Dalcroze Eurhythmics—was developed by Swiss musician and educator Émile Jacques-Dalcroze in the early 20th century, one of several developmental approaches to teaching music developed during this period. Dalcroze Eurhythmics teaches concepts of rhythm, structure, and musical expression using movement. It focuses on allowing the student to gain physical awareness and experience of music through training all of the senses, but particularly the kinesthetic. Eurhythmics often introduces a musical concept through movement before the students learns its visual representation. This sequence translates to heightened body awareness and an association of rhythm with a physical experience for the student, reinforcing concepts kinesthetically. Eurhythmics was used as a dance training tool and movement system by many early modern dancers and by the Ballet Russe.
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Dance—is constructed human movement that follows guiding principals of structure, body language, and meaning. It can be a performing art, a participatory activity, and a religious expression as defined and recognized by performers and observers within a particular community or culture. Dance can be categorized and described by movement inventories, styles of choreography, historical period, and place of origin or occurrence. Other forms of movement activity, particularly sports, are said to have “dance-like” qualities. Some of these activities, in fact, use dance vocabulary and elements of choreography. Dance also uses movements and energies from other forms. These include: martial arts, capoeira, gymnastics, cheer squads, figure skating, synchronized swimming, marching bands. Many are also performance forms and the distinctions between them and dance may depend on context and performer identification.
Dance Education—refers to all methods of learning dance techniques and styles. It is generally broken into two large categories. Studio refers to centers that only teach how to dance. Dance in the schools most often refers to dance programs embedded in public and private pre-K through high school taught either by school-based educators or by Teaching Artists —dancers who are employed by outside agencies who work in the school on time-limited specific projects often in conjunction with classroom teachers. College and universitiy dance programs include curriculum that may encompass: dance practice and performance, choreography, ethnochoreology, kinesiology, dance notation, and dance therapy.
Dance performance—generally includes constructed sequences of movement that follow a distinct set of instructions, paths or other modes of ordering established by a choreographer following a personal aesthetic, often also shaped by general, current or historic artistic approaches. Performed movement may tell a story and may, or may not, have symbolic value depending on context and the observer. When it does not, it is called abstract.
Dance Studies—refers primarily to the academic study of dance. Dance Studies occur in such varied fields as: popular and cultural studies, performance studies, dance, music, and theatre studies, film, television, and new media studies, anthropology, sociology, art history, and history. In the humanities in general various theoretical constructs have affected these studies among them: structuralism, post-structuralism, phenomenological approaches, queer theory, feminism, critical race theory, postcolonial studies; the recent “affective turn” in the sciences and arts have all influenced the ways about which popular dance and pop dance culture are being theorized and written.
Dance Movement Therapy—is the psychotherapeutic use of movement and dance to support intellectual, emotional, and motor functions of the body. As a form of expressive therapy it looks at the correlation between movement and emotion.
Dancer—Anyone who dances.
Improvisation—is the process of spontaneously creating movement. Improvisation is an artistic practice that is both used for exploration and creation of material for choreography, and is a unique performative practice. Improvised movement material is generally, but not always, facilitated through an idea or structure that provides a platform for movement exploration.
Laban Movement Analysis (LMA)—in dance today primarily refers to a method of recording dance in written form, “dance notation.” A multidisciplinary (anatomy, kinesiology, psychology) approach for studying time/motion efficiency invented by Rudolph Laban, it was originally intended to help optimize early industrial prodution. Extended and adapted largely by Irmgard Bartenieff, with Lisa Ullmann and Warren Lamb ,and many others, Laban as a method is a language for describing, visualizing, interpreting and documenting all varieties of human movement. The complexity of the system requires years of training before it can be effectively written or read meaning unlike music notation, most dance practitioners do not utilize the system. A related form, Choreometrics , was devised for recording traditional or folk dance by Bartenieff with folklorist Alan Lomax.
Participatory dance—is intended for the participants who have a common purpose rather than the onlookers. It includes all forms of dance in which non-professionals participate in the activity. It is also known as social dance, community, or traditional dance. Dances performed to current popular musics are often improvised concerned more with musical interpretation than specific steps. On the other hand, some cultures lay down strict rules as to the particular dances in which, for example, men, women and children may or must participate and for how they are done. Purposes may include: social interaction, observation of cultural or communal traditions, religious observation, and exercise. Participatory dances are also created by choreographers who invite the audience to join in elements of the performance.
Performance—generally comprises an event in which one or more live, artistic constructions are presented to an audience.
Performative—relates to, or of the nature of, dramatic or artistic performance. Also, used in linguistic philosophy.
Popular Dance—is a general term used to refer to current and historic social dance styles.
Technique—Particular, stylized approaches to movement connected with different movement styles. The correct way to do a movement for that style.
Theatrical or Concert Dance—is an umbrella term for the many dance forms that are used in theatrical performances and in particular in the U.S. “Broadway” musical, but it can be applied to any dance is intended to be observed by an audience. Theatrical dance often draws on tap, ballet, jazz, modern, and social dance forms, all of which are described here. Theatrical dance, however, is always in the service of furthering the plot or storyline. The Black Crook—is often called the first Musical. While tied by an extremely loosely structured melodrama, it is the first known performance where songs and dances are interspersed throughout a single story line. It ran for a record-breaking 474 performances, then toured extensively for decades with various companies. It was revived on Broadway in 1870–71, 1871–72 and, in Fall 2016, a version was performed celebrating the shows 150th anniversary at New York City’s Abrons Arts Center. Oaklahoma, with choreography by Agnes DeMill, is considered the first modern musical. It introduced the idea of dance not as detached entertainment, but as an extension of the action. In particular, DeMille created the dream ballet where the dance allows the audience to see into the characters inner dialogue or state. Michael Jackson notably used this device in
Bad.
World Dance—is an umbrella term arbitrarily covering world dance. It is impossible to catalogue the wide range of traditional performance and social dance styles found throughout the world. Many countries dance traditions are far older than those of the United States and Europe, and many have a more active, commonly recognized social dance style. A number of dance styles are discussed under Dance Styles and History here.
Body Words—
Movement Words—
Making Dance Words—
Stage Words—
Theater directors and choreographers must call directions that are opposite their orientation in the audience.