The Works Of Vincent Dance Theatre

Martha Graham’s production of Night Journey is a unique and symbolic contemporary dance work. Graham bases many of her dance pieces on Greek myths and this is seen in her work Night Journey. Graham has manipulated elements of contemporary dance to communicate the emotion of the main character, Jocasta. Graham’s previous work focuses on depicting both the power and struggle of female idols in history. Graham has choreographed Night Journey to explore the perspective of Queen Jocasta, the main protagonist in the piece rather than the story of Oedipus. (Mueller, 2007) Graham has skilfully choreographed significant symbols and motifs to convey Jocasta’s emotions of grief, pain confusion and love through the manipulation of motifs and

‘For me, it is important that the work I make finds connection … but at the same time… calls into question our conversations of what dance is’ (Garry Stewart, 2010). Garry Stewart, the Artistic Director of Australian Dance Theatre (ADT) since 1999, began his dance training at the age of twenty, after leaving university studying social work. Through his explosive, energetic and electrifying style, his unique dance pushes drives boundaries empowering his works, which are technically demanding, frightful and exhausting, creating an intriguing performance. In his pieces ‘Birdbrain’ and ‘G’ a combination of classical ballet, contemporary dance and gymnastics is utilized throughout to create a fascinating performance. Stewart’s productions have toured

After giving a brief introduction to her subject, Desmond quickly begins her analysis on the piece Radha choreographed by Ruth St. Denis. She states that St. Denis was one of the mothers of modern dance in America despite how her works are not as well remembered as others including Martha Graham’s. She depicts Radha by describing the dancing quality, patterns in choreography, lighting, set, and costume in detail. Desmond also recounts the social issues that are reflected in the piece including gender roles and race. The author’s main point in writing “Dancing Out the Difference: Cultural Imperialism and Ruth St. Denis’s Radha of 1906” was to introduce St. Denis and share her detailed analysis of St. Denis’ Radha.

The two live dance works viewed this year were “Emergence”, performed by Sydney Dance Company, choreographed by Rafael Bonachela, performed at the Princess Theatre and a recorded dance performance titled “Image”, choreographed by Jason Northam and Liesel Link. The two dance performances substantiated were exceedingly diverse and dissimilar. The two performances juxtaposed their intentions and interpreted opposing elements through diversity in movement vocabulary, structural devices and form, performance skills and technical elements.

Watching a video of a dance piece called “The Moroccan Project,” choreographed by Alonzo King was quite impressive. Living in San Francisco and taking dance classes brought me to Lines Ballet which is King’s dance studio. I have seen a great deal of different types of dance at the studio waiting for my Ballet classes and there are some great dancers. It comes as no surprise that Alonzo would have such great dancers. It appears that Alonzo King is exploring different cultures in dance in Contemporary Ballet. His near-perfect choreography is articulate, passionate, and graceful- he brings diversity in dance to San Francisco and other parts of the world. This piece articulates the expression of the two dancers coming together yet dancing apart at times- it is a fusion of several different types of dances into one using video editing to create a story about the coming together of two individuals.

The Repertory Dance Company Fall Dance Concert was held at the Mannoni Performing Arts Center. The dancers involved in this dance concert are part of the University of Southern Mississippi Dance Department meaning they are either pursuing a degree in dance or teach dance at a university level. Both students and faculty had the opportunity to present work during adjudication to be chosen to be presented at this concert. I particularly enjoyed this concert because, while all of the dances presented were a part of the broad genre of modern dance, each dance had such a unique aesthetic so the concert still provided a great amount of variety to keep the audience captivated. The two pieces I have chosen to review represent this variety very

Furthermore, “Gemini”, the second piece from Innovative works, choreographed by Sarah Harkins and music by Frédéric Chopin, was a male duet based on improving and sharing weight. Within the duet, the two males initiated an interaction with the audience in another language saying, “Konnichiwa”, which automatically provides the idea of the company being diverse. However, during the interaction to keep the audience engaged, one of the dancer’s remained in the stage space.

Judith Butler’s article on “Performance Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory,” denotes that gender identity represents a performative accomplishment induced by social taboo and sanction (Butler 520). Even though Butler’s theory on gender performativity has played an influential role in cultural studies and feminist theory, certain areas of philosophy provide significant insight into critical social theory. From the perspective of critical legal thinkers, Butler’s idea of performativity is linked with her views on gender and plays an important role in legality as well as politics. Critical theory in gender performativity presents a social theory to critique and change the society as opposed to the traditional theory. Similarly, critical theory has the objective to explore beyond the surface of social life to unveil the assumptions that limit a proper understanding of how the world functions. The concept of gender performativity instigated by Butler’s book, Gender Trouble, starts by reflecting on the female identity (Fagot 3). In other words, Butler criticizes the critical approaches to feminism that influence the idea of identity politics and the notion of female identity. Similarly, the various approaches seem to ignore the idea that all the various identities come from the effects of repressive regimes and authority as well as the issues raised by the feminists. The concept of gender performativity has a social and cultural obligation

This year’s edition of The George Washington University’s “Danceworks” directed by Anthony Gongora was a modern variety act that combined components of dance and theatre throughout several individual performances. Among these individual performance, there were acts that were narrated while others told a story just through dance; there were acts that related to particular circumstance of GW students such as “9:35, 11:10, 12:45, 2:20, 4:10”, others that narrated the life stories of a particular character such as “Belinha,” and others that looked into the deeper meaning of human existence such as “Exuviate.” Even though the individual performances generated some interest among the members of the audience, there was chronological sequence among

Their dancers connect with the dance tradition embodying feelings of existential human anguish and references to specific geographic places, dancing focused on surreal situations, body use and the relationships between stage and

In a typical modern dance, fragmented narratives are predominant throughout the choreographic pieces. In Jones’ piece, a fragmented narrative elucidates the character Eliza in a section called “Eliza on the Ice” and Jones casts four women to capture different personas of Eliza; the four different personas capture Eliza’s facets of heroism,

When first assigned this final project, two choreographers immediately fled into my mind: Ohad Naharin and Roni Koresh. Since I began dancing, I have always been extremely intrigued by both the Batsheva Dance Company and Koresh Dance Company. Being raised both ethically Israeli and religiously Jewish, these two companies allowed me to feel a deeper connection that went past the movement alone. Since I was recently informed that I have been accepted to train with the Batsheva Dance Company and its founder, Ohad Naharin for a month this summer I decided to choose a different choreographer to study. I wanted to look into a choreographer’s process that I did not know much about, am interested by, and may not have the opportunity or excuse to reach out to them in the near future. I decided to study the creative process of Ronen (Roni) Koresh. I have had the pleasure of seeing multiple Koresh shows. Since I have been to numerous shows, I have begun to notice multiple similarities between his pieces; however, I am also constantly surprised by what is yet to come.

The Judson Dance Theatre had a significant influence not only on the direction of Trisha Brown and Steve Paxton’s artistic practice, but also the shift towards postmodernism. From the initial public display by aspiring choreographers from Robert Dunn’s composition class, Judson went on to become the first avant-garde movement in New York since modern dance in the 1940’s. There was an interdisciplinary flavour produced via collaboration with dance, visual art and music, and significant lack of grants and funding ensured that the Judson environment was that of willing participation and exploration. Consequentially, this spurred ideas of innovation and new ways of developing movement in terms of using inexpensive materials and space, allowing for exploration of performance in non-conventional

In this essay I will be looking into the work of Marina Abramovic in relation to the Feminist movement. By looking at her work, I aim to emphasise her influence on this movement. In this essay, I shall also briefly examine the works of Abramovic, particularly Art is Beautiful, Artist must be Beautiful (1975) and four of her performances from her Rhythm series (10 (1973), 0 (1974), 2 (1974), and 5 (1974)). I shall describe the history of the Feminist movement and its influence in order to develop an understanding of Abramovic’s influence.

Over time, revolutionary experiments of a choreographer may be reevaluated. Ruth St. Denis’s introduction of “exotic” culture has turned out to be a vestige of imperialism, as a form