Week 8 assignment: essay – interrelationships reflection apa format | Applied Sciences homework help
- How closely related are popular music styles to those of classical music? How does understanding classical music help in appreciating popular music?
jac16871_ch09_224-253.indd 253 12/11/17 9:02 PM 254 ©Robbie Jack/Corbis/Getty Images Chapter 10
DANCE
Dance—moving bodies shaping space—shares common ground with kinetic sculpture. In abstract dance, the center of interest is upon visual patterns, and thus there is common ground with abstract painting. Dance, however, usually includes a narrative, performed on a stage with scenic effects, and thus has com- mon ground with drama. Dance is rhythmic, unfolding in time, and thus has com- mon ground with music. Most dance is accompanied by music, and dance is often incorporated in opera. According to the psychologist Havelock Ellis: “Dancing is the loftiest, the most moving, the most beautiful of the arts, because it is no mere translation or abstraction from life; it is life itself.”1 Subject Matter of Dance At its most basic level, the subject matter of dance is abstract motion of bodies, but a much more pervasive subject matter of the dance is feeling. Our ability to identify with other human bodies is so strong that the perception of feelings exhibited by the dancer often evokes feelings in ourselves. The choreographer, creator of the dance, interprets those feelings. And if we participate, we may understand those feelings and ourselves with greater insight. In Trisha Brown’s dance Present Tense (2003) (Figure 10-1), the very joy of movement is clearly expressed by the inten- sity of the dancers. The music was by John Cage and the set by Elizabeth Murray. Brown was notable for combining her choreography with music and set design by noted modern artists. Brown’s interpretation of the joy of movement is infectious, demanding a kinesthetic response from the audience. 1Havelock Ellis, The Dance of Life (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1923). jac16871_ch10_254-275.indd 254 12/9/17 10:11 AM 255
DANCE
States of mind are a further dimension that may be the subject matter of dance. Feelings, such as pleasure and pain, are relatively transient, but a state of mind is a disposition or habit that is not easily superseded. For example, jealousy usually involves a feeling so strong that it is best described as a passion. Yet jealousy is more than just a passion, for it is an orientation of mind that is relatively enduring. Thus, José Limón’s The Moor’s Pavane explores the jealousy of Shakespeare’s Othello. In Limón’s version, Iago and Othello dance around Desdemona and seem to be di- rectly vying for her affections. The Moor’s Pavane represents an interpretation of the states of mind Shakespeare dramatized, although it can stand independently of the play and make its own contribution to our understanding of jealousy. Since states of mind are felt as enduring, the serial structure of the dance is an appropriate vehicle for interpreting that endurance. The same can be said of music, of course, and its serial structure, along with its rhythmic nature, is the fun- damental reason for the wedding of music with dance. Even silence in some dances seems to suggest music, since the dancer exhibits visual rhythms, something like the rhythms of music. But the showing of states of mind is achieved only partly through the elements dance shares with music. More basic is the body language of the dancing bodies. Perhaps nothing—not even spoken language—exhibits states of mind more clearly or strongly. FIGURE 10-1 Trisha Brown’s company in Present Tense, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, 2016. Trisha Brown’s Set and Reset, Foray Forêt, Present Tense, and others have been the most admired of the postmodern dances, incorporating music from Laurie Anderson and set designs from Robert Rauschenberg. ©Andrea Mohin/The New York Times/Redux jac16871_ch10_254-275.indd 255 12/9/17 10:11 AM 256 EXPERIENCING Feeling and Dance 1. The claim that dance can interpret the inner life of feeling with excep- tional power implies, perhaps, that no other art surpasses dance in this respect. Why would such a claim be made? The fact that dance is usually consid- ered the first art in the cultivation of culture among all civilizations may have something to do with the possibility that dance expresses and refines the emo- tional life of the dancer. Religious circle dances seem to be common in all civili- zations, just as spontaneous movement on the part of individuals in a social set- ting will, almost contagiously, attract participants who would otherwise just stand around. When one person starts dancing, usually a great many will follow suit. Dances of celebration are associated with weddings around the world, often with precise movements and precise sections that seem to have an ancient pretext as- sociated with fertility and the joy of love. Likewise, some dance simply celebrates the joy of life, as in the Nrityagram performance (Figure 10-2), which reveals an elevation of spirit that interprets an inner life of sheer delight. See Nrityagram on YouTube. Social dances not only interpret the inner life of feeling, but at times they can both produce an inner life of feeling in us and control that feeling. In ballroom danc- ing, for example, the prescribed movements are designed to channel our sense of our body’s motion and thus to help constrain our feelings while we dance. Alterna- tively, rock and hip-hop dancing involve a high degree of improvisation and some of the movements will depend on the feeling-state of the dancer at the moment of the dance. Other arts may equal dance in this respect, but most of us have had experiences in which we find ourselves dancing expressively with friends or even alone as a way of both producing and sustaining a feeling-state that we find desirable and occasionally overwhelming.