Body Love By Shannon Mather

“If you live in the elite world of dance, you find yourself in a world rife with racism. Let 's face it.” –Alvin Ailey. Alvin Ailey was an African American dancer and choreographer, born in 1931 in Rogers, Texas. Ailey was responsible for creating one of the most popular dance companies of the twentieth century, known as the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre. The forming of this company began due to Ailey’s life long passion for dance, and his dream to give African American dancers the opportunity to display their talents and express their experiences and heritage (Bodensteiner). Ailey’s goal and achievement was to make black bodies visible, if not dominant, in the discourse of modernist

The melody sounds somber and serious and the energy of the dancers suddenly changes. A spoken word takes place and all of the dancer begin to tell their stories of pain and struggle through movements. The spoken word talks about the journey of men and women who overcame social injustice. In the dancer's movements you could clearly see how they correlated together. Movements were powerful and restraint at the same time giving the audience the idea of the women were pushing through something that was bearing them down. There was a lot of expansion in the chest, back, and arms followed by contractions in the body. As soon as the spoken word was finished the mood of the piece change again and the pianist began to play a upbeat tune that brought the dancers back in to a more positive and high spirit. A lot of polyrhythms take place as the dancers jump high and move their arms back and forth moving throughout the space. This happens in unison at first and then solos, trios, and duets happen in this section of the dance. The expression on their faces add charismatic charm to this piece. Their expressions continue to move them into different emotions and feelings that are relatable to everyday

On April 14, 2017, my friend and I visited for the first time Salt Lake City Community College dance company’s annual performance. The show was presented at the Grand Theater at the South City Campus of the college. The performance’s name “Moving Words” imply what the audience was about to experience. “Moving Words” consists of 18 different dances and each of those dances brought a unique feeling to the overall performance. I thought that the dancers and choreographers have done an amazing job. However, after seeing all the different dances there were two that stuck together with me, because of the ideas and the morals these dances introduced.

The space, time and usage of dynamics were powerful yet elegant-elements that added to the overall quality and tone of the work. The solo dancer used her body to perform various movements with specific ranges of motion, showing her ability to control, express and properly connect to the audience through her performance. In this performance, there seems to be a spiritual side when the dancer, Marilyn Banks, sits on the bench and starts to swing her arms in wide semi-circles to show looks of anguish and despair. Ms. Banks also varied movement by quivering her hands-movements such as a shaking or slight trembling with her hands when reaching outwards. She also used a lot of ornamentation or embellishment through her movements. Her body and her path of movement embellished her gestures since she was performing spins across the stage.

The dance that I will be focusing on is entitled: thinking sensing standing feeling object of attention. The dance, to me, symbolizes the socialization of persons in Western civilization concerning gender roles. In the beginning there are gestures that are separated from emotion and full-embodiment, but as the dance progresses the gestures become more meaningful and recognizable. The lighting starts out very specific and narrow, then the light encompasses the entire stage, and eventually the dancers are silhouetted as they return to a familiar movement motif in the end. The music is mainly instrumental with occasional soft female vocals, and the lyrics suggest emotion, which is interesting because the dancers do not convey emotion until

I became a ballet student at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts in 2014. Being a high school student here gave me the opportunity to expand my horizons and take in as much art as I possibly could. During my first fall at UNCSA, I attended the Emerging Choreographers performance and was privileged to see works created by fourth year contemporary majors. These stunning works showed me the possibilities that dance holds to truly convey powerful and meaning messages. One work in particular stood out to me. It was a piece that showcased five dancers all dressed in pedestrian clothing. At first it appeared to be a casual street scene but a the music progressed one girl began making incredible sharp movements as if she was possessed. She made tiny movements of her hands and feet all the while moving a great distance across the stage. The others started going off what she was doing and all moved together as one giant body supporting the girl in the middle. She continued dancing in the most amazing way have many small movements combined with huge movements that made her seem a thousand feet tall. Intrigued I spoke to one of the dancers about the intention of the dance. She told me that the

For disagreements, have each party completely write their side of the story while you continue with the other students.

Have you ever wondered about what techniques can be used in a story to describe a mood or an atmosphere? In the story “Lob’s Girl”, by Joan Aiken, Aiken uses three of the many techniques. The three techniques were Plot Events, Settings, and Word Choices. These techniques were used to express the mood in the beginning and at the end of the book.

Dance has been a natural movement form since the beginning of time. The origin of dance is unknown, just as the knowledge of the benefits of dance are unknown to many in our society. Many people do not enjoy dancing and also do not fully understand the positive benefits that come from dancing. Researchers such as Edwards, Duberg, and many more have found countless mental and emotional benefits of dance that originate from movement patterns, brain connections, and even expressions of emotion. Many are aware of the physical benefits of dance, but beyond the physical benefits of dance, there are also emotional and mental benefits that come from dance as well.

The dancers’ movements throughout the performance seem to challenge and uphold gender binaries at the same time. At the beginning, when only female dancers are present their movements are agentive, strong, quick, and athletic-characteristics not usually allowed for female dancers. Their movements are similar to the wild and physical movement of Louise

My purpose for writing this research paper is to explain how dancers at West Side Dance Studio use body movements as language to express

The CORE Concert Dance Company show presented the dance style of contemporary with the addition to aerial choreography. The dancers presented many movements through the use of their bodies that stemmed from choreography in ballet and modern dance moves. With contemporary being my all-time favorite style, the dancers provided a sense of freedom, expression, and unpredictability in the ways they articulated the movement of the body itself and the objects that were used. In many of the different pieces that were shown, I noticed that many of the dancers’ movements in the choreography involved the torso. The use the torso enabled me to capture the movement of relaxation that gave off a sense of fluidity and ease through the transition of the next

A fascination with the human body, body were an experience that could somehow be held in common. The ways in which we might experience the body as connected or represent it as disconnected in a live performance. Shifting attention from traditional art object to the artist’s physical action further proposed that art existed in real space and real time. Marina Abramovic, a pioneer of performance art began using her own body as the subject, object, and medium in the early 1970s as she said, ‘In performance my body is object and subject.’ For the exhibition

So, I had an overall feeling of the struggles within a relationship based off of the movements, and the way that the dancers interacted. I believe that the first function elements that were used worked well. I believe that if the chorographer was wanting to get the audience to think of or reflect upon relationships then all of the elements served their purpose.

I liked the dance piece because the dancers were limited physically in their bodies, but their dancing was beyond limited and astounding. At first, I was a bit doubtful and sceptical before watching the dance because I thought the dancers were going to perform with very minimal and stiff movements. But to my surprise, the dancers moved gracefully on stage. The two dancers used quite a lot of space. The dancers used all levels of space from low to high. For example, the dancers executed amazing leaps, jumps and lifts in their performance that represented as high levels of space. The dancers movements were grand; however, they were also whimsical, sharp, circular, and clean. The dancers utilized most parts of the stage. The pattern of the space that performers used was more curved than linear. There were two dancers in this piece, the male dancer that had only one leg and the female dancer that had only one arm. The genre of dance that was performed was a ballet; though, in my observations the dance seemed to be more contemporary than ballet. For instance, the tempo of the dance was slower and had less rhythm than most classical ballets I’ve observed. Also, there were a couple of pauses and rests during the performance. The dance