vast topic and an important component of dance. As a viewer of dance entertainment, you see the collaboration between dance artists, directors, and media or live production staff. These collaborators create ways to use dance choreography to entertain audiences or sell products or services in various settings. To prepare for dancing in commercial or entertainment settings, you have to be versatile as a dancer. You must study social dance, folk dance, cultural dance, street dance, ballet, modern dance, jazz, and tap dance. When you explore the section on dance unions in chapter 15 and on the web resource, you will see job listings that outline the dance genres a dancer needs to have for these jobs. A job can be for a one-performance event, or it might last for years, such as a musical theater performance on Broadway or a yearlong touring show. Commercial dancers who go from job to job are called dance gypsies, because their work is constantly changing from one show to another.
History of Dance as Entertainment
Professional dancers have worked as entertainers since prehistory. In ancient Egypt, the first recorded professional dancers, along with acrobats and musicians, entertained royalty. In ancient Greece dance was part of theater. From medieval times through the renaissance, dance was entertainment and amusement for nobles and peasants alike.
During modern history as dance moved onstage, dance as entertainment was part of other art forms or as interludes between dramas and operas. In the 19th century, dance continued to gain stature through entertainment such as minstrel shows, circuses, spectacles, fairs, variety shows, and vaudeville performances. Dance performances took place outdoors, in music and variety halls, theaters, and arenas. When the transcontinental railway system linked the nation from coast to coast, dance as entertainment exploded. Entire troupes or stock companies or self-contained companies who performed all types of entertainment forms, traveled the country by train; they stopped in cities and small towns to entertain people for the night. These companies were made up of versatile triple threat performers - those who did all the acting, dancing, and singing roles required in an evening's entertainment.
In the 20th century, the love of dance as entertainment grew in new directions. Broadway revues evolved into musical theater productions. With the invention of motion pictures and then television, dance moved into entertainment mass media.
For Broadway shows, dance artists and choreographers from ballet and modern dance companies created dances in early-20th-century follies (elaborate shows with music, songs, and dances), revues, and then musicals. As musical theater dance developed, it continued to absorb the styles of dance genres such as tap dance, ballet, modern dance, and jazz dance. Each musical theater production had its unique choreography using blended styles. Broadway shows tour throughout the world, bringing classical and contemporary musical theater productions to millions of people.
Dance movies have been popular since the early days of film. Producing these movies took hundreds of dancers, such as in the work of Busby Berkeley in the 1920s as a Broadway dance director and in 1930s movies where he directed musical numbers which led to his fame. Dance movies became an important area of commercial dance. Dancers and choreographers have entertained and educated audiences in historical dramas, animated movies, movie musicals, and science fiction movies alike. Animated movies in which characters danced were the invention of Walt Disney and his creative staff. Characters such as Snow White and the dancing dwarfs, princesses, and all kinds of creatures perform animated dances. In the 1950s, Gene Kelly bridged the gap between animation and live characters when he danced with an animated mouse in the film Anchors Away (1945).
With the advent of television, dance moved into variety shows, such as the Ed Sullivan Show. They showcased a wide variety of dance artists and choreographers and made them household names across America. As television programming expanded, so did the opportunities for dance shows. The popular Dance in America series brought ballet and modern dance companies to homes across America. Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) continues to provide diverse programming of dance as art, entertainment, and education.
Over the last decade, reality dance shows such as So You Think You Can Dance and Dancing With the Stars have expanded dance audiences and their appreciation of dance. Televised dance or drill team competitions and other associated dance competitions present another aspect of dance as entertainment. Television programming now includes an array of dance entertainment, including sitcoms and documentary series on dancers, their personal lives, musical theater, and dance genres from around the world.
After Disneyland opened in the 1950s, amusement and theme parks became another mass entertainment medium. Dance became an important feature in theme parks across the nation and the world. Dancing characters from the movies reside in different areas of these parks. In each park, one or more companies of dancers perform short entertainment shows throughout the day, every day. Dancers perform blended historical, cultural, or social dance styles to entertain park visitors. The Disney concept of performers - being in character and onstage while walking in the park or dancing - spurred an entire entertainment industry. Other live entertainment settings, including cruise ships, casinos, and resorts, provide multiple dancing stage shows as entertainment for guests.
When Internet technology expanded, another entertainment site emerged that would support dance films, recorded dance performance, and ways to interact in real time with dancers and choreographers across the globe. In the 20th century the term dance for the camera was coined to describe dance that was filmed as art, education, or entertainment. Productions of dance for the camera include documentaries of dancers and choreographers, historical and educational movies, concert and cultural dance companies, and performances of choreographed artistic dance films. These dance films are broadcast on television, shown in schools, or shown as fine art films. On the Internet, anyone can post a personal dance video to be viewed by the class, the school, and often the entire world. Dance for the camera has expanded into a whole new dimension that requires understanding dance as well as the art of filming it. To create dance for the camera, you need to grasp the artistic and production values, choices, and processes that are part of creating a filmed work.
Explore More
You can see from this brief overview that there is much to explore in dance as entertainment and its commercial sector. The Explore More sections on the web resource will explore three dance entertainment genres: dance or drill teams, dance in musical theater, and dance for the camera.
Dance or Drill Teams
Dance or drill teams range from students in middle school, high school, and college to professionals who perform at local sporting events to televised professional sports. Halftime shows for many sports feature dance or drill teams. Dance or drill teams perform for school games and community functions, and they take part in dance and drill team competitions. Their routines showcase their ensemble technique, spirit, and enthusiasm for the crowds. Training for dance and drill team requires athleticism and artistry. Dance and drill teams began as a Texas phenomenon that has spread across the United States and around the world. Visit the chapter 13 on the web resource to explore more about dance and drill teams.
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A dance team moves together to create a powerful effect.
Courtesy of Jennifer Dawson, Terri Ware, and Silver Star Dancers
Activity 13.2 Discover
Learn a Drill or Dance Team Combination
For this activity, your teacher or a classmate teaches one or more basic drill or dance combinations to the class. After everyone has learned and practiced the routine to music, take a few minutes to reflect on the experience. In your journal, write about what you enjoyed in the routine, what was challenging, and which type of routine you preferred and why. Share it with another student or in a group discussion.
Dance in Musical Theater
Musical theater dance spans school musicals, professional productions on the Broadway stage, and touring companies that travel to cities across the world. Becoming a musical theater dancer takes versatile dance training and other performing arts skills such as acting, music, and voice. The challenge in every musical theater production is to blend dancing, acting, and singing to portray your role. Visit the web resource to explore more about musical theater dance.
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Musical theater productions feature a blend of singing, dancing, and acting.
Jim West
Activity 13.3 Explore
Dance in Musical Theater
Choose a musical from the list provided by your teacher. Form a small group with other students who chose the same musical theater production. Together, search the Internet to find a video of a major dance sequence or dance combination from that musical. Your teacher may provide you with a list of dances from which to choose. View the dance number, then answer these questions:
- Identify each main character, and write a sentence or two about each person to describe their personality.
- Where does the dance take place?
- What inspires the characters to do this dance?
Describe the dance, the music, and whether it includes a song that is part of the musical number.
Collaborate as a group to develop, write, and present a 1- or 2-minute oral summary or a media presentation to the class to cover this information:
- Provide the story line (plot) of the musical.
- Identify the choreographer and give a very brief summary (two or three sentences) of the individual's contributions to the field.
- Indicate the main characters by writing a two- to three-sentence biography about each person.
- Describe the dance, the music, and the song in the musical number that you viewed.
Post a one-page summary of your group's information in the classroom or on the class web page. Add a picture that captures the meaning of the musical, or take a photo of your group in a memorable pose from the dance you researched. On your media presentation and one-page summary, cite the sources for your research.
Dance for the Camera
Dance in film, television, music videos, and other media forms provides entertainment for audiences. It also provides choreographers and dancers more media choices for presenting dance as an art form. Dance for the camera is term that covers entertainment, artistic, and multimedia forms of presenting dance. Filming dance has been instrumental in documenting its artists and works for the public to enjoy. Further, dance media has expanded dancers' views about how to complement or enhance a live performance. The final Explore More section investigates the types of media used in dance for the camera.
Learn more about Discovering Dance.
Discovering College and Career Preparation
Moving in new ways, remembering movement sequences, and executing them in time to music within changing formations and pathways is challenging.
Moving in new ways, remembering movement sequences, and executing them in time to music within changing formations and pathways is challenging. Dancing is a complicated process that requires mental and physical coordination, memorization, problem solving, refining, and performing. Like sports and many other fine arts, dancing demands that you juggle many factors to perform at your best. College and careers demand the same.
The processes of dancing, dance making, and dance appreciation fuel the discipline of dance. Across the arts the processes of creating, performing, responding, and interconnecting support other studies. Learning the movement languages of dance genres helps you not only in dance-related studies and careers but also in other arts-related disciplines and in life.
Activity 15.1 Research
College and Career Options
Write a list of two or three potential careers in dance, fine arts, or another discipline that you are interested in learning more about. Do an Internet search about each career, and note the following factors:
- Educational requirements
- Skills and abilities needed for this career
- Working conditions (for example, hours)
- Pay range and other benefits
- Personal benefits and values someone in this career would receive
After you have collected the answers to these questions for each career path, write a short descriptive paragraph about each career, and share it with the class.
In another document, write what appeals to you about this career. Also add what you think are your challenges in considering this career. Decide whether this career is a future possibility for further consideration or it is not a direction you wish to pursue.
Did You Know?
Dance Employment
The U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics posts the Occupational Outlook Handbook on its website (www.bls.gov). This handbook includes employment information about dancers and choreographers as part of the country's work force. These government data provide information about work environment, pay scale, and job outlook for the future as well as other information. In 2010 about 25,600 dancers and choreographers held jobs. Approximately 20 percent of dancers in performing arts companies and about 78 percent of choreographers work in a variety of schools and other places (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2012).
Employment of dancers is expected to increase at about 11 percent with a projected employment of 13,700 more people by 2020. This percentage is in the average range of all occupations. Employment of choreographers is projected to increase 24 percent with a projected employment of 16,400 by 2020. This is faster than the average for all occupations. The growing interest in dance as entertainment attracts people to enroll in dance classes. In turn, this growth in enrollment creates employment opportunities in television, movies, and other leisure settings.
Exploring Dance and Associated Careers
Imagine you are looking for a job, and you see an advertisement that reads, "Employer looking for creative, innovative, adaptive thinkers. If you are qualified, please apply." As a dancer, you can meet these and other requirements for work in the 21st century. Dancing, dance making, and thinking like a dancer train you in the skills you need for your education and career.
The time since the start of the new millennium has seen tremendous changes at a rapid pace. This quick pace is in part because of advances in technology that affect everyday lives and careers. Near the end of the 20th century, some of the world's greatest thinkers began to investigate what types of knowledge and skills 21st-century workers and citizens would need to be successful. As a result, they identified various types of learning and literacy such as financial, environmental, artistic, and others.
Across these categories, a series of broad topics reach from school to work, into the community, and the world:
- Communication
- Creativity
- Collaboration
- Critical thinking
The skills that support these four C's for 21st-century learning are presented in table 15.1.
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Scanning the entries in table 15.1 can be overwhelming. Pause a moment, and reflect on the assignments you did in the chapters of this book and your other class work. Then, recall the dance learning processes contained in the items listed. The point to remember is that the four topics contain major knowledge and skills that span dance and other disciplines of study as preparation for college and careers. In table 15.1 you will see that some of the skills identified cross one or more of the four categories.
Acquiring these attributes is a long-term process; it can take many years to complete. Reading these ideas gives you an understanding of how learning spans from the classroom through experiences in your community and life. These four C's are deeply embedded in dancing, dance making, and dance appreciation processes:
- Communicating through dance: In dance you communicate when you create, perform, or reflect on a dance work. In making a dance, the choreographer, dancers, and associated artistic staff need common arts vocabularies to effectively communicate, analytical skills to solve problems, and negotiation and teamwork skills along with an array of management skills to create and produce a dance performance.
- Creativity: When choreographers and dancers analyze and solve movement problems in a dance work, they use the creative process. The choreographer approaches an idea or theme for a dance and creatively seeks a choreographic design through which to communicate a cohesive artistic statement. The audience viewing a dance reflects and analyzes what they perceive as the meaning and the design of the dance work. Their feedback may be communicated to the dancers, choreographer, artistic staff, or the community. These responses can influence the direction of a choreographer's future works, artistic directions, or a company's finances.
- Collaboration: Collaboration is an integral part of dancing and creating artistic works with other artists. Improvisational structures and dance compositional forms require that dancers work as a highly functioning team to perform a dance. In dance making, choreographers strategically plan movement for dancers to communicate ideas. Associated artists join forces to present a unified message in an artistic work.
- Critical thinking: Through all dance processes, dancers and choreographers, associated artists, and audience members use critical thinking. Dancers have to make logical and quick decisions during a dance for safety or for artistic expression. Choreographers use analytical skills along with management and technology skills to make dances that satisfy an artistic mission and to meet business goals. Dance audiences determine whether attending a dance company performance will be a continuing venture.
Dance provides a wide range of professional career options in communities, cities, and around the world. Dance careers span areas of the arts and entertainment, media, fitness, recreation, business, education, technical fields, and other areas.
As you learned in chapter13, dance as entertainment is big business. Dance in education spans from preschool through university and graduate education, and into communities and people's lives across the nation as participation or through education, performance, and advocacy. Dance studios, gyms, recreation centers, and performing arts organizations have expanded their community contributions as more and more people realize the importance and contribution of dance and the other arts to their lives. Dance professional organizations provide continuing professional development for students, educators, artists, scientists, writers, and others interested or involved in dance as profession or associated professions. Dance professionals work as performers and in many roles that support dance performance. Often professionals with a dance background work in associated fields such as dance therapy, kinesiology, production, media, and arts administration. Their presence as dance professionals in these fields brings deeper perspectives to new audiences of how dance can play a role in other disciplines.
Transferring Dance Skills to Life Skills
Life and career skills - the skills you need in order to succeed in work and life - require four characteristics: flexibility, adaptability, taking initiative, and being self-directed. In school, work, and community you should demonstrate cross-cultural and leadership skills. In your school and career, you should be responsible, productive, and accountable for your work. In the dance class you cultivate dancer attributes that then apply in your dancing and personal development.
Your experience in dance develops a number of traits that apply to other life endeavors. Personal development through dance for future career directions beyond dance include these:
- Physical, intellectual, and kinesthetic awareness
- Fine-tuned observation skills
- Enhanced focus and concentration
- Extended self-discipline, responsibility, and empathy
- Perception and sensory awareness of personal movement and others' movement choices and styles
- Versatility, ability to adapt, and flexibility in various situations
- Expanded interpersonal (mental and physical attributes you share with others) and intrapersonal (the internal conversation you have with yourself) communication skills
Observation and Awareness
Observation skills are critical to learning dance and are essential in any career. Observational skills take time to develop. Concentrated observation helps you acquire visual, auditory, and sensory information. As a dancer you filter through this information and determine how it applies to get the desired result.
Dancers learn to coordinate movements of body parts in a step or movement. This complicated coordination of brain and body improves as you move through more complex exercises, combinations, dance sequences, and dances. When you memorize movement you initiate an internal cueing system that engages a complicated synergy of intellectual and body actions with the elements of space, time, energy, or effort. So, what you do in dance contributes directly to your personal development in dance and also to future directions beyond dance. When you take dance classes or perform, you develop these skills:
- Using interpersonal spatial awareness
- Having a physical and intellectual presence in space
- Creating movement as a result of being internally sensitive and intuitive
- Acquiring performance awareness and a professional attitude
- Reading movement and then reproducing the movement (translate it, transpose it) presented by the teacher or choreographer
- Memorizing movements and dances to create a memory bank
- Understanding movement systems, genres, and styles
Creativity and Communication
When composing a dance, you use the creative process to formulate a design and structure for dance movements. You use the creative process in dance when you experiment with the following:
- Determining movement patterns as part of choreography and choreographic designs in space and time using a range of energy or efforts
- Manipulating the order of movements to make a logical statement using seamless transitions
- Using choreographic structures and strategies for augmentations
- Connecting musical knowledge to movement sequences
- Relating visual design elements of patterns, relationships to dance, and identifying styles to apply or augment
- Applying movement, choreographic, and aesthetic principles to dancing and dance composition
- Employing stagecraft and media knowledge in producing the work
Producing a dance is a complicated process that combines design elements, problem-solving skills, and communication with artists and technicians. When you practice these processes, you enhance your abilities as a dancer and create conduits that relate to many associated dance careers.
Media and Artistic Literacy
When you view dances, you develop a visual and mental store of classical to contemporary dance works. Dancers and choreographers have used this system of "recording" to create a memory bank since before the common use of notation systems and electronic recording systems. These mental memories of movements combine with kinesthetic responses you receive from watching dancers perform. Your response to a dance in conversation, discussion, or written forms is also kinesthetic in nature. Translating movement experiences into descriptive and meaningful commentary supports and expands your dance and artistic literacy and your media literacy.
Artistic literacy is the knowledge and understanding required to participate authentically in the arts. Arts include dance, music, dramatic art, visual art, and media. The arts contain content, principles, and applications that are common to them as art forms. In artistic literacy, the processes of creating, performing (in dance, music, or theater), presenting (in the visual arts) or producing (in media arts), responding, and connecting reach across all of the arts. Learning these processes in various art forms contributes to your media literacy and to your experience (State Education Agency Directors of Arts Education 2013).
Media literacy is the ability to access, analyze, and evaluate media content. Viewing and responding to a dance performance includes both deconstruction and construction.
After you reflect upon the dance as a complete work, the next step is to take the dance apart. Deconstruction is analyzing or taking a dance performance apart. It is how you look at the components of the choreography, the dancers' performance, and the production elements of the work. Construction activities use the dance analysis (or deconstruction) as a basis for participating in a discussion about the dance, writing a dance report about a work you have viewed, or summarizing your findings and filing them in your memory bank along with your visual memories of the dance work.
When you attend a dance concert or view a video of a dance performance, you may have been assigned to write a dance report. A couple of strategies are useful for preparing you to write your response. Before you view the performance, read over the items or questions you have to cover in the report. When you view the dance, watch, hear, and feel the performance. Some people suggest reading the program notes about the dance after the concert. Your viewing experience of the dance provides the information from which to write your report.
In past centuries, literacy meant reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills. These skills remain foundational today; they have become the basis of 21st-century skills such as media literacy. When you gain an understanding of a media presentation and its components that create meaning, then you are engaging in media literacy.
Dance literacy includes knowledge of movement, music, theater, and arts terminology. Dance is multilingual through its various genres, their specific terminology, and the application of movement, choreographic, and aesthetic principles. Other facets of dance literacy include knowledge of rhythmic and musical languages, stagecraft and theater vocabularies, arts education, arts media processes, and production terminology. Dance literacy skills contribute to overall media literacy.
Activity 15.2 Explore
Analyzing a Dance Performance
When you view a dance performance, you use your skills in media literacy to analyze it. After you reflect on the dance as a complete work, the next step is to take the dance apart. It is how you look at the components of the choreography, the dancers' performance, and the production elements of the work. When you deconstruct a dance work, think about these questions:
- What do you think is the choreographer's message, idea, and theme?
- Were you able to discern the choreographic structure of the dance?
- How did the music interact or support the dance?
- Did the dancers' technique meet the requirements of the choreography?
- Did the dancers express the style of the choreography?
- Did the production elements of lighting and costuming support the presentation of the dance work and contribute to it as a work of art?
- Was the dance aesthetically moving to you?
- Would you consider this dance a work of art?
Multiple Intelligences
The theory of multiple intelligences (MI) and 21st-century educational theories have provided evidence that students acquire many ways of being smart through dance. These intelligences translate to other courses of study and into the workplace.
The theory of multiple intelligences was developed by an educational psychologist named Harold Gardner. Beginning in the 1980s, Gardner's original system of seven intelligences has expanded to nine; it continues to expand. The following list summarizes Gardner's nine intelligences. Your multiple intelligence quotient is really a combination of all of your intelligences. You may rate very high in certain intelligences and not as high in others. Gardner claims that you can strengthen and expand the intelligences that you ignore or challenge yourself (Gardner1983).
- Verbal-linguistic intelligence: Verbal skills and sensitivity to meaning and rhythm of words.
- Mathematical or logical intelligence: Conceptual and abstract thinking skills in both numerical and logic patterns.
- Musical intelligence: Understanding and ability to use rhythm, pitch, and texture.
- Visual-spatial intelligence: Thinking and visualizing using images in spatial and abstract configurations.
- Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence: Moving and handling objects with grace, skill, and artfulness.
- Interpersonal intelligence: Communicating appropriately with other people in relation to their moods, ideas, and directions.
- Intrapersonal intelligence: Self-awareness of feelings, values, and thinking processes.
- Naturalist intelligence: Recognizing and categorizing plants, animals, and other things in nature.
- Existential intelligence: Deep thinking about philosophical and essential questions about life and its meaning.
Adapted from http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/mi/index.html
Activity 15.3 Discover
Your Multiple Intelligences (MI)
Do you recognize some of your intelligences? The web resource includes a link to an MI test to take for fun and to find out the various ways you are smart. Then you can compare your MI with those of others in the class. Knowing your MI can give you insights into some possible career directions. Your MI can change over time as you develop other intelligences. Documenting your MI can be an interesting way to self-check and track your changes in the future.
Learn more about Discovering Dance.
Exploring Dance Composition
Dance composition is learning how to make a dance. During the dance composition process you explore a movement idea by creating dance movement or selecting steps in some dance genres, then you manipulate these elements and materials of dance into movement modules of various lengths to compose a dance.
Dance composition is learning how to make a dance. During the dance composition process you explore a movement idea by creating dance movement or selecting steps in some dance genres, then you manipulate these elements and materials of dance into movement modules of various lengths to compose a dance. To understand how to use your tools for composition, you need to be familiar with choreographic design principles, structures, and devices. For a dance work to have solidarity and value, the choreography should connect to aesthetic principles that underlie art works.
In the Movement Invention activity, you invented two contrasting dance phrases (a short series of movements that connect into a pattern) or longer sequences. In the next activities you will create a movement sequence (a group of movements that form a unit), and then you will develop a movement statement (similar to a sentence). All of these movement segments contain a beginning, a middle, and an end. Coupling movement sentences together builds a dance segment similar to a paragraph in writing. Regardless of how long or short it is, a dance composition focuses on the beginning, the middle, the end, and on the movement between these points. Creating and composing the movement is one part of the choreographic process. Checking to ensure choreographic principles underlie the dance modules requires you to analyze your composition during the process and when it is complete. Table 4.1 lists the basic choreographic principles that underlie a dance composition.
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The following sections lead you through the choreographic process as you compose your movement segments.
Creative and Choreographic Processes
Different dance scholars present similar creative and choreographic processes. Some scholars write about the creative process, while others write about the steps to create a dance. Both processes underlie making a dance.
The creative process in dance making requires a period of preparation in which you collect ideas. This preparation time should include time for developing choreographic ideas; in other words, you need to figure out the central idea and how to approach it. Next you have to experiment with movement for a deeper insight into the movement ideas. In later sessions, you evaluate the movement and determine what works and what does not work as part of the dance work. The final step in the process is elaborating on the movement ideas you have selected.
Another dance composition process uses similar steps. First, observe the world around you, and explore ways of imitating or symbolizing what you have observed using bodies and movement. Working by yourself, do movement explorations and collect external experiences by observing the work of others. During the composition process, group reflections and discussions provide feedback that should be sorted out as to how well it applies or transfers to the dance in progress. In creating a dance, use your synthesized information from exploration and reflection. After the performance, a final group reflection helps to analyze the process and the product. Then extend the group reflection to a journal of what you learned and what ideas have been sparked for future choreography.
You should know the reason behind your writing activities in relation to your movement activities. Choreographic journaling has been part of dance composition courses since at least the last quarter of the 20th century, and this type of journaling continues today.
In academic dance courses, you usually keep choreographic journals to collect written records of your observations, movement experiments, research, and findings as you go through the dance composition process. Often you write about personal goals in the class and challenges you have faced during a course. You also write about how as an individual or in a group you responded to the process or what you learned from it to help you frame or propose your next project.
With the creative and choreographic processes in mind, the next step is to survey your ingredients for making a dance. In chapter 3 you learned about the elements of dance that play a central role in creating a dance. However, other ingredients also contribute to dance composition.
Activity 4.2 Explore
Create a Movement Sequence
Using the locomotor movements from chapter 3, select two, three, or four even and uneven locomotor movements, and join them together into an 8-count movement sequence. Often movement sequences are parts of a longer movement statement. If a sequence appears to be complete, it may be referred to as a movement statement or sentence. This activity has two parts.
Part 1
Decide the order of the locomotor movements. Practice your movement sequence until you have it memorized. To add variety to the movement sequence, here are some ideas to try:
First, do the movement sequence as you created it. Repeat the sequence once at slow speed, then repeat it again at a faster speed. Changing the speed or timing on movements changes your energy or qualities of movement. Memorize these movement sequences in the order you chose.
Think about what energy, effort, or qualities you used in these repetitions and how they changed. Review the list of effort actions or movement qualities from chapter 3, and identify which ones you used. If you find a couple of undistinguishable efforts or movement qualities, try the movement again to clarify them.
Part 2
Now select two, three, or four different even and uneven locomotor movements or basic steps presented in chapter 3; these movements should be ones you are less comfortable with. Use these movements to create another movement sequence.Practice and memorize your new sequence. Again, perform the sequence four times using two or three different speeds. Then, do the first movement sequence followed by the second, or longer, sequence.
Reflect on these ideas about both movement phrases or sequences:
- The locomotor movements or steps you chose
- The differences in speeds
- How the energy, effort, effort actions, or movement qualities changed
How does the first movement sequence compare or contrast to your second movement sequence? Identify at least two similarities and two differences in movement, energy, effort, effort actions, and movement qualities when you changed the speed of your movement.
Summarize your reflections either on paper or in your mind. In a small group, take turns doing your two movement sequences following one another. Then present to the group your summary of the similarities and differences between the two movement sequences you created. Ask the group, "What did you see as similarities and differences after viewing my two movement sequences?"
Listening to the feedback of your peers may give you new ideas to try or to incorporate into your sequences. Observing others perform their movement inventions may give you more ideas to store away in your movement memory bank for future use.
Sources of Movement
Creating new dance movements comes from exploring and experimenting with movement possibilities. Exploring new ways to move may take you out of your comfort zone. As you mentally and physically record these experiments, keep in mind that they may or may not turn out to be movements you want to add to your movement memory bank. But don't let that stop you from experimenting. Although it does involve taking movement risks, your experiments are being done in the safe setting of a dance class.
Improvisation is creating movement or movement invention for making dances. Using different stimuli creates new movement. Internal stimuli could include exploring your spontaneous individual movements based on touch, auditory, or visual sources. External stimuli could come from music, a work of art, nature, or an everyday task.
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During improvisation, the teacher can provide valuable feedback or suggestions about the movement or poses being created.
When a group is looking for solutions to a problem, they often brainstorm, and together they consider a number of options. Improvisation is similar to brainstorming; in fact, it has been called body storming. You can practice body storming by yourself or with a group. Doing movement improvisation with a group can be a lot of fun, and it allows you to gather or share new movement ideas. While improvising, use the somatic movement awareness principles and Laban effort actions. Experiment with how these important actions connect to space, time, energy, and weight to create new dynamics in your dancing.
Sources for improvisation can be visual, words, poetry, tasks, senses, or someone else's movement or dances. These movement experiments or improvisations have several forms:
- Free-form improvisations are self-expression based on the premise of you moving and responding to music. This type of improvisational study can be a movement response to auditory, visual, textural, or a combination of stimuli.
- Semi-structured movement experiments solve a problem, answer the question, or have different points that the teacher or you determine as the criteria for composing the work.
- A structured improvisation is an experimental movement sequence that is loosely structured and practiced. Quite often a group work, the choreographer identifies movement sections or specific movement pictures that the group has developed during practice. These sections or pictures give the work an overall form and an artistic focus.
When you view or discuss an improvisation, you need a framework to help keep the discussion focused on the composition instead of on personal likes and dislikes. One system for discussing dance is known as RADS,which stands for using the following components: relationships, actions, dynamics, and use of space. Try it after a movement invention session or apply it as a self-analysis to your own movement improvisation.
Improvisation is a creative way to extend your personal movement repertory and styles. Practicing the many forms of improvisation helps you tap into your own creative force, enhancing your experience as a dancer and as a dance maker.
Learn more about Discovering Dance.
Discovering Cultural Dance
Dance has been called the universal language; you live in a world that dances.
Dance has been called the universal language; you live in a world that dances. Take a look at the map of the world and its continents (figure 8.1). Geographers have identified distinct natural and physical features (ecosystems) in regions throughout the world. Studying a geographic region that supports human culture is also known as cultural geography. Within these geographic regions are specific cultural regions of the world.
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Regions of the world.
In each of these cultural regions are countries, people of various racial and ethnic groups, and their cultural values. Their arts include dances from aboriginals or first people (the original people who inhabited the land since millennia ago) who migrated to these regions because of war, famine, economic hardship, or other reasons. The common elements of culture include the following (Blankenship in press):
- It is a way of life, learned and shared with future generations.
- It changes with time and is symbolic.
- The economy drives a culture.
Culture is a community or society's knowledge, beliefs, values, customs, and common heritage. If you were to look at the cultural geographic areas of the world, you would encounter commonalities and differences that make each country or region unique. People have many different views about defining and describing dance from geographic or cultural regions of the world. Some people consider dances from across these regions to be examples of world dance, while others might call these dances cultural dance. Regardless of where you live in the world, you participate in dances that reflect a lot or a little of the culture.
Activity 8.1 Explore
Dance Around the World
Using a map of the world, survey the geographic region that your teacher assigns to your group. Search a region's or country's website, then describe the physical features of each region or country. Next, research and describe the people of that area and their culture, and find examples of a traditional dance they perform. If you can locate a video performance of the dance, write a brief descriptive summary about it. In your summary include the following information:
- Background or history of the dance
- Who dances
- When and where the dance is performed
Describe the music that accompanies the dance and the dancers' clothing. Add a photo of the dancers performing, and list references or web links to your online sources.
Did You Know?
People Like Me
People Like Me is the arts education program of the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festivaland World Arts West. For 15 seasons this organization has presented an extraordinary festival featuring dancers and dance companies that represent cultures around the world. On their website, the festival provides their Online Encyclopedia of World Dance, which includes performers, information about selected dances and dance styles, musical instruments, and history of the dance style. Attending the festival to view cultural dance performances by artists from across the world would be an awesome experience. Visiting the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival and World Arts West website provides easy access to a virtual tour of dance around the world.
Exploring Cultural Dance
Specific countries have dances that identify with a region and its culture immediately. For example, African dances or Indian dances have styles that make them readily identifiable, as do other cultural dances from across the globe.
When you study dances as part of a culture, you are using different lenses to see each dance in its cultural context. Earlier in this chapter, you discovered that culture is a concept in human geography. It also has deep connections to the fields of cultural anthropology, ethnology, and ethnomusicology. Cultural anthropology is the study of humans and their culture, which includes social structures, languages, laws, religion, arts, and technology. Ethnology is the study of the cultural life of a community. An ethnologist lives in a community for several years to record the everyday life of the people and their culture. Ethnomusicology is the study of a people's music in relation to its culture or society. Ethnomusicologists may extend their study to dances performed to the music of the culture.
Countries all over the world have traditional dances, but they are actually evolving products of history, migration, wars, and political and societal changes of the people who perform them. Today, in one country you can encounter many cultural dances, including the following:
- Dances of aboriginals or first people.
- Dances of early settlers who migrated to the area and brought their culture to their new home. In various historical eras, the dances may have colonial or postcolonial versions.
- Blended dances created after wars changed a people and their culture. These dances are not created overnight. In an invaded country, the original people and the new arrivals may or may not embrace each other's cultures or dances. A cultural clash may occur, and the two groups may resist each other's influence. Blending outside influences into existing traditions takes place over time.
- Newer variations of traditional dances that evolve from generation to generation. These dances absorb and blend personal, group, and societal trends that can change a dance and its performance.
- Dances of tribes, first people, and ethnic groups who strive to keep their ancestral traditions alive in contemporary society. People preserve these dances to share their heritage with the young people of their community.
All cultural dances presented in the overview of dance types connect to the three common elements of a culture (see Discovering Cultural Dance).
If you add all these elements together, you get two deep understandings:
- Culture is about participating as a community; it can be related to ritual, spiritual, and life events and celebrations.
- Culture can be defined as a way of life that is learned, shared with future generations, and changes with time.
Participating, viewing, and learning about cultural dance and the roles it plays in societies leads to awareness and appreciation of other people and their cultural values.
Experiencing a cultural dance means taking a look at the movement from the perspectives of both the cultural dancer and the requirements of the dance. The ideas you have learned about other dance forms so far or will encounter in this book may not apply to cultural dances. So, discard your preconception of cultural dances, and involve yourself in perceiving and experiencing the movement. Then you will be poised to find the meaning or essence of the dance and gain some insights about the dancers who perform it. Experiencing cultural dance requires you to observe through a different kind of dance lens; you must see as an ethnologist would, paying attention to the dance in the context of its home culture.
Explore More
Take a virtual dance tour! On the web resource, you will visit a variety of countries across the globe. Each country provides an overview of its geography, history, and some of its most important dances. Key search terms in some of the dance genres provide ways to view and learn a dance or movement sequence. The dance tour provides an overview from which you can explore more through researching the countries and their wealth of dances.
Mexico
Mexico has a wealth of natural and cultural resources, with diverse landscapes from mountains to jungles, and historic traditions reaching back more than 3,000 years. Mexican dance captures the rhythm, emotion, and movement of a vibrant society with a heritage rich in tradition.
America
The United States is a country of vast natural and cultural resources and is populated by people from a vast variety of cultural heritage. Since prehistoric times, Native Americans have danced to express their traditions and cultural values. Contemporary urban dance forms began to express social changes in the United States during the latter 20th century.
Europe
Europe is a huge continent with many nationalities and their dances. Chapter 7 (Folk Dance) contains a variety of folk dances from countries throughout Europe, Russia, and other countries.
Africa
Africa is the second largest continent in the world with 54 countries. African people and cultures represent a diversity of economic and social structures with various beliefs, religions, and arts. For centuries African cultural dance has captured the spirit of life events, community and spiritual beliefs, and identities of tribes and clans of various regions.
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© Anke Van Wyk | Dreamstime.com
In Africa, dance is an integral part of ceremonies, festivals, and rites. African dances are done in many countries throughout the world.
India
India is the seventh largest country in the world. For nearly 3,000 years, dance art has existed in India and is a significant aspect in Indian culture. Classical Indian dance includes a wide range of forms and styles that reflect various geographic centers, history, and traditions.
Japan
Japan is a group of islands off the east coast of Asia. According to legend, Japan was founded in the 7th century BCE. Japanese cultural dances relate to religions and social eras in Japanese history. Japanese cultural dance forms and styles span historical court dances, religious dances, and traditional folk dances. In Japan, dance remains an integral part of historical theatrical entertainment.
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VWPics via AP Images
Japanese dances are passed from generation to generation.
Exploring these countries is just the starting place for learning about cultural dance. You may want to continue your virtual travels to other countries. These countries may connect to your family heritage, a place where a friend came from, or a country you hope to visit in the future. Whatever the reason, you can go there today and share what you learned with the class.
Activity 8.2 Explore
Learn a Cultural Dance
In a small group, find a dance from the country you visited on the web in the exploration activity Dance Around the World. The cultural dance you select could be
- a traditional dance,
- a folk dance,
- a social dance,
- a dance that provides entertainment for visitors, or
- a dance that is considered an art form or part of another art such as drama or theater.
Find two videos of the dance. After watching the videos, learn several movements, poses, a movement sequence, or the entire dance. Through your reading and research about this dance can you discover
- who dances,
- when and where they dance, and
- why they dance.
Identify a list of unique characteristics of the dance (review dance designs in chapter 5). Then, further explore the background and history of the dance to answer this question: How does the dance relate to or represent the people, their culture, and society?
Spotlight
Dance Diplomacy
In early 2010 modern and contemporary dance makers from the groups Urban Bush Women, ODC, and Evidence, a dance company, took part in the first U.S. pilot program to tour internationally as the gateway of cultural exchange among nations. The purpose of this "dance diplomacy" was to create a model cultural exchange initiative. The international tour, supported by the U.S. Department of State, reached global audiences of more than 15,000 in 16 cities of 9 countries in Southeast Asia, South America, and Africa. The second season in 2012 reached global audiences of 25,000 in 24 cities in 13 countries in Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia.
U.S. embassies and the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs partner with dance companies, leading cultural and community-based organizations, and educational institutions to host unique residencies that create opportunities for engagement and exchange. One of these cultural exchanges is DanceMotionUSA, which sends American dance companies overseas to connect with audiences through workshops, lecture demonstrations, and public performances.
Learn more about Discovering Dance.
Discovering Dance as Entertainment
As you read the introduction to this chapter, you may have recognized some of the forms of dance as entertainment that you knew or have even taken part in. Some of these forms are live performances, and others are performed for recorded media, yet others focus on commercial dance.
As you read the introduction to this chapter, you may have recognized some of the forms of dance as entertainment that you knew or have even taken part in. Some of these forms are live performances, and others are performed for recorded media, yet others focus on commercial dance.Your first activity is an exploration of a form of commercial dance.
Activity 13.1 Explore
Dance in Commercials
Many television commercials use dance to sell products or services. To begin this exploration, spend some time surfing television channels. Select two of your favorite commercials that include dance. Write a one-page paper about one of the commercials. Describe the dancers, the setting, the dance, and why they are dancing. What message do you think is being communicated through the dance? Are the music and dialogue effective parts of the commercial? What product is being featured in the commercial? Do you think the dancing makes connections to the product to sell it effectively? What appeals to you (or doesn't appeal to you) about the dance and the commercial? Write a paragraph to critique the commercial. Search for this commercial on the Internet. In your paper, include a photo and a link for viewing the commercial online.
As a class, share your commercial review papers in the classroom or on the school or class's webpage. If several people selected the same commercial, post them together. Then select two other commercials posted that you did not view but capture your interest. In a class discussion, determine the top three dance commercials, and provide a rationale for these choices using the same criteria you used for your commercial review. On a sheet of paper or the board, post these "awards" with that group of commercial reviews.
Did You Know?
Cruise Ship Performers
The top cruise lines vie for passengers by offering an array of dance, musical theater, and media entertainment options. From shortened versions of Broadway shows to aqua theaters where an underwater civilization comes to life, each cruise line has multiple entertainment options for travelers. Behind the scenes, the life for dancers and other entertainers revolves around rehearsing and performing the shows. Dancers should have training in a wide variety of dance genres and styles. With two performances or more per day, or twelve performances or more per week, production show dancers have a busy schedule. A production show dancer may have additional roles on nonproduction show evenings and other occasions such as greet passengers or lead and escort tours of the bridge and backstage areas. On cruise ships, which can be like a small city on the sea, show dancers must be ready for living in close quarters and get used to dancing on a stage that moves with the rocking motion of the ship. In their spare time, dancers have staff access on deck and to facilities such as the pool and the gym. If you love to travel, this is a job in which you can dance your way to new destinations.
Exploring Dance as Entertainment
Dance entertainment is a vast topic and an important component of dance. As a viewer of dance entertainment, you see the collaboration between dance artists, directors, and media or live production staff. These collaborators create ways to use dance choreography to entertain audiences or sell products or services in various settings. To prepare for dancing in commercial or entertainment settings, you have to be versatile as a dancer. You must study social dance, folk dance, cultural dance, street dance, ballet, modern dance, jazz, and tap dance. When you explore the section on dance unions in chapter 15 and on the web resource, you will see job listings that outline the dance genres a dancer needs to have for these jobs. A job can be for a one-performance event, or it might last for years, such as a musical theater performance on Broadway or a yearlong touring show. Commercial dancers who go from job to job are called dance gypsies, because their work is constantly changing from one show to another.
History of Dance as Entertainment
Professional dancers have worked as entertainers since prehistory. In ancient Egypt, the first recorded professional dancers, along with acrobats and musicians, entertained royalty. In ancient Greece dance was part of theater. From medieval times through the renaissance, dance was entertainment and amusement for nobles and peasants alike.
During modern history as dance moved onstage, dance as entertainment was part of other art forms or as interludes between dramas and operas. In the 19th century, dance continued to gain stature through entertainment such as minstrel shows, circuses, spectacles, fairs, variety shows, and vaudeville performances. Dance performances took place outdoors, in music and variety halls, theaters, and arenas. When the transcontinental railway system linked the nation from coast to coast, dance as entertainment exploded. Entire troupes or stock companies or self-contained companies who performed all types of entertainment forms, traveled the country by train; they stopped in cities and small towns to entertain people for the night. These companies were made up of versatile triple threat performers - those who did all the acting, dancing, and singing roles required in an evening's entertainment.
In the 20th century, the love of dance as entertainment grew in new directions. Broadway revues evolved into musical theater productions. With the invention of motion pictures and then television, dance moved into entertainment mass media.
For Broadway shows, dance artists and choreographers from ballet and modern dance companies created dances in early-20th-century follies (elaborate shows with music, songs, and dances), revues, and then musicals. As musical theater dance developed, it continued to absorb the styles of dance genres such as tap dance, ballet, modern dance, and jazz dance. Each musical theater production had its unique choreography using blended styles. Broadway shows tour throughout the world, bringing classical and contemporary musical theater productions to millions of people.
Dance movies have been popular since the early days of film. Producing these movies took hundreds of dancers, such as in the work of Busby Berkeley in the 1920s as a Broadway dance director and in 1930s movies where he directed musical numbers which led to his fame. Dance movies became an important area of commercial dance. Dancers and choreographers have entertained and educated audiences in historical dramas, animated movies, movie musicals, and science fiction movies alike. Animated movies in which characters danced were the invention of Walt Disney and his creative staff. Characters such as Snow White and the dancing dwarfs, princesses, and all kinds of creatures perform animated dances. In the 1950s, Gene Kelly bridged the gap between animation and live characters when he danced with an animated mouse in the film Anchors Away (1945).
With the advent of television, dance moved into variety shows, such as the Ed Sullivan Show. They showcased a wide variety of dance artists and choreographers and made them household names across America. As television programming expanded, so did the opportunities for dance shows. The popular Dance in America series brought ballet and modern dance companies to homes across America. Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) continues to provide diverse programming of dance as art, entertainment, and education.
Over the last decade, reality dance shows such as So You Think You Can Dance and Dancing With the Stars have expanded dance audiences and their appreciation of dance. Televised dance or drill team competitions and other associated dance competitions present another aspect of dance as entertainment. Television programming now includes an array of dance entertainment, including sitcoms and documentary series on dancers, their personal lives, musical theater, and dance genres from around the world.
After Disneyland opened in the 1950s, amusement and theme parks became another mass entertainment medium. Dance became an important feature in theme parks across the nation and the world. Dancing characters from the movies reside in different areas of these parks. In each park, one or more companies of dancers perform short entertainment shows throughout the day, every day. Dancers perform blended historical, cultural, or social dance styles to entertain park visitors. The Disney concept of performers - being in character and onstage while walking in the park or dancing - spurred an entire entertainment industry. Other live entertainment settings, including cruise ships, casinos, and resorts, provide multiple dancing stage shows as entertainment for guests.
When Internet technology expanded, another entertainment site emerged that would support dance films, recorded dance performance, and ways to interact in real time with dancers and choreographers across the globe. In the 20th century the term dance for the camera was coined to describe dance that was filmed as art, education, or entertainment. Productions of dance for the camera include documentaries of dancers and choreographers, historical and educational movies, concert and cultural dance companies, and performances of choreographed artistic dance films. These dance films are broadcast on television, shown in schools, or shown as fine art films. On the Internet, anyone can post a personal dance video to be viewed by the class, the school, and often the entire world. Dance for the camera has expanded into a whole new dimension that requires understanding dance as well as the art of filming it. To create dance for the camera, you need to grasp the artistic and production values, choices, and processes that are part of creating a filmed work.
Explore More
You can see from this brief overview that there is much to explore in dance as entertainment and its commercial sector. The Explore More sections on the web resource will explore three dance entertainment genres: dance or drill teams, dance in musical theater, and dance for the camera.
Dance or Drill Teams
Dance or drill teams range from students in middle school, high school, and college to professionals who perform at local sporting events to televised professional sports. Halftime shows for many sports feature dance or drill teams. Dance or drill teams perform for school games and community functions, and they take part in dance and drill team competitions. Their routines showcase their ensemble technique, spirit, and enthusiasm for the crowds. Training for dance and drill team requires athleticism and artistry. Dance and drill teams began as a Texas phenomenon that has spread across the United States and around the world. Visit the chapter 13 on the web resource to explore more about dance and drill teams.
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A dance team moves together to create a powerful effect.
Courtesy of Jennifer Dawson, Terri Ware, and Silver Star Dancers
Activity 13.2 Discover
Learn a Drill or Dance Team Combination
For this activity, your teacher or a classmate teaches one or more basic drill or dance combinations to the class. After everyone has learned and practiced the routine to music, take a few minutes to reflect on the experience. In your journal, write about what you enjoyed in the routine, what was challenging, and which type of routine you preferred and why. Share it with another student or in a group discussion.
Dance in Musical Theater
Musical theater dance spans school musicals, professional productions on the Broadway stage, and touring companies that travel to cities across the world. Becoming a musical theater dancer takes versatile dance training and other performing arts skills such as acting, music, and voice. The challenge in every musical theater production is to blend dancing, acting, and singing to portray your role. Visit the web resource to explore more about musical theater dance.
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Musical theater productions feature a blend of singing, dancing, and acting.
Jim West
Activity 13.3 Explore
Dance in Musical Theater
Choose a musical from the list provided by your teacher. Form a small group with other students who chose the same musical theater production. Together, search the Internet to find a video of a major dance sequence or dance combination from that musical. Your teacher may provide you with a list of dances from which to choose. View the dance number, then answer these questions:
- Identify each main character, and write a sentence or two about each person to describe their personality.
- Where does the dance take place?
- What inspires the characters to do this dance?
Describe the dance, the music, and whether it includes a song that is part of the musical number.
Collaborate as a group to develop, write, and present a 1- or 2-minute oral summary or a media presentation to the class to cover this information:
- Provide the story line (plot) of the musical.
- Identify the choreographer and give a very brief summary (two or three sentences) of the individual's contributions to the field.
- Indicate the main characters by writing a two- to three-sentence biography about each person.
- Describe the dance, the music, and the song in the musical number that you viewed.
Post a one-page summary of your group's information in the classroom or on the class web page. Add a picture that captures the meaning of the musical, or take a photo of your group in a memorable pose from the dance you researched. On your media presentation and one-page summary, cite the sources for your research.
Dance for the Camera
Dance in film, television, music videos, and other media forms provides entertainment for audiences. It also provides choreographers and dancers more media choices for presenting dance as an art form. Dance for the camera is term that covers entertainment, artistic, and multimedia forms of presenting dance. Filming dance has been instrumental in documenting its artists and works for the public to enjoy. Further, dance media has expanded dancers' views about how to complement or enhance a live performance. The final Explore More section investigates the types of media used in dance for the camera.
Learn more about Discovering Dance.
Discovering College and Career Preparation
Moving in new ways, remembering movement sequences, and executing them in time to music within changing formations and pathways is challenging.
Moving in new ways, remembering movement sequences, and executing them in time to music within changing formations and pathways is challenging. Dancing is a complicated process that requires mental and physical coordination, memorization, problem solving, refining, and performing. Like sports and many other fine arts, dancing demands that you juggle many factors to perform at your best. College and careers demand the same.
The processes of dancing, dance making, and dance appreciation fuel the discipline of dance. Across the arts the processes of creating, performing, responding, and interconnecting support other studies. Learning the movement languages of dance genres helps you not only in dance-related studies and careers but also in other arts-related disciplines and in life.
Activity 15.1 Research
College and Career Options
Write a list of two or three potential careers in dance, fine arts, or another discipline that you are interested in learning more about. Do an Internet search about each career, and note the following factors:
- Educational requirements
- Skills and abilities needed for this career
- Working conditions (for example, hours)
- Pay range and other benefits
- Personal benefits and values someone in this career would receive
After you have collected the answers to these questions for each career path, write a short descriptive paragraph about each career, and share it with the class.
In another document, write what appeals to you about this career. Also add what you think are your challenges in considering this career. Decide whether this career is a future possibility for further consideration or it is not a direction you wish to pursue.
Did You Know?
Dance Employment
The U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics posts the Occupational Outlook Handbook on its website (www.bls.gov). This handbook includes employment information about dancers and choreographers as part of the country's work force. These government data provide information about work environment, pay scale, and job outlook for the future as well as other information. In 2010 about 25,600 dancers and choreographers held jobs. Approximately 20 percent of dancers in performing arts companies and about 78 percent of choreographers work in a variety of schools and other places (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2012).
Employment of dancers is expected to increase at about 11 percent with a projected employment of 13,700 more people by 2020. This percentage is in the average range of all occupations. Employment of choreographers is projected to increase 24 percent with a projected employment of 16,400 by 2020. This is faster than the average for all occupations. The growing interest in dance as entertainment attracts people to enroll in dance classes. In turn, this growth in enrollment creates employment opportunities in television, movies, and other leisure settings.
Exploring Dance and Associated Careers
Imagine you are looking for a job, and you see an advertisement that reads, "Employer looking for creative, innovative, adaptive thinkers. If you are qualified, please apply." As a dancer, you can meet these and other requirements for work in the 21st century. Dancing, dance making, and thinking like a dancer train you in the skills you need for your education and career.
The time since the start of the new millennium has seen tremendous changes at a rapid pace. This quick pace is in part because of advances in technology that affect everyday lives and careers. Near the end of the 20th century, some of the world's greatest thinkers began to investigate what types of knowledge and skills 21st-century workers and citizens would need to be successful. As a result, they identified various types of learning and literacy such as financial, environmental, artistic, and others.
Across these categories, a series of broad topics reach from school to work, into the community, and the world:
- Communication
- Creativity
- Collaboration
- Critical thinking
The skills that support these four C's for 21st-century learning are presented in table 15.1.
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Scanning the entries in table 15.1 can be overwhelming. Pause a moment, and reflect on the assignments you did in the chapters of this book and your other class work. Then, recall the dance learning processes contained in the items listed. The point to remember is that the four topics contain major knowledge and skills that span dance and other disciplines of study as preparation for college and careers. In table 15.1 you will see that some of the skills identified cross one or more of the four categories.
Acquiring these attributes is a long-term process; it can take many years to complete. Reading these ideas gives you an understanding of how learning spans from the classroom through experiences in your community and life. These four C's are deeply embedded in dancing, dance making, and dance appreciation processes:
- Communicating through dance: In dance you communicate when you create, perform, or reflect on a dance work. In making a dance, the choreographer, dancers, and associated artistic staff need common arts vocabularies to effectively communicate, analytical skills to solve problems, and negotiation and teamwork skills along with an array of management skills to create and produce a dance performance.
- Creativity: When choreographers and dancers analyze and solve movement problems in a dance work, they use the creative process. The choreographer approaches an idea or theme for a dance and creatively seeks a choreographic design through which to communicate a cohesive artistic statement. The audience viewing a dance reflects and analyzes what they perceive as the meaning and the design of the dance work. Their feedback may be communicated to the dancers, choreographer, artistic staff, or the community. These responses can influence the direction of a choreographer's future works, artistic directions, or a company's finances.
- Collaboration: Collaboration is an integral part of dancing and creating artistic works with other artists. Improvisational structures and dance compositional forms require that dancers work as a highly functioning team to perform a dance. In dance making, choreographers strategically plan movement for dancers to communicate ideas. Associated artists join forces to present a unified message in an artistic work.
- Critical thinking: Through all dance processes, dancers and choreographers, associated artists, and audience members use critical thinking. Dancers have to make logical and quick decisions during a dance for safety or for artistic expression. Choreographers use analytical skills along with management and technology skills to make dances that satisfy an artistic mission and to meet business goals. Dance audiences determine whether attending a dance company performance will be a continuing venture.
Dance provides a wide range of professional career options in communities, cities, and around the world. Dance careers span areas of the arts and entertainment, media, fitness, recreation, business, education, technical fields, and other areas.
As you learned in chapter13, dance as entertainment is big business. Dance in education spans from preschool through university and graduate education, and into communities and people's lives across the nation as participation or through education, performance, and advocacy. Dance studios, gyms, recreation centers, and performing arts organizations have expanded their community contributions as more and more people realize the importance and contribution of dance and the other arts to their lives. Dance professional organizations provide continuing professional development for students, educators, artists, scientists, writers, and others interested or involved in dance as profession or associated professions. Dance professionals work as performers and in many roles that support dance performance. Often professionals with a dance background work in associated fields such as dance therapy, kinesiology, production, media, and arts administration. Their presence as dance professionals in these fields brings deeper perspectives to new audiences of how dance can play a role in other disciplines.
Transferring Dance Skills to Life Skills
Life and career skills - the skills you need in order to succeed in work and life - require four characteristics: flexibility, adaptability, taking initiative, and being self-directed. In school, work, and community you should demonstrate cross-cultural and leadership skills. In your school and career, you should be responsible, productive, and accountable for your work. In the dance class you cultivate dancer attributes that then apply in your dancing and personal development.
Your experience in dance develops a number of traits that apply to other life endeavors. Personal development through dance for future career directions beyond dance include these:
- Physical, intellectual, and kinesthetic awareness
- Fine-tuned observation skills
- Enhanced focus and concentration
- Extended self-discipline, responsibility, and empathy
- Perception and sensory awareness of personal movement and others' movement choices and styles
- Versatility, ability to adapt, and flexibility in various situations
- Expanded interpersonal (mental and physical attributes you share with others) and intrapersonal (the internal conversation you have with yourself) communication skills
Observation and Awareness
Observation skills are critical to learning dance and are essential in any career. Observational skills take time to develop. Concentrated observation helps you acquire visual, auditory, and sensory information. As a dancer you filter through this information and determine how it applies to get the desired result.
Dancers learn to coordinate movements of body parts in a step or movement. This complicated coordination of brain and body improves as you move through more complex exercises, combinations, dance sequences, and dances. When you memorize movement you initiate an internal cueing system that engages a complicated synergy of intellectual and body actions with the elements of space, time, energy, or effort. So, what you do in dance contributes directly to your personal development in dance and also to future directions beyond dance. When you take dance classes or perform, you develop these skills:
- Using interpersonal spatial awareness
- Having a physical and intellectual presence in space
- Creating movement as a result of being internally sensitive and intuitive
- Acquiring performance awareness and a professional attitude
- Reading movement and then reproducing the movement (translate it, transpose it) presented by the teacher or choreographer
- Memorizing movements and dances to create a memory bank
- Understanding movement systems, genres, and styles
Creativity and Communication
When composing a dance, you use the creative process to formulate a design and structure for dance movements. You use the creative process in dance when you experiment with the following:
- Determining movement patterns as part of choreography and choreographic designs in space and time using a range of energy or efforts
- Manipulating the order of movements to make a logical statement using seamless transitions
- Using choreographic structures and strategies for augmentations
- Connecting musical knowledge to movement sequences
- Relating visual design elements of patterns, relationships to dance, and identifying styles to apply or augment
- Applying movement, choreographic, and aesthetic principles to dancing and dance composition
- Employing stagecraft and media knowledge in producing the work
Producing a dance is a complicated process that combines design elements, problem-solving skills, and communication with artists and technicians. When you practice these processes, you enhance your abilities as a dancer and create conduits that relate to many associated dance careers.
Media and Artistic Literacy
When you view dances, you develop a visual and mental store of classical to contemporary dance works. Dancers and choreographers have used this system of "recording" to create a memory bank since before the common use of notation systems and electronic recording systems. These mental memories of movements combine with kinesthetic responses you receive from watching dancers perform. Your response to a dance in conversation, discussion, or written forms is also kinesthetic in nature. Translating movement experiences into descriptive and meaningful commentary supports and expands your dance and artistic literacy and your media literacy.
Artistic literacy is the knowledge and understanding required to participate authentically in the arts. Arts include dance, music, dramatic art, visual art, and media. The arts contain content, principles, and applications that are common to them as art forms. In artistic literacy, the processes of creating, performing (in dance, music, or theater), presenting (in the visual arts) or producing (in media arts), responding, and connecting reach across all of the arts. Learning these processes in various art forms contributes to your media literacy and to your experience (State Education Agency Directors of Arts Education 2013).
Media literacy is the ability to access, analyze, and evaluate media content. Viewing and responding to a dance performance includes both deconstruction and construction.
After you reflect upon the dance as a complete work, the next step is to take the dance apart. Deconstruction is analyzing or taking a dance performance apart. It is how you look at the components of the choreography, the dancers' performance, and the production elements of the work. Construction activities use the dance analysis (or deconstruction) as a basis for participating in a discussion about the dance, writing a dance report about a work you have viewed, or summarizing your findings and filing them in your memory bank along with your visual memories of the dance work.
When you attend a dance concert or view a video of a dance performance, you may have been assigned to write a dance report. A couple of strategies are useful for preparing you to write your response. Before you view the performance, read over the items or questions you have to cover in the report. When you view the dance, watch, hear, and feel the performance. Some people suggest reading the program notes about the dance after the concert. Your viewing experience of the dance provides the information from which to write your report.
In past centuries, literacy meant reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills. These skills remain foundational today; they have become the basis of 21st-century skills such as media literacy. When you gain an understanding of a media presentation and its components that create meaning, then you are engaging in media literacy.
Dance literacy includes knowledge of movement, music, theater, and arts terminology. Dance is multilingual through its various genres, their specific terminology, and the application of movement, choreographic, and aesthetic principles. Other facets of dance literacy include knowledge of rhythmic and musical languages, stagecraft and theater vocabularies, arts education, arts media processes, and production terminology. Dance literacy skills contribute to overall media literacy.
Activity 15.2 Explore
Analyzing a Dance Performance
When you view a dance performance, you use your skills in media literacy to analyze it. After you reflect on the dance as a complete work, the next step is to take the dance apart. It is how you look at the components of the choreography, the dancers' performance, and the production elements of the work. When you deconstruct a dance work, think about these questions:
- What do you think is the choreographer's message, idea, and theme?
- Were you able to discern the choreographic structure of the dance?
- How did the music interact or support the dance?
- Did the dancers' technique meet the requirements of the choreography?
- Did the dancers express the style of the choreography?
- Did the production elements of lighting and costuming support the presentation of the dance work and contribute to it as a work of art?
- Was the dance aesthetically moving to you?
- Would you consider this dance a work of art?
Multiple Intelligences
The theory of multiple intelligences (MI) and 21st-century educational theories have provided evidence that students acquire many ways of being smart through dance. These intelligences translate to other courses of study and into the workplace.
The theory of multiple intelligences was developed by an educational psychologist named Harold Gardner. Beginning in the 1980s, Gardner's original system of seven intelligences has expanded to nine; it continues to expand. The following list summarizes Gardner's nine intelligences. Your multiple intelligence quotient is really a combination of all of your intelligences. You may rate very high in certain intelligences and not as high in others. Gardner claims that you can strengthen and expand the intelligences that you ignore or challenge yourself (Gardner1983).
- Verbal-linguistic intelligence: Verbal skills and sensitivity to meaning and rhythm of words.
- Mathematical or logical intelligence: Conceptual and abstract thinking skills in both numerical and logic patterns.
- Musical intelligence: Understanding and ability to use rhythm, pitch, and texture.
- Visual-spatial intelligence: Thinking and visualizing using images in spatial and abstract configurations.
- Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence: Moving and handling objects with grace, skill, and artfulness.
- Interpersonal intelligence: Communicating appropriately with other people in relation to their moods, ideas, and directions.
- Intrapersonal intelligence: Self-awareness of feelings, values, and thinking processes.
- Naturalist intelligence: Recognizing and categorizing plants, animals, and other things in nature.
- Existential intelligence: Deep thinking about philosophical and essential questions about life and its meaning.
Adapted from http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/mi/index.html
Activity 15.3 Discover
Your Multiple Intelligences (MI)
Do you recognize some of your intelligences? The web resource includes a link to an MI test to take for fun and to find out the various ways you are smart. Then you can compare your MI with those of others in the class. Knowing your MI can give you insights into some possible career directions. Your MI can change over time as you develop other intelligences. Documenting your MI can be an interesting way to self-check and track your changes in the future.
Learn more about Discovering Dance.
Exploring Dance Composition
Dance composition is learning how to make a dance. During the dance composition process you explore a movement idea by creating dance movement or selecting steps in some dance genres, then you manipulate these elements and materials of dance into movement modules of various lengths to compose a dance.
Dance composition is learning how to make a dance. During the dance composition process you explore a movement idea by creating dance movement or selecting steps in some dance genres, then you manipulate these elements and materials of dance into movement modules of various lengths to compose a dance. To understand how to use your tools for composition, you need to be familiar with choreographic design principles, structures, and devices. For a dance work to have solidarity and value, the choreography should connect to aesthetic principles that underlie art works.
In the Movement Invention activity, you invented two contrasting dance phrases (a short series of movements that connect into a pattern) or longer sequences. In the next activities you will create a movement sequence (a group of movements that form a unit), and then you will develop a movement statement (similar to a sentence). All of these movement segments contain a beginning, a middle, and an end. Coupling movement sentences together builds a dance segment similar to a paragraph in writing. Regardless of how long or short it is, a dance composition focuses on the beginning, the middle, the end, and on the movement between these points. Creating and composing the movement is one part of the choreographic process. Checking to ensure choreographic principles underlie the dance modules requires you to analyze your composition during the process and when it is complete. Table 4.1 lists the basic choreographic principles that underlie a dance composition.
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The following sections lead you through the choreographic process as you compose your movement segments.
Creative and Choreographic Processes
Different dance scholars present similar creative and choreographic processes. Some scholars write about the creative process, while others write about the steps to create a dance. Both processes underlie making a dance.
The creative process in dance making requires a period of preparation in which you collect ideas. This preparation time should include time for developing choreographic ideas; in other words, you need to figure out the central idea and how to approach it. Next you have to experiment with movement for a deeper insight into the movement ideas. In later sessions, you evaluate the movement and determine what works and what does not work as part of the dance work. The final step in the process is elaborating on the movement ideas you have selected.
Another dance composition process uses similar steps. First, observe the world around you, and explore ways of imitating or symbolizing what you have observed using bodies and movement. Working by yourself, do movement explorations and collect external experiences by observing the work of others. During the composition process, group reflections and discussions provide feedback that should be sorted out as to how well it applies or transfers to the dance in progress. In creating a dance, use your synthesized information from exploration and reflection. After the performance, a final group reflection helps to analyze the process and the product. Then extend the group reflection to a journal of what you learned and what ideas have been sparked for future choreography.
You should know the reason behind your writing activities in relation to your movement activities. Choreographic journaling has been part of dance composition courses since at least the last quarter of the 20th century, and this type of journaling continues today.
In academic dance courses, you usually keep choreographic journals to collect written records of your observations, movement experiments, research, and findings as you go through the dance composition process. Often you write about personal goals in the class and challenges you have faced during a course. You also write about how as an individual or in a group you responded to the process or what you learned from it to help you frame or propose your next project.
With the creative and choreographic processes in mind, the next step is to survey your ingredients for making a dance. In chapter 3 you learned about the elements of dance that play a central role in creating a dance. However, other ingredients also contribute to dance composition.
Activity 4.2 Explore
Create a Movement Sequence
Using the locomotor movements from chapter 3, select two, three, or four even and uneven locomotor movements, and join them together into an 8-count movement sequence. Often movement sequences are parts of a longer movement statement. If a sequence appears to be complete, it may be referred to as a movement statement or sentence. This activity has two parts.
Part 1
Decide the order of the locomotor movements. Practice your movement sequence until you have it memorized. To add variety to the movement sequence, here are some ideas to try:
First, do the movement sequence as you created it. Repeat the sequence once at slow speed, then repeat it again at a faster speed. Changing the speed or timing on movements changes your energy or qualities of movement. Memorize these movement sequences in the order you chose.
Think about what energy, effort, or qualities you used in these repetitions and how they changed. Review the list of effort actions or movement qualities from chapter 3, and identify which ones you used. If you find a couple of undistinguishable efforts or movement qualities, try the movement again to clarify them.
Part 2
Now select two, three, or four different even and uneven locomotor movements or basic steps presented in chapter 3; these movements should be ones you are less comfortable with. Use these movements to create another movement sequence.Practice and memorize your new sequence. Again, perform the sequence four times using two or three different speeds. Then, do the first movement sequence followed by the second, or longer, sequence.
Reflect on these ideas about both movement phrases or sequences:
- The locomotor movements or steps you chose
- The differences in speeds
- How the energy, effort, effort actions, or movement qualities changed
How does the first movement sequence compare or contrast to your second movement sequence? Identify at least two similarities and two differences in movement, energy, effort, effort actions, and movement qualities when you changed the speed of your movement.
Summarize your reflections either on paper or in your mind. In a small group, take turns doing your two movement sequences following one another. Then present to the group your summary of the similarities and differences between the two movement sequences you created. Ask the group, "What did you see as similarities and differences after viewing my two movement sequences?"
Listening to the feedback of your peers may give you new ideas to try or to incorporate into your sequences. Observing others perform their movement inventions may give you more ideas to store away in your movement memory bank for future use.
Sources of Movement
Creating new dance movements comes from exploring and experimenting with movement possibilities. Exploring new ways to move may take you out of your comfort zone. As you mentally and physically record these experiments, keep in mind that they may or may not turn out to be movements you want to add to your movement memory bank. But don't let that stop you from experimenting. Although it does involve taking movement risks, your experiments are being done in the safe setting of a dance class.
Improvisation is creating movement or movement invention for making dances. Using different stimuli creates new movement. Internal stimuli could include exploring your spontaneous individual movements based on touch, auditory, or visual sources. External stimuli could come from music, a work of art, nature, or an everyday task.
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During improvisation, the teacher can provide valuable feedback or suggestions about the movement or poses being created.
When a group is looking for solutions to a problem, they often brainstorm, and together they consider a number of options. Improvisation is similar to brainstorming; in fact, it has been called body storming. You can practice body storming by yourself or with a group. Doing movement improvisation with a group can be a lot of fun, and it allows you to gather or share new movement ideas. While improvising, use the somatic movement awareness principles and Laban effort actions. Experiment with how these important actions connect to space, time, energy, and weight to create new dynamics in your dancing.
Sources for improvisation can be visual, words, poetry, tasks, senses, or someone else's movement or dances. These movement experiments or improvisations have several forms:
- Free-form improvisations are self-expression based on the premise of you moving and responding to music. This type of improvisational study can be a movement response to auditory, visual, textural, or a combination of stimuli.
- Semi-structured movement experiments solve a problem, answer the question, or have different points that the teacher or you determine as the criteria for composing the work.
- A structured improvisation is an experimental movement sequence that is loosely structured and practiced. Quite often a group work, the choreographer identifies movement sections or specific movement pictures that the group has developed during practice. These sections or pictures give the work an overall form and an artistic focus.
When you view or discuss an improvisation, you need a framework to help keep the discussion focused on the composition instead of on personal likes and dislikes. One system for discussing dance is known as RADS,which stands for using the following components: relationships, actions, dynamics, and use of space. Try it after a movement invention session or apply it as a self-analysis to your own movement improvisation.
Improvisation is a creative way to extend your personal movement repertory and styles. Practicing the many forms of improvisation helps you tap into your own creative force, enhancing your experience as a dancer and as a dance maker.
Learn more about Discovering Dance.
Discovering Cultural Dance
Dance has been called the universal language; you live in a world that dances.
Dance has been called the universal language; you live in a world that dances. Take a look at the map of the world and its continents (figure 8.1). Geographers have identified distinct natural and physical features (ecosystems) in regions throughout the world. Studying a geographic region that supports human culture is also known as cultural geography. Within these geographic regions are specific cultural regions of the world.
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Regions of the world.
In each of these cultural regions are countries, people of various racial and ethnic groups, and their cultural values. Their arts include dances from aboriginals or first people (the original people who inhabited the land since millennia ago) who migrated to these regions because of war, famine, economic hardship, or other reasons. The common elements of culture include the following (Blankenship in press):
- It is a way of life, learned and shared with future generations.
- It changes with time and is symbolic.
- The economy drives a culture.
Culture is a community or society's knowledge, beliefs, values, customs, and common heritage. If you were to look at the cultural geographic areas of the world, you would encounter commonalities and differences that make each country or region unique. People have many different views about defining and describing dance from geographic or cultural regions of the world. Some people consider dances from across these regions to be examples of world dance, while others might call these dances cultural dance. Regardless of where you live in the world, you participate in dances that reflect a lot or a little of the culture.
Activity 8.1 Explore
Dance Around the World
Using a map of the world, survey the geographic region that your teacher assigns to your group. Search a region's or country's website, then describe the physical features of each region or country. Next, research and describe the people of that area and their culture, and find examples of a traditional dance they perform. If you can locate a video performance of the dance, write a brief descriptive summary about it. In your summary include the following information:
- Background or history of the dance
- Who dances
- When and where the dance is performed
Describe the music that accompanies the dance and the dancers' clothing. Add a photo of the dancers performing, and list references or web links to your online sources.
Did You Know?
People Like Me
People Like Me is the arts education program of the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festivaland World Arts West. For 15 seasons this organization has presented an extraordinary festival featuring dancers and dance companies that represent cultures around the world. On their website, the festival provides their Online Encyclopedia of World Dance, which includes performers, information about selected dances and dance styles, musical instruments, and history of the dance style. Attending the festival to view cultural dance performances by artists from across the world would be an awesome experience. Visiting the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival and World Arts West website provides easy access to a virtual tour of dance around the world.
Exploring Cultural Dance
Specific countries have dances that identify with a region and its culture immediately. For example, African dances or Indian dances have styles that make them readily identifiable, as do other cultural dances from across the globe.
When you study dances as part of a culture, you are using different lenses to see each dance in its cultural context. Earlier in this chapter, you discovered that culture is a concept in human geography. It also has deep connections to the fields of cultural anthropology, ethnology, and ethnomusicology. Cultural anthropology is the study of humans and their culture, which includes social structures, languages, laws, religion, arts, and technology. Ethnology is the study of the cultural life of a community. An ethnologist lives in a community for several years to record the everyday life of the people and their culture. Ethnomusicology is the study of a people's music in relation to its culture or society. Ethnomusicologists may extend their study to dances performed to the music of the culture.
Countries all over the world have traditional dances, but they are actually evolving products of history, migration, wars, and political and societal changes of the people who perform them. Today, in one country you can encounter many cultural dances, including the following:
- Dances of aboriginals or first people.
- Dances of early settlers who migrated to the area and brought their culture to their new home. In various historical eras, the dances may have colonial or postcolonial versions.
- Blended dances created after wars changed a people and their culture. These dances are not created overnight. In an invaded country, the original people and the new arrivals may or may not embrace each other's cultures or dances. A cultural clash may occur, and the two groups may resist each other's influence. Blending outside influences into existing traditions takes place over time.
- Newer variations of traditional dances that evolve from generation to generation. These dances absorb and blend personal, group, and societal trends that can change a dance and its performance.
- Dances of tribes, first people, and ethnic groups who strive to keep their ancestral traditions alive in contemporary society. People preserve these dances to share their heritage with the young people of their community.
All cultural dances presented in the overview of dance types connect to the three common elements of a culture (see Discovering Cultural Dance).
If you add all these elements together, you get two deep understandings:
- Culture is about participating as a community; it can be related to ritual, spiritual, and life events and celebrations.
- Culture can be defined as a way of life that is learned, shared with future generations, and changes with time.
Participating, viewing, and learning about cultural dance and the roles it plays in societies leads to awareness and appreciation of other people and their cultural values.
Experiencing a cultural dance means taking a look at the movement from the perspectives of both the cultural dancer and the requirements of the dance. The ideas you have learned about other dance forms so far or will encounter in this book may not apply to cultural dances. So, discard your preconception of cultural dances, and involve yourself in perceiving and experiencing the movement. Then you will be poised to find the meaning or essence of the dance and gain some insights about the dancers who perform it. Experiencing cultural dance requires you to observe through a different kind of dance lens; you must see as an ethnologist would, paying attention to the dance in the context of its home culture.
Explore More
Take a virtual dance tour! On the web resource, you will visit a variety of countries across the globe. Each country provides an overview of its geography, history, and some of its most important dances. Key search terms in some of the dance genres provide ways to view and learn a dance or movement sequence. The dance tour provides an overview from which you can explore more through researching the countries and their wealth of dances.
Mexico
Mexico has a wealth of natural and cultural resources, with diverse landscapes from mountains to jungles, and historic traditions reaching back more than 3,000 years. Mexican dance captures the rhythm, emotion, and movement of a vibrant society with a heritage rich in tradition.
America
The United States is a country of vast natural and cultural resources and is populated by people from a vast variety of cultural heritage. Since prehistoric times, Native Americans have danced to express their traditions and cultural values. Contemporary urban dance forms began to express social changes in the United States during the latter 20th century.
Europe
Europe is a huge continent with many nationalities and their dances. Chapter 7 (Folk Dance) contains a variety of folk dances from countries throughout Europe, Russia, and other countries.
Africa
Africa is the second largest continent in the world with 54 countries. African people and cultures represent a diversity of economic and social structures with various beliefs, religions, and arts. For centuries African cultural dance has captured the spirit of life events, community and spiritual beliefs, and identities of tribes and clans of various regions.
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In Africa, dance is an integral part of ceremonies, festivals, and rites. African dances are done in many countries throughout the world.
India
India is the seventh largest country in the world. For nearly 3,000 years, dance art has existed in India and is a significant aspect in Indian culture. Classical Indian dance includes a wide range of forms and styles that reflect various geographic centers, history, and traditions.
Japan
Japan is a group of islands off the east coast of Asia. According to legend, Japan was founded in the 7th century BCE. Japanese cultural dances relate to religions and social eras in Japanese history. Japanese cultural dance forms and styles span historical court dances, religious dances, and traditional folk dances. In Japan, dance remains an integral part of historical theatrical entertainment.
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Japanese dances are passed from generation to generation.
Exploring these countries is just the starting place for learning about cultural dance. You may want to continue your virtual travels to other countries. These countries may connect to your family heritage, a place where a friend came from, or a country you hope to visit in the future. Whatever the reason, you can go there today and share what you learned with the class.
Activity 8.2 Explore
Learn a Cultural Dance
In a small group, find a dance from the country you visited on the web in the exploration activity Dance Around the World. The cultural dance you select could be
- a traditional dance,
- a folk dance,
- a social dance,
- a dance that provides entertainment for visitors, or
- a dance that is considered an art form or part of another art such as drama or theater.
Find two videos of the dance. After watching the videos, learn several movements, poses, a movement sequence, or the entire dance. Through your reading and research about this dance can you discover
- who dances,
- when and where they dance, and
- why they dance.
Identify a list of unique characteristics of the dance (review dance designs in chapter 5). Then, further explore the background and history of the dance to answer this question: How does the dance relate to or represent the people, their culture, and society?
Spotlight
Dance Diplomacy
In early 2010 modern and contemporary dance makers from the groups Urban Bush Women, ODC, and Evidence, a dance company, took part in the first U.S. pilot program to tour internationally as the gateway of cultural exchange among nations. The purpose of this "dance diplomacy" was to create a model cultural exchange initiative. The international tour, supported by the U.S. Department of State, reached global audiences of more than 15,000 in 16 cities of 9 countries in Southeast Asia, South America, and Africa. The second season in 2012 reached global audiences of 25,000 in 24 cities in 13 countries in Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia.
U.S. embassies and the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs partner with dance companies, leading cultural and community-based organizations, and educational institutions to host unique residencies that create opportunities for engagement and exchange. One of these cultural exchanges is DanceMotionUSA, which sends American dance companies overseas to connect with audiences through workshops, lecture demonstrations, and public performances.
Learn more about Discovering Dance.
Discovering Dance as Entertainment
As you read the introduction to this chapter, you may have recognized some of the forms of dance as entertainment that you knew or have even taken part in. Some of these forms are live performances, and others are performed for recorded media, yet others focus on commercial dance.
As you read the introduction to this chapter, you may have recognized some of the forms of dance as entertainment that you knew or have even taken part in. Some of these forms are live performances, and others are performed for recorded media, yet others focus on commercial dance.Your first activity is an exploration of a form of commercial dance.
Activity 13.1 Explore
Dance in Commercials
Many television commercials use dance to sell products or services. To begin this exploration, spend some time surfing television channels. Select two of your favorite commercials that include dance. Write a one-page paper about one of the commercials. Describe the dancers, the setting, the dance, and why they are dancing. What message do you think is being communicated through the dance? Are the music and dialogue effective parts of the commercial? What product is being featured in the commercial? Do you think the dancing makes connections to the product to sell it effectively? What appeals to you (or doesn't appeal to you) about the dance and the commercial? Write a paragraph to critique the commercial. Search for this commercial on the Internet. In your paper, include a photo and a link for viewing the commercial online.
As a class, share your commercial review papers in the classroom or on the school or class's webpage. If several people selected the same commercial, post them together. Then select two other commercials posted that you did not view but capture your interest. In a class discussion, determine the top three dance commercials, and provide a rationale for these choices using the same criteria you used for your commercial review. On a sheet of paper or the board, post these "awards" with that group of commercial reviews.
Did You Know?
Cruise Ship Performers
The top cruise lines vie for passengers by offering an array of dance, musical theater, and media entertainment options. From shortened versions of Broadway shows to aqua theaters where an underwater civilization comes to life, each cruise line has multiple entertainment options for travelers. Behind the scenes, the life for dancers and other entertainers revolves around rehearsing and performing the shows. Dancers should have training in a wide variety of dance genres and styles. With two performances or more per day, or twelve performances or more per week, production show dancers have a busy schedule. A production show dancer may have additional roles on nonproduction show evenings and other occasions such as greet passengers or lead and escort tours of the bridge and backstage areas. On cruise ships, which can be like a small city on the sea, show dancers must be ready for living in close quarters and get used to dancing on a stage that moves with the rocking motion of the ship. In their spare time, dancers have staff access on deck and to facilities such as the pool and the gym. If you love to travel, this is a job in which you can dance your way to new destinations.
Exploring Dance as Entertainment
Dance entertainment is a vast topic and an important component of dance. As a viewer of dance entertainment, you see the collaboration between dance artists, directors, and media or live production staff. These collaborators create ways to use dance choreography to entertain audiences or sell products or services in various settings. To prepare for dancing in commercial or entertainment settings, you have to be versatile as a dancer. You must study social dance, folk dance, cultural dance, street dance, ballet, modern dance, jazz, and tap dance. When you explore the section on dance unions in chapter 15 and on the web resource, you will see job listings that outline the dance genres a dancer needs to have for these jobs. A job can be for a one-performance event, or it might last for years, such as a musical theater performance on Broadway or a yearlong touring show. Commercial dancers who go from job to job are called dance gypsies, because their work is constantly changing from one show to another.
History of Dance as Entertainment
Professional dancers have worked as entertainers since prehistory. In ancient Egypt, the first recorded professional dancers, along with acrobats and musicians, entertained royalty. In ancient Greece dance was part of theater. From medieval times through the renaissance, dance was entertainment and amusement for nobles and peasants alike.
During modern history as dance moved onstage, dance as entertainment was part of other art forms or as interludes between dramas and operas. In the 19th century, dance continued to gain stature through entertainment such as minstrel shows, circuses, spectacles, fairs, variety shows, and vaudeville performances. Dance performances took place outdoors, in music and variety halls, theaters, and arenas. When the transcontinental railway system linked the nation from coast to coast, dance as entertainment exploded. Entire troupes or stock companies or self-contained companies who performed all types of entertainment forms, traveled the country by train; they stopped in cities and small towns to entertain people for the night. These companies were made up of versatile triple threat performers - those who did all the acting, dancing, and singing roles required in an evening's entertainment.
In the 20th century, the love of dance as entertainment grew in new directions. Broadway revues evolved into musical theater productions. With the invention of motion pictures and then television, dance moved into entertainment mass media.
For Broadway shows, dance artists and choreographers from ballet and modern dance companies created dances in early-20th-century follies (elaborate shows with music, songs, and dances), revues, and then musicals. As musical theater dance developed, it continued to absorb the styles of dance genres such as tap dance, ballet, modern dance, and jazz dance. Each musical theater production had its unique choreography using blended styles. Broadway shows tour throughout the world, bringing classical and contemporary musical theater productions to millions of people.
Dance movies have been popular since the early days of film. Producing these movies took hundreds of dancers, such as in the work of Busby Berkeley in the 1920s as a Broadway dance director and in 1930s movies where he directed musical numbers which led to his fame. Dance movies became an important area of commercial dance. Dancers and choreographers have entertained and educated audiences in historical dramas, animated movies, movie musicals, and science fiction movies alike. Animated movies in which characters danced were the invention of Walt Disney and his creative staff. Characters such as Snow White and the dancing dwarfs, princesses, and all kinds of creatures perform animated dances. In the 1950s, Gene Kelly bridged the gap between animation and live characters when he danced with an animated mouse in the film Anchors Away (1945).
With the advent of television, dance moved into variety shows, such as the Ed Sullivan Show. They showcased a wide variety of dance artists and choreographers and made them household names across America. As television programming expanded, so did the opportunities for dance shows. The popular Dance in America series brought ballet and modern dance companies to homes across America. Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) continues to provide diverse programming of dance as art, entertainment, and education.
Over the last decade, reality dance shows such as So You Think You Can Dance and Dancing With the Stars have expanded dance audiences and their appreciation of dance. Televised dance or drill team competitions and other associated dance competitions present another aspect of dance as entertainment. Television programming now includes an array of dance entertainment, including sitcoms and documentary series on dancers, their personal lives, musical theater, and dance genres from around the world.
After Disneyland opened in the 1950s, amusement and theme parks became another mass entertainment medium. Dance became an important feature in theme parks across the nation and the world. Dancing characters from the movies reside in different areas of these parks. In each park, one or more companies of dancers perform short entertainment shows throughout the day, every day. Dancers perform blended historical, cultural, or social dance styles to entertain park visitors. The Disney concept of performers - being in character and onstage while walking in the park or dancing - spurred an entire entertainment industry. Other live entertainment settings, including cruise ships, casinos, and resorts, provide multiple dancing stage shows as entertainment for guests.
When Internet technology expanded, another entertainment site emerged that would support dance films, recorded dance performance, and ways to interact in real time with dancers and choreographers across the globe. In the 20th century the term dance for the camera was coined to describe dance that was filmed as art, education, or entertainment. Productions of dance for the camera include documentaries of dancers and choreographers, historical and educational movies, concert and cultural dance companies, and performances of choreographed artistic dance films. These dance films are broadcast on television, shown in schools, or shown as fine art films. On the Internet, anyone can post a personal dance video to be viewed by the class, the school, and often the entire world. Dance for the camera has expanded into a whole new dimension that requires understanding dance as well as the art of filming it. To create dance for the camera, you need to grasp the artistic and production values, choices, and processes that are part of creating a filmed work.
Explore More
You can see from this brief overview that there is much to explore in dance as entertainment and its commercial sector. The Explore More sections on the web resource will explore three dance entertainment genres: dance or drill teams, dance in musical theater, and dance for the camera.
Dance or Drill Teams
Dance or drill teams range from students in middle school, high school, and college to professionals who perform at local sporting events to televised professional sports. Halftime shows for many sports feature dance or drill teams. Dance or drill teams perform for school games and community functions, and they take part in dance and drill team competitions. Their routines showcase their ensemble technique, spirit, and enthusiasm for the crowds. Training for dance and drill team requires athleticism and artistry. Dance and drill teams began as a Texas phenomenon that has spread across the United States and around the world. Visit the chapter 13 on the web resource to explore more about dance and drill teams.
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A dance team moves together to create a powerful effect.
Courtesy of Jennifer Dawson, Terri Ware, and Silver Star Dancers
Activity 13.2 Discover
Learn a Drill or Dance Team Combination
For this activity, your teacher or a classmate teaches one or more basic drill or dance combinations to the class. After everyone has learned and practiced the routine to music, take a few minutes to reflect on the experience. In your journal, write about what you enjoyed in the routine, what was challenging, and which type of routine you preferred and why. Share it with another student or in a group discussion.
Dance in Musical Theater
Musical theater dance spans school musicals, professional productions on the Broadway stage, and touring companies that travel to cities across the world. Becoming a musical theater dancer takes versatile dance training and other performing arts skills such as acting, music, and voice. The challenge in every musical theater production is to blend dancing, acting, and singing to portray your role. Visit the web resource to explore more about musical theater dance.
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Musical theater productions feature a blend of singing, dancing, and acting.
Jim West
Activity 13.3 Explore
Dance in Musical Theater
Choose a musical from the list provided by your teacher. Form a small group with other students who chose the same musical theater production. Together, search the Internet to find a video of a major dance sequence or dance combination from that musical. Your teacher may provide you with a list of dances from which to choose. View the dance number, then answer these questions:
- Identify each main character, and write a sentence or two about each person to describe their personality.
- Where does the dance take place?
- What inspires the characters to do this dance?
Describe the dance, the music, and whether it includes a song that is part of the musical number.
Collaborate as a group to develop, write, and present a 1- or 2-minute oral summary or a media presentation to the class to cover this information:
- Provide the story line (plot) of the musical.
- Identify the choreographer and give a very brief summary (two or three sentences) of the individual's contributions to the field.
- Indicate the main characters by writing a two- to three-sentence biography about each person.
- Describe the dance, the music, and the song in the musical number that you viewed.
Post a one-page summary of your group's information in the classroom or on the class web page. Add a picture that captures the meaning of the musical, or take a photo of your group in a memorable pose from the dance you researched. On your media presentation and one-page summary, cite the sources for your research.
Dance for the Camera
Dance in film, television, music videos, and other media forms provides entertainment for audiences. It also provides choreographers and dancers more media choices for presenting dance as an art form. Dance for the camera is term that covers entertainment, artistic, and multimedia forms of presenting dance. Filming dance has been instrumental in documenting its artists and works for the public to enjoy. Further, dance media has expanded dancers' views about how to complement or enhance a live performance. The final Explore More section investigates the types of media used in dance for the camera.
Learn more about Discovering Dance.
Discovering College and Career Preparation
Moving in new ways, remembering movement sequences, and executing them in time to music within changing formations and pathways is challenging.
Moving in new ways, remembering movement sequences, and executing them in time to music within changing formations and pathways is challenging. Dancing is a complicated process that requires mental and physical coordination, memorization, problem solving, refining, and performing. Like sports and many other fine arts, dancing demands that you juggle many factors to perform at your best. College and careers demand the same.
The processes of dancing, dance making, and dance appreciation fuel the discipline of dance. Across the arts the processes of creating, performing, responding, and interconnecting support other studies. Learning the movement languages of dance genres helps you not only in dance-related studies and careers but also in other arts-related disciplines and in life.
Activity 15.1 Research
College and Career Options
Write a list of two or three potential careers in dance, fine arts, or another discipline that you are interested in learning more about. Do an Internet search about each career, and note the following factors:
- Educational requirements
- Skills and abilities needed for this career
- Working conditions (for example, hours)
- Pay range and other benefits
- Personal benefits and values someone in this career would receive
After you have collected the answers to these questions for each career path, write a short descriptive paragraph about each career, and share it with the class.
In another document, write what appeals to you about this career. Also add what you think are your challenges in considering this career. Decide whether this career is a future possibility for further consideration or it is not a direction you wish to pursue.
Did You Know?
Dance Employment
The U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics posts the Occupational Outlook Handbook on its website (www.bls.gov). This handbook includes employment information about dancers and choreographers as part of the country's work force. These government data provide information about work environment, pay scale, and job outlook for the future as well as other information. In 2010 about 25,600 dancers and choreographers held jobs. Approximately 20 percent of dancers in performing arts companies and about 78 percent of choreographers work in a variety of schools and other places (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2012).
Employment of dancers is expected to increase at about 11 percent with a projected employment of 13,700 more people by 2020. This percentage is in the average range of all occupations. Employment of choreographers is projected to increase 24 percent with a projected employment of 16,400 by 2020. This is faster than the average for all occupations. The growing interest in dance as entertainment attracts people to enroll in dance classes. In turn, this growth in enrollment creates employment opportunities in television, movies, and other leisure settings.
Exploring Dance and Associated Careers
Imagine you are looking for a job, and you see an advertisement that reads, "Employer looking for creative, innovative, adaptive thinkers. If you are qualified, please apply." As a dancer, you can meet these and other requirements for work in the 21st century. Dancing, dance making, and thinking like a dancer train you in the skills you need for your education and career.
The time since the start of the new millennium has seen tremendous changes at a rapid pace. This quick pace is in part because of advances in technology that affect everyday lives and careers. Near the end of the 20th century, some of the world's greatest thinkers began to investigate what types of knowledge and skills 21st-century workers and citizens would need to be successful. As a result, they identified various types of learning and literacy such as financial, environmental, artistic, and others.
Across these categories, a series of broad topics reach from school to work, into the community, and the world:
- Communication
- Creativity
- Collaboration
- Critical thinking
The skills that support these four C's for 21st-century learning are presented in table 15.1.
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Scanning the entries in table 15.1 can be overwhelming. Pause a moment, and reflect on the assignments you did in the chapters of this book and your other class work. Then, recall the dance learning processes contained in the items listed. The point to remember is that the four topics contain major knowledge and skills that span dance and other disciplines of study as preparation for college and careers. In table 15.1 you will see that some of the skills identified cross one or more of the four categories.
Acquiring these attributes is a long-term process; it can take many years to complete. Reading these ideas gives you an understanding of how learning spans from the classroom through experiences in your community and life. These four C's are deeply embedded in dancing, dance making, and dance appreciation processes:
- Communicating through dance: In dance you communicate when you create, perform, or reflect on a dance work. In making a dance, the choreographer, dancers, and associated artistic staff need common arts vocabularies to effectively communicate, analytical skills to solve problems, and negotiation and teamwork skills along with an array of management skills to create and produce a dance performance.
- Creativity: When choreographers and dancers analyze and solve movement problems in a dance work, they use the creative process. The choreographer approaches an idea or theme for a dance and creatively seeks a choreographic design through which to communicate a cohesive artistic statement. The audience viewing a dance reflects and analyzes what they perceive as the meaning and the design of the dance work. Their feedback may be communicated to the dancers, choreographer, artistic staff, or the community. These responses can influence the direction of a choreographer's future works, artistic directions, or a company's finances.
- Collaboration: Collaboration is an integral part of dancing and creating artistic works with other artists. Improvisational structures and dance compositional forms require that dancers work as a highly functioning team to perform a dance. In dance making, choreographers strategically plan movement for dancers to communicate ideas. Associated artists join forces to present a unified message in an artistic work.
- Critical thinking: Through all dance processes, dancers and choreographers, associated artists, and audience members use critical thinking. Dancers have to make logical and quick decisions during a dance for safety or for artistic expression. Choreographers use analytical skills along with management and technology skills to make dances that satisfy an artistic mission and to meet business goals. Dance audiences determine whether attending a dance company performance will be a continuing venture.
Dance provides a wide range of professional career options in communities, cities, and around the world. Dance careers span areas of the arts and entertainment, media, fitness, recreation, business, education, technical fields, and other areas.
As you learned in chapter13, dance as entertainment is big business. Dance in education spans from preschool through university and graduate education, and into communities and people's lives across the nation as participation or through education, performance, and advocacy. Dance studios, gyms, recreation centers, and performing arts organizations have expanded their community contributions as more and more people realize the importance and contribution of dance and the other arts to their lives. Dance professional organizations provide continuing professional development for students, educators, artists, scientists, writers, and others interested or involved in dance as profession or associated professions. Dance professionals work as performers and in many roles that support dance performance. Often professionals with a dance background work in associated fields such as dance therapy, kinesiology, production, media, and arts administration. Their presence as dance professionals in these fields brings deeper perspectives to new audiences of how dance can play a role in other disciplines.
Transferring Dance Skills to Life Skills
Life and career skills - the skills you need in order to succeed in work and life - require four characteristics: flexibility, adaptability, taking initiative, and being self-directed. In school, work, and community you should demonstrate cross-cultural and leadership skills. In your school and career, you should be responsible, productive, and accountable for your work. In the dance class you cultivate dancer attributes that then apply in your dancing and personal development.
Your experience in dance develops a number of traits that apply to other life endeavors. Personal development through dance for future career directions beyond dance include these:
- Physical, intellectual, and kinesthetic awareness
- Fine-tuned observation skills
- Enhanced focus and concentration
- Extended self-discipline, responsibility, and empathy
- Perception and sensory awareness of personal movement and others' movement choices and styles
- Versatility, ability to adapt, and flexibility in various situations
- Expanded interpersonal (mental and physical attributes you share with others) and intrapersonal (the internal conversation you have with yourself) communication skills
Observation and Awareness
Observation skills are critical to learning dance and are essential in any career. Observational skills take time to develop. Concentrated observation helps you acquire visual, auditory, and sensory information. As a dancer you filter through this information and determine how it applies to get the desired result.
Dancers learn to coordinate movements of body parts in a step or movement. This complicated coordination of brain and body improves as you move through more complex exercises, combinations, dance sequences, and dances. When you memorize movement you initiate an internal cueing system that engages a complicated synergy of intellectual and body actions with the elements of space, time, energy, or effort. So, what you do in dance contributes directly to your personal development in dance and also to future directions beyond dance. When you take dance classes or perform, you develop these skills:
- Using interpersonal spatial awareness
- Having a physical and intellectual presence in space
- Creating movement as a result of being internally sensitive and intuitive
- Acquiring performance awareness and a professional attitude
- Reading movement and then reproducing the movement (translate it, transpose it) presented by the teacher or choreographer
- Memorizing movements and dances to create a memory bank
- Understanding movement systems, genres, and styles
Creativity and Communication
When composing a dance, you use the creative process to formulate a design and structure for dance movements. You use the creative process in dance when you experiment with the following:
- Determining movement patterns as part of choreography and choreographic designs in space and time using a range of energy or efforts
- Manipulating the order of movements to make a logical statement using seamless transitions
- Using choreographic structures and strategies for augmentations
- Connecting musical knowledge to movement sequences
- Relating visual design elements of patterns, relationships to dance, and identifying styles to apply or augment
- Applying movement, choreographic, and aesthetic principles to dancing and dance composition
- Employing stagecraft and media knowledge in producing the work
Producing a dance is a complicated process that combines design elements, problem-solving skills, and communication with artists and technicians. When you practice these processes, you enhance your abilities as a dancer and create conduits that relate to many associated dance careers.
Media and Artistic Literacy
When you view dances, you develop a visual and mental store of classical to contemporary dance works. Dancers and choreographers have used this system of "recording" to create a memory bank since before the common use of notation systems and electronic recording systems. These mental memories of movements combine with kinesthetic responses you receive from watching dancers perform. Your response to a dance in conversation, discussion, or written forms is also kinesthetic in nature. Translating movement experiences into descriptive and meaningful commentary supports and expands your dance and artistic literacy and your media literacy.
Artistic literacy is the knowledge and understanding required to participate authentically in the arts. Arts include dance, music, dramatic art, visual art, and media. The arts contain content, principles, and applications that are common to them as art forms. In artistic literacy, the processes of creating, performing (in dance, music, or theater), presenting (in the visual arts) or producing (in media arts), responding, and connecting reach across all of the arts. Learning these processes in various art forms contributes to your media literacy and to your experience (State Education Agency Directors of Arts Education 2013).
Media literacy is the ability to access, analyze, and evaluate media content. Viewing and responding to a dance performance includes both deconstruction and construction.
After you reflect upon the dance as a complete work, the next step is to take the dance apart. Deconstruction is analyzing or taking a dance performance apart. It is how you look at the components of the choreography, the dancers' performance, and the production elements of the work. Construction activities use the dance analysis (or deconstruction) as a basis for participating in a discussion about the dance, writing a dance report about a work you have viewed, or summarizing your findings and filing them in your memory bank along with your visual memories of the dance work.
When you attend a dance concert or view a video of a dance performance, you may have been assigned to write a dance report. A couple of strategies are useful for preparing you to write your response. Before you view the performance, read over the items or questions you have to cover in the report. When you view the dance, watch, hear, and feel the performance. Some people suggest reading the program notes about the dance after the concert. Your viewing experience of the dance provides the information from which to write your report.
In past centuries, literacy meant reading, writing, listening, and speaking skills. These skills remain foundational today; they have become the basis of 21st-century skills such as media literacy. When you gain an understanding of a media presentation and its components that create meaning, then you are engaging in media literacy.
Dance literacy includes knowledge of movement, music, theater, and arts terminology. Dance is multilingual through its various genres, their specific terminology, and the application of movement, choreographic, and aesthetic principles. Other facets of dance literacy include knowledge of rhythmic and musical languages, stagecraft and theater vocabularies, arts education, arts media processes, and production terminology. Dance literacy skills contribute to overall media literacy.
Activity 15.2 Explore
Analyzing a Dance Performance
When you view a dance performance, you use your skills in media literacy to analyze it. After you reflect on the dance as a complete work, the next step is to take the dance apart. It is how you look at the components of the choreography, the dancers' performance, and the production elements of the work. When you deconstruct a dance work, think about these questions:
- What do you think is the choreographer's message, idea, and theme?
- Were you able to discern the choreographic structure of the dance?
- How did the music interact or support the dance?
- Did the dancers' technique meet the requirements of the choreography?
- Did the dancers express the style of the choreography?
- Did the production elements of lighting and costuming support the presentation of the dance work and contribute to it as a work of art?
- Was the dance aesthetically moving to you?
- Would you consider this dance a work of art?
Multiple Intelligences
The theory of multiple intelligences (MI) and 21st-century educational theories have provided evidence that students acquire many ways of being smart through dance. These intelligences translate to other courses of study and into the workplace.
The theory of multiple intelligences was developed by an educational psychologist named Harold Gardner. Beginning in the 1980s, Gardner's original system of seven intelligences has expanded to nine; it continues to expand. The following list summarizes Gardner's nine intelligences. Your multiple intelligence quotient is really a combination of all of your intelligences. You may rate very high in certain intelligences and not as high in others. Gardner claims that you can strengthen and expand the intelligences that you ignore or challenge yourself (Gardner1983).
- Verbal-linguistic intelligence: Verbal skills and sensitivity to meaning and rhythm of words.
- Mathematical or logical intelligence: Conceptual and abstract thinking skills in both numerical and logic patterns.
- Musical intelligence: Understanding and ability to use rhythm, pitch, and texture.
- Visual-spatial intelligence: Thinking and visualizing using images in spatial and abstract configurations.
- Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence: Moving and handling objects with grace, skill, and artfulness.
- Interpersonal intelligence: Communicating appropriately with other people in relation to their moods, ideas, and directions.
- Intrapersonal intelligence: Self-awareness of feelings, values, and thinking processes.
- Naturalist intelligence: Recognizing and categorizing plants, animals, and other things in nature.
- Existential intelligence: Deep thinking about philosophical and essential questions about life and its meaning.
Adapted from http://www.thirteen.org/edonline/concept2class/mi/index.html
Activity 15.3 Discover
Your Multiple Intelligences (MI)
Do you recognize some of your intelligences? The web resource includes a link to an MI test to take for fun and to find out the various ways you are smart. Then you can compare your MI with those of others in the class. Knowing your MI can give you insights into some possible career directions. Your MI can change over time as you develop other intelligences. Documenting your MI can be an interesting way to self-check and track your changes in the future.
Learn more about Discovering Dance.
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