Dance Review : A Review Of A Contemporary Dance Critique

always been known for the risky and powerful movements which are often why dancers retire from the company. The dancer’s movements were often very intense and emotive, such as the “throws” across the stage in which the dancers would, almost violently, launch themselves across the stage in different forms (leaps, falls and flips to name a few). Another section where the movements were emotive is where the dancers were thrusting their hips in different positions to perhaps show sexuality in “self”.

In the second section it represents the women fighting for their freedom. The movements are a lot more circular in this section. It uses more contractions, releasing & vibratory movements. In the first two sections, the dancer shows the struggle being not only physical but emotional also. She does this by the powerful expressions she uses on her face. She even imitates a couple of screams that play in the song ‘Been On A Train’. This gives the audience a clear understanding of the how she is feeling.

The use of contractions help to show the strength that it takes them to try and be free but are still not strong enough to get away as it is shown when the women sink to their knees whilst performing a slow contraction. In the closing phrase of this sub section there is a rapid change of levels as the tempo speeds up the dancers perform a manic spiralling to drop down to make an obvious abrupt end.

By swaying in the delicate phrases and jerking with the harsh ones, the performers became the dancers in the ballet. They expressed different levels of emotion when required which reflected their playing.

In the third section Ms. Donna Wood looks like an African goddess and her body has an unexpected gracefulness. Even stage color was bright reddish, warm atmosphere around the dancer, like a sunrise in the morning. Stage would fill with colors. Music and performer are singing together. A sound of music tempo gets faster. She has the happiest face ever, no pain and no slavery. She jumps, she swings her leg and arms, and even she pulls her dress up and shows her leg an entire dance. Sound and lightening create the environment and good mood. She uses high level of dance than in previous two sections. She moves in between melody. I liked how she uses

Some of the movements executed by the dancers are similar to those executed by dancers in a stepping performance and also in a tap dance presentation. This presentation falls into the group of the new trends of modern dance, in which the choreographer are taking more and more liberty with various dance combinations, and including strong messages in their work. I would definitely attend other dance performance, not only from this company, but also by other companies; and would also recommend this performance, especially to people going through a dark period in their life. This performance finished convincing me that dance is surely the most communicative of the art forms, and that a single presentation can convey more than one

The male dancer only wore pants and bared his upper body. This simple costume design not only made the people who watch the dance to have a clear vision of the dancer, but also better presented a predicament that the character was experiencing at that time. At the first half of the dance, the dancer would leave at least one part of his body on the bench, and tried hard to reach other parts of his body away. This muscular interplay between the dancer and the bench resonated with the audience to experiencing the same struggle feelings as the character. As the performance developed, the dancer started to leave the bench to fully use the space. The dancer had many different movements comparing with sitting on the bench previously. He started to lie down, roll over, stand on the bench and make a turn use only one foot. The level of the dance was no longer limited in the middle but changing from low to high as well. Having such a change, the dancer is converting a more delight and energetic feeling to the audience, in order to demonstrated that the character was recovered through the

This section ends with the female in and arabesque on the male dancers knee without stretched hands as thought reaching out for help. A recurring motif through the whole dance.

As I watched the dance concert I began connecting what I was seeing to what we had already seen and discussed in class. One important connection I noticed heavily in the first half was the resemblance to Doris Humphrey’s technique which focused on the breath while dancing. I noticed this in almost all of the dances in the first half, but especially “Etched Breath” by Kelly Francis. “Separating the Strand” was slightly dissimilar to Martha Graham’s technique because it didn’t seem to utilize the contract and release method and did not include as much of the percussive, sharp movement quality. Because of all I have learned about modern dance this semester, I believe I was better able to appreciate these works of art. I particularly enjoyed “Separating the Strand” because of the beautiful movement quality and energy level as well as the interesting moments of

It had a visible rhythm. The dancers started with just using the walls and dancing with the walls. They dropped them to the floor, slid them into different spots, let the walls fall on the them, and passed them to each other. Then they started to tell the story. Throughout the dance there was unison dancing, non unison dancing, duets with partnering, trios, and quartets. There was a lot of pedestrian movement especially walking. A lot of the transitioning locomotor movement was walking or running. There was lot of small little movements with the hands and fingers and that was the only body part they were moving. They did movements like opening up the hand slowly, twisting one finger, and tapping one finger. Some of the movements were very literal, and visibly went along with the words in the story. Other movements were not literal; they were very abstract. One literal movement happened during the part in the story when the one daughter died from the failed abortion. One female dancer touched her stomach as if it was in pain. There was also contrasting movement. While one or two dancers were doing more complex movement phrases the other dancers were doing simple movements like walking or were in stillness. The partnering was untraditional and included weight sharing. The females lifted the males sometimes which is unusual. For example, there was one lift where the female dancer lifted the male dancer onto her back while she had the microphone in her hand and was talking. Her voice did not change one bit either. Different choreographic elements were used. One that was used a lot was repetition. The end of the dance had more of a distinct rhythm than the beginning, and was lighter. The first part was more heavy looking due to all the sadness. It ended with the dancers holding their hands in a

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

The movements were very specific and showed the story of the dance. The partners used many movements that contained many body

He creates this dance-like feel in a variety of ways. Firstly, the 2/4 time signature makes the music feel upbeat compared to the 4/4 time signature of the rest of the piece. Secondly, the sforzando accent on the first beat of every bar drives the music onwards. Also the catchy, short and rhythmic melody is lively and metronomic. Finally the fiddle-like manner in which the violins play creates a sense of a dance. There are unexpected changes and dramatic dynamic changes throughout the trio which are both romantic qualities. The fact that this movement moves seamlessly into the next is also romantic.

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

When I saw the piece, named, “Lapa’s Lament, I thought it was very unique and interesting. When the dancers were doing several movements with it, I got very confused. As a result, this confusion caused me to draw all the attention towards the dancer and to their performance. After a dance progresses, dancers were trying to tell a story with their movements. I think some of the dance movements, they were doing was very fascinating to watch. As a result, I was trying to make the whole story in my mind, as it was very unclear for me, what they were doing, but when Randy James came and talk little bit about the dance, I would able to understand what the dance is about. The way his dancers performed by showing their emotions, I thought it was incredibly performed. I felt that this dance was not losing its limelight throughout the performance. That is, the way they were communicating with each other through their body language and physical contact was just amazing. It shows their effort, as the dance steps included twisting and tumbling. Some of the dance steps, I have never saw in any of the dance companies who came to performed. I felt the dance was full of body movements, and I thought it would require a lot of physical strength to perform this kind of