Five elements of dance

• Dance can be broken down into the following five elements

  base

  action

  space

  time

  energy
• Body: who dances, the dancer!


  Dancers use their bodies to take internal ideas, emotions, and intentions and express them in an outward manner, sharing them with others. Dance can communicate this internal world, or it can be abstract, focusing on shapes and patterns.
• Action: the dancer does what? the moves


  Action includes small movements like facial expressions or gestures, as well as larger movements like lifts, carries, or catches done with a partner or in a group. “Action” is also considered the movement executed as the pauses or stillness between movements.
• Action is what?

  any human movement involved in the act of dancing
• Space: where does the dancer more? through space


   We’re talking about where the action of dance takes place. Dance moves through space in an endless variety of ways.
• space can be thought of as?

  level

  direction

  Place

  Orientation

  Pathway

  Size

  Relationships
• level is about what


  is the movement on the floor? or reaching upward? are they peroformed high medium or low?
• Direction

  does the movement go forward, backward,sideways,left,right, or a diagonal
• Place


  is the movement done on the spot (personal space) or does it move through space (general space, downstage, upstage)
• Orientation


  which way are the dancers facing
• Pathway


  is the path through space by the dancers curves, straight, or zigzagged? or is it random
• Size


  does the movement take up a smal, narrow space, or a big wide space
• Relationship


  How are the dancers positioned in space in relationship to one another? Are they close together or far apart? ARe they in front of, beside, behind, over, under, alone, or connected to one another.
• Time: How does the body move in relation to time?


  are the movements quick or slow? are certain steps repeated in different speed during the work? if so why?
• We can tink of time in multiple ways

  clock time

  timing relatinships

  metered time

  Free rhythm
• clock time 


  we use clock time to think about the length of the dance or parts of the dance measured in seconds, minutes, or hours.
• Timing Relationships:


  when dancers move in relation to each other (before, after, altogether, sooner than, faster than)
• Metered time:


  A repeated rhythmic pattern oftedn used in music (like 2/4 or 1/4). If dances are done to music, the movement can respond to the beat of the music or can move against it. The speed of the rhythmic pattern is called its tempo
• Free rhythm:


   A rhythmic pattern is less predictable than metered time. Dancers may perform movement without using music, relying on cues from one another.
• Energy: How do dancers move through spae and time with energy


  Energy helps us to identify how the dancers move. What effort are they using? Perhaps their movements are sharp and strong, or maybe they are light and free. Energy also represents the quality of the movement—its power and richness. For choreographers and dancers, there are many possibilities.
• some ways we think about energy are

  attack

  weight

  flow

  quality
• attack


  Is the movement sharp and sudden, or smooth and sustained?
• weight


  Does the movement show heaviness, as if giving into gravity, or is it light with a tendency upward?
• flow


  Does the movement seem restricted or bound, with a lot of muscle tension, or is it relaxed, free, and easy
• quality


   Is the movement tight, flowing, loose, sharp, swinging, swaying, suspended, collapsed, or smooth?