ASDR

• Costume:

  The female dancer wears a long red dress, her hair is down and she is barefoot, HIPPIE AND FREE, Colour red indicated female rage and romance
• Key Motifs

  • 'Swinging' energy, using momentum to turn, which gives a 'rise and fall' quality to the phrase, shows confusion and indecisiveness
  • Gesture of wrapping arms around herself- shows vulnerability
  • Twirls hair around finger- shows indecisiveness and linked to mad scene in Giselle.
  • Walks forward with her hands behind her back and her head/focus lowered. She extends and lifts her right leg forward, then contracts her spine, flexing her leg in to step behind Choreographic Devices < Levels
  • Variation in tempo
  • Unison- male dancers
  • Counterpoint
• Space & Relationships

  Dancer starts centre stage. She travels from stage right to left at a faster pace performing balletic turns and jumps (jeté). Her focus and smile often changes but primarily to the audience. Sense of knowledge of feminine power.

  Men enter, upstage right, walking in sync on lyric

  "Goodbye Ruby Tuesday" they stay centre stage doing small clicking gestures until they do a big lift with the female dancer- She jumps into their arms in a pencil shape and they toss/flip her position of her body in the air twice more, to represent her freedom and also emotional turmoil
• Aural Accompaniment

  The accompaniment to this section, by the Rolling Stones, states Goodbye Ruby Tuesday' and 'When you change with every new day'. Therefore, if the female dancer is perceived to represent 'Ruby Tuesday, ' the lyrics may hold the narrative of how women's opinions and attitudes were continually changing and developing in this era.

  Using just the piano in the verses allows the audience to focus on the lyrics.

  Counterpoint melody played on the recorder.

  The use of tambourine and percussion adds strength to music in travelling phrases.
• Transition

  The male dancer from the previous section is downstage, right and lifts his head in a crouch position. He adjusts his tie and does some cockerel head juts as he stands. He slicks his hair and turns towards the female dancer who enters upstage right. He looks shocked and walks off stage.
• Dynamics

  During the verses, the dynamics are very fluid and slow, with moments of suspension and aspects of ballet. This contrasts with the more contemporary/ modern chorus, where the dancer explores the stage.
• Influences

  Contemporary/modern dance style- connectedness with the floor, heavy energy, collapsing movements, barefoot.

  Ballet- the dancer is often seen with exquisite turnout. She dances balletic movements such as retiré's, shenees, jeté & yearning arabesques

  Graham- tilts and spiralling from the spine & contractions

  Release technique- use of breath and energy flow, creating suspension and body alignments such as off-balance movements and turns.
• What's it about?

  A woman at a crossroads in her life. She is conflicted between a conventional lifestyle with a family or possibly a career and the freedom a carefree bohemian lifestyle would bring. In the 1960s, women began to have more choices available to them in terms of a career (nursing/teaching and secretarial work) and working with a family. There was also the prospect of leaving conventional society behind to live a more transient Lifestyle. Her personality is portrayed as carefree, self-possessed, graceful, childlike and pensive.