Observation Dancers And The Classroom

Dance began as a form of communication and storytelling. Thousands of years ago dancing served as a way for people to tell a story and helped distract themselves of the hardships they faced. Furthermore, dance was a form of storytelling through communication, which then turned into using storytelling through dance as entertainment. According to the History World, many dancers during the BC time danced in front of only a few people to get a story across. That later turned into hundreds of thousands of people as dance was used by many. Today, dance is also a form of entertainment and storytelling, but in a modern sense. However, today perfection and technique are stressed more than they were in the past. Yet, the passion for dance has not changed. Many dancers who share this passion also have many of the same qualities. Among a discourse community of trained dancers, one expects to find individuals who are healthy and active athletes, expect perfection from themselves through competition, and religiously attend dance performances.

Dance is a unique sport because it combines the grit and sweat of sporting events, such as track and field, with the style and extravagance of a fashion show (D.Fowler, 2000).

Jane Desmond introduces her article, “Embodying Difference: Issues in Dance and Cultural Studies,” by describing a dance that readers can picture as the dance of tango in their minds. This helps lead to her connecting dance, or body movement, with cultural studies and social identities. In her article, Desmond focuses on connecting how dance and body movement can be portrayed differently in social identities, such as race, class, gender, nationality, and sexuality.

important foundation in understanding the broader scope of how dance can be seen as a

One of the most egregious communication theories displayed heavily throughout the film is the idea of symbolic convergence. The very root of this theory rests on the idea that humans connect with one another through shared meaning of an event, object, or otherwise stated “thing”. There are countless displays of this theory throughout the film, both for the characters in the movie and the viewers on the outside alike. For the characters within the movie, symbolic convergence happens when they are dancing. Even though these

Students will improvise and adapt the skills and knowledge they learnt through the example dance to explore their own emotions and display of these.

1.1.1 Before starting this chapter it might be useful for you to write out your definition of dance. Let’s pretend for a moment that aliens landed on earth looking for intelligent life. Obviously they ended up at your apartment and asked

Dance is one of the most beautiful, expressive forms of art known to mankind. It expresses joy, love, sorrow, anger, and the list truly goes on for all the possible emotions that it can convey. Dance not only can express how one feels, but it can tell a story or even be used to praise a higher power. Dance has intricately played an important role to every culture over the course of time. Two forms of dance that have not only stood against the test of time but have influenced the development of other various styles of dance is none other than Classical Ballet and Modern Dance.

There's just something about dance that people can relate to. It is something that is universal and doesn't require that the dancers and the people watching speak the same language. Interpreting dance, however, can sometimes be a challenge, especially when the dancers are looking to confuse the audience.

Body language is important in the dance community, especially at West Side Dance Studio. By definition, body language is “a means of communicating meaning nonverbally through gestures, posture, and movements. Some definitions also include facial expressions” (Rholetter). Dancers use gestures, posture, movements, and facial expressions all the time to communicate with each other. When performing especially, a dancer communicates through gestures and facial expressions. West Side Dance Studio would often be asked to perform in carnivals. The studio’s owner, which also happened to be one my teachers, thought the dancers should perform at this carnivals and use them as practice for our performance facial expressions. The more we danced at carnivals, the more chances we got to practice how we would communicate on stage when performing the dance recitals. In a personal point of view, the more I performed at carnivals, the more confident I got when performing on stage. I felt as

I have always observed and admire the way my daughter’s dance class instructor maintain a relationship with all the dancers. She is fully aware of how each child operate and therefore runs the class in such a way to avoid disruptions and distractions. For example separating the talkative friends from each other without making it seem like a consequence. She may say something like “I like the way how you move your arms so gracefully so I want you to stand over here where everybody can see you”. It is somewhat funny to see how the talkative child immediately transforms as they try to perform at their fullest potential because they are now trying to set a good example for the rest of the class.

I decided to go to a dance class because I have always loved dancing. I am Mexican so it is almost distilled in me to have some kind of rhythm. I also grew up around a family who loves to dance. I always had some sense of dancing so I decided to go to a studio and do their hip hop workout dance class. It’s always been a dream of mine to attend some kind of dance class. I was finally able to conquer that dream and it was amazing.

“Unlike ballet choreographer”, who depend on a language with specific steps, “modern dancers create their own dance language” (Funk and Wagnalls, 2017). Thus, the dancers in the performances only use body language and did not talk while dancing except some words. The goal of this performance was to send a message for the audience through their dancing bodies and face expressions and may say some words. As an example, for that is what happen in the Finding Fire dance in which the dancers were telling about people relationships and love with each other and how other people feel about their relationship through only using their body language and face expression with only some words to tell whether they are happy, sad, or angry. In each dance they were representing different story for the audience. On the other hand, the players communication at The Skin of Our Teeth performance. Players communicate through talking,

Throughout history, many societies have used dance as a way to express themselves, and their culture. Dance is defined as “[moving] your body in a way that goes with the rhythm and style of music that is being played” (Simple Definition of Dance, Merriam-Webster). This definition has been portrayed throughout many societies and civilizations throughout history, and it is used to express their culture, history, and tell stories. History and dance affect each other due to the fact that some dances might not exist today if the historical events had never happened in the first place; also vice versa some facts about history might not be known today if the cultural dances had never existed. As exemplified in the societies of China 200 B.C and the

Throughout history, dance has served as a form that performs and embodies the cultural values of the society it is in. The idea of dance varies within intellectual traditions and develops to a wider concept of movement practices within individual cultures. Dance can be looked upon as a culturally formed activity that offers information about human behavior in a certain society. Dance has also served to disrupt the cultural values in a society due to cultural evolution and cultural migration. The discipline in cultures function with a receptive approach to the exploitation of Western values. The West judges other cultures according to the standard of their own culture. Because of people’s ignorance regarding another culture’s