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Dance Concert Essay

Decent Essays

The 2017 Spring Works Dance Concert, presented by Purdue’s Contemporary Dance Company, displayed various dance pieces that had diverse choreographic structures and appeared to be created from compositional processes that were very similar to the processes we explored in class. All of the choreographers in this concert exhibited their own works through exclusive compositional tools. For example, in the work “Unlocking Energy”, choreographed by Mary Beth Van Dyke, the sustained arm movements initiated throughout her piece appeared to glide from one motion to the next with ease. The arm movements in this piece differed considerably when compared to the hand gestures in “12th Drowned”, choreographed by Kathleen Hickey. The hand gestures in “12th …show more content…

The dancers moved continuously in a waltz fashion corresponding with the music used in certain parts of the piece, and they consistently displayed balletic movement, as well as quick and direct bourrees, with flicking hand motions, that expressed the movers’ power and presence on the stage. Similarly, the dancers displayed multiple kicking movements when the sound of the piece became more abstract, which further addressed the power and wealth the dancers exhibited. Overall, the movement vocabulary of “State of Affairs” had an outpouring quality which was expressed with Laban direct efforts articulated in stabbing, dabbing, driving, slashing, and flicking movements. It was also expressed through the dancers’ smiling faces which broke the fourth wall and addressed the audience. Additionally, throughout the piece, the dancers also steadily utilized jumps which in a way paralleled the flicking hand motion presented in the bourrees. Furthermore, “State of Affairs’ ” choreographic structure paralleled that of a journey because the dancers developed throughout the piece, and the audience went somewhere new as the end of the piece neared. For example, at the end of the piece, not only did the dancers begin to move as individuals but they also changed their vests from the black and white to colors such as blue, pink, and purple. No longer were …show more content…

For example, the unique production elements, such as: white wigs and upstage lighting, enabled the audience to immediately become engrossed in the dark meaning of the piece. Additionally, the compositional tools such as: even phrasing, and fast tempos displayed throughout the piece, made the overall energy of “State of Affairs” elevated. At times, it appeared, that even during the parts of the movements that contrasted with the music, the audience could not look away from the dancers’ movements. Without any one of these elements, I believe the piece could be understood in a very different way, which is not bad but is also not supportive of what the work is trying to portray overall. Ultimately, Carol Cunningham-Sigman’s piece, as well as the rest of the pieces in the concert, made the 2017 Spring Works Dance Concert, a hard concert to

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