CONTEMPORARY

• Elements of Dance


  Foundational concepts and vocabularies that help students develop movement skills and understand dance as an artistic practice
• BASTE - Elements of Dance


  • Body
  • Action
  • Space
  • Time
  • Energy
• Body


  • The mobile figure or shape, felt by the dancer and seen by others
  • Dancers may emphasize specific parts of their body or use their whole body
  • Describes the body systems - muscles, bones, organs, breath, balance, reflexes
  • Conduit between the inner realm of intentions, ideas, emotions and identity, and the outer realm of expression and communication
• Action


  • Any human movement included in the act of dancing - dance steps, facial movements, partner lifts, gestures, everyday movements
  • Includes both movement and pauses/moments of stillness
  • Can be described by qualities rather than just terminology
• Space


  • Dancers interact with space in myriad ways - staying in one place or traveling, altering direction/level/size/pathways
  • Focus movement and attention outwardly or inwardly
  • Spatial relationships between dancers or objects
• Time


  • Organized in different ways - clock time, sensed time, event-sequence
  • Rhythm - alternating activity and rest, repeating patterns
• Energy


  • How the movement happens - variations in flow, force, tension, weight
  • Can change instantly, multiple types concurrently
  • Taps into the nonverbal, communicative realm of dance
• Contemporary dance

  Always changing with the times and developing, takes inspiration from many modern forms, can be danced to any music and mixed with other styles
• Contemporary dance pioneers


  • Isadora Duncan, Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham - broke rules of strict ballet, believed in freedom of movement to express feelings
• Origin of movement (Martha Graham)

  • Generated from 3 places: contraction and release, the pelvis, and the emotional inner self
  • Symbolic of dichotomies in life - desire and duty, fear and courage, weakness and strength