In this week’s lecture we learnt about American modern dance
techniques. This introduced us to dance practitioners such as Isadora Duncan, Ruth
St. Denis, Doris Humphrey and Martha Graham, how they would perform, and how
we could adapt their techniques within our own pieces for this
module. We also had a visiting lecturer from the University of Minnesota,
Rebecca Katz-Harwood, who expanded further on some of these techniques.
To start off the lecture, we did our usual warm up to
prepare us for the physical activity we would be doing within the lesson. firstly, we were introduced to the work of Isadora Duncan, whose dance style and influence spread from America to
Europe and Russia. She was the first person to ignore the rigid motions of
ballet, preferring instead a more free flowing style of movement. She said ballet felt like "an
articulated puppet producing mechanical movement."[1] She opened two dance schools within her
short lived career, and paved the way for many dancers to follow in her
footsteps.
We were informed that her work is full of movements that follow on from the
previous one, flowing together seamlessly. This bares similarity to the Meyerhold technique
of otkas,
posyl, stoika and tormos.
One exercise we did with Rebecca involved us running across the room using the techniques of Duncan: we were instructed to stand sideways and have our arm guide us across the
space. This made the arm like a pendulum, therefore causing us to move forward
with the swing of our arm. The movement created was not restricted, it was
like a chain reaction in the body. We didn't have to think about our next
movement, as it came naturally. "She doesn't base her art on a search for
physical skills but on a connection between her own thought and feelings with
the movement they can generate."[2]
She also did not like to create a narrative for her dances, instead taking full
inspiration from music to create her pieces.
This a video of dance in the style of Duncan.
We were also introduced to Ruth St. Denis, Doris Humphrey
and Martha Graham. All of these dance practitioners were inspired in some way by Duncan, yet
they all adapted their own individual styles of dance. Ruth St Denis' dance style was influenced by eastern mysticism; she believed in the spirituality of dance. and that
the body can be a vehicle of connection with which to explore movement. She took inspiration for her pieces from ethnic costume and images.
This is of video of Ruth St. Denis performing an Indian inspired piece.
Doris
Humphrey, mentored by St-Denis, created her pieces with a focus on the use of the breath rather than beat counts. She created what is known as 'fall and recovery' (the process of continually falling away from and returning to equilibrium); breath rhythm (phrasing and dynamics
associated with breathing), and natural movement (movement derived from natural
sources). These became the basis of her technique.
To explore some of this, we did an exercise using the notion of
breath to guide out movement. The movement that we created was graceful and
elegant, and could look very effective in a performance, the
only concern we had was that if we always followed breath rather than music our
pieced could look disjointed and off rhythm.
Doris Humphrey's piece Air on a G String.
Martha Graham is known for being one of the greatest artists of the 20th
century. She created a movement language based upon the expressive capacity of
the human body. Graham’s style stemmed from her experimentation with
movements of fall and release, similarly to Humphrey. By focusing on the basis
of human form, she enlivened the body with raw, electric emotion. The sharp,
angular, direct movements of her technique were a dramatic departure from
the predominant style of the time.
Martha Graham - Night Journey
During this lecture, we also learned about the solar plexus,
which is a chakra (a focal point of energy within the body commonly referred to in eastern philosophy). The solar plexus is located in the centre of the torso, and is used as a tool to make
directions in dance more prominent. We were told to imagine a beam of light
coming from there and see how it would affect the movement. To me personally I
felt this was a more robotic way of moving.
Isadora Duncan believed all
movement originates from the solar plexus or the eyes. She would practise ways to use the solar
plexus as a starting point, to make different types of movement: first using her eyes first to look, then she would breathe and move, creating the impression that she
had in that moment decided to move a particular direction.[3]
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