Dance Critique

Ballet “Cry” simply showed to us real life of all African women. Every single American people know what kind of life they went through. Therefore it touched their heard. Alvin Ailey’s “Cry” presented wonderfully combined movements, technique and emotion. Ms. Donna Wood uses tragic face, a mask of sorrow. It is a face born to cry, but when she smiles it is with an innocent radiance, joyfulness that simple and lovely. She never tries consciously to please an audience. He was not only concentrating in movements and physical performance, but also using flowing white gown

She breaks all the images of American standard of beauty such as being physically pretty. She

powers animated the human body, the body could serve as a kind of lever to bring about

The first piece was entitled “You, Me, & Us”. Due to having troubles catching the MARTA bus, I missed a good portion of this performance and had to view the rest of the performance on the teleprompter. The dancers were moving in a circle with a person in the center and all of the dancers were wearing earth tones. The music was very serene and at the conclusion of the performance, all of the dancers hugged each other. From what I saw, this performance represented how all humans are interconnected on this Earth, this can be seen by all of the dancers hugging in the end and also the title of the piece.

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

On Wednesday, November 18th, I had the pleasure to attend and watch the Dance Plus’s Fall show. The Dance Plus was performed at the Douglass Theatre, Victoria Mastrobuno Theater. When I entered the show the theatre seemed a little small for such big crowed. I immediately thought there would not be enough seats for all the audience, but somehow it fitted everyone. As everyone got settled down, the dance performance had started. I chose to write about the first performance that was choreographed by the amazing director, Jessica Lange her work was simply wonderful! I loved every little piece of the play. It put a smile on my face watching this amazing work of art. So with that said, I would now like to talk about the dance performance. There were

The opening of Todd Rosenlieb Dance Company’s season is a performance fortified with modern dance works even including Erick Hawkin’s New Moon. Performances were held November 13-14th at 7:00pm at the Tidewater Community College Roper Theatre. The purpose of this performance was to celebrate the ten years of pure accomplishment by the company. The music selection for the various excerpts of the companies works were composed by: Meredith Monk, Johann Strauss, Tom Waites, Agustin Baríos, Nina Simone, Lou Harrison, and Frank Sinatra. Also with costumes by Ricardo Mendelez and Erick Hawkins including set designs by Ralph Dorazio.

My favorite dance of the Santa Ana Dance Festival was what you made me do from Canyon High School. The choreographer of this dance was Andrea Greene.

The varieties of jazz dance reflect the diversity of American culture. Jazz dance mirrors the social history of the American people, reflecting ethnic influences, historic events, and cultural changes. Jazz dance has been greatly influenced by social dance and popular music. But, like so much that is “from America”, the history of jazz dance begins somewhere else.

In the words of Gay McAuley, “for an activity to be regarded as a performance, it must involve the live presence of the performers and those witnessing it…” (McAuley, 2009, cited in Schechner, 2013, pp.38). This statement recognises the importance of both the actor and the audience for something to truly function as a performance. In addition, Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones highlights the significance of the theatrical space and how it can influence an audience stating that “on entering a theatre of any kind, a spectator walks into a specific space, one that is designed to produce a certain reaction or series of responses” (Llewellyn-Jones, 2002, pp.3). The relationship between actor, audience and theatrical space is no less important today than it was at the time of theatre during the Spanish Golden Age and the creation of Commedia dell’arte in Italy. Despite being very close geographically with theatre thriving for both in the same era, sources that explore the social, cultural and historical context of these countries and the theatre styles will bring to light the similarities and differences. This essay will analyse the staging, the behaviour of the audience as well as the challenges the actors faced, and how this directly influenced the relationship between actor, audience and theatrical space.

Jordan Fisher and Lindsay Arnold danced the Argentine Tango to “Brother” by NEEDTOBREATHE and it was definitely my favorite piece. My knee-jerk reaction was that the choreography was extremely creative and well thought out and perfectly tuned to the song. This dance was the epitome of the phrase,“Less is More.” The costuming, stage, and everything was extremely stripped down and simple leaving just the dancers to prove their skills. No theatrics or ornate stage design to cover up lack of technique. This dance definitely proves itself to be a semifinalist dance. They moved gracefully and smoothly transitioned throughout the dance making use of the whole stage executing the moves almost perfectly while showcasing their skills and a little more

“The experience of any performance is situated in the body, in the meeting place between the audience as a concrete group of individuals and the here and now of the performance” . The audience’s experience is one of my main focuses. During my show “A Cage of Skin” I challenged the audience by addressing them directly. A colleague wrote after the show: “I wasn't sure if you did want us to respond, and also it's quite daunting being asked by an artist what we think of their show right in the middle of it! It was un-nerving, but perhaps that what you wanted!

A series of set of movements to music, either alone or with a partner. That is the definition of dancing. Dancing is a way to express one's feeling and to get active.

I attended DancePlus show On Friday December 2, 2011 at 7:30pm at night. It was performed in the Victoria K. Mastrobounno Theater in New Brunswick, New Jersey. There were four different parts that I saw that day. All of the dances were very interesting and very different from each other. All of the dances had its own unique key factor that separated it from each other. I enjoyed the entire show very well. Out of all the dances I had strong reaction to “Lapa’s Lament”. I believe this specific dance stood out to me compared to the other dances from the show. This show had many different factors that stood out from other shows in the entire performance.

On December 1, 2017, in the University Theatre at California State University, Dominguez Hills, I observed the fall dance concert Rise. It was choreographed by Amy Michelle Allen, Marco A, Carreon, Sarah Cashmore, Jeff Hendrix, Erin Landry, Doris Ressl Acosta, and Kenneth Walker, with the long cast of dancers. The production was pleasing, and would not have been believable without the work from production designers, Frederick Depontee and Cheryl Sheldon. Rise is played out in eight different dance routines, which were Xtra Xtra, Scar Tissue, Hart Broken, Things Are A Stirrin’, and the rest are intermissions such as Female Energy, Women, Exotica, Strength In Numbers, and Makina.