Dance -

Vocabulary

Movement Vocabulary

This is an area where Dance and Drama intersect. Movement is a vital ingredient in both (unless you're doing Becket's Endgame!) and the Dance idea of the movement vocabulary can be of great use to the director of a show. It's a very simple concept: the movement vocabulary of a piece is simply a list of those movements which are appropriate to the piece. The Choreographer of Cats, for instance, describes in her programme note how she spent a great deal of time devising a movement vocabulary (or movement language, as, I recall, she expresses it) which would suggest the idea of felinity (my awful word, not hers!), without simply being an attempt by a human being to mimic a cat.

In discussing (in a TV interview) his approach to creating a piece based on numerous versions of the song Stardust, choreographer Richard Alston used the phrase when talking about how he tried to create movement which would reflect each different version.

If, in the classroom situation, you were devising a dance piece on, say, the theme of fireworks, you would list those movement words which reflect what fireworks do. With kids you would talk about, for example, Catherine Wheels, and ask them to create a movement which expressed the idea of a Catherine Wheel. Words like spinning, spiral, circular, round and so on all spring to mind, and a Catherine Wheel section of the dance would be based upon the movements suggested by these words.

This is a very basic dance idea, but a very important one. It is also one which can be adapted to drama work with profit. In preparing for Toad of Toad Hall I spent a lot of time devising, with the kids, a movement vocabulary for the chorus of Weasels, Ferrets and Stoats, which would suggest that they were animals (in particular, wild wooders), give an indication of their character, and contribute to the visual picture I was trying to create.

Please note that I was not trying to imitate animals, but using animal movements as the basis for human movements.

Tempo and Rhythm

Both of these words relate to time: the tempo of a piece is the number of movements completed within a specific time (either a part or the whole of a dance), whilst the dance's rhythm relates to the patterning of movements. One of the most difficult things to do when working with kids in dance is to get them away from the idea that dance is a pattern of movements reflecting the beat of the music. It is inevitable that this will be so, as, for the majority of kids, dance means disco. But in fact there is no reason why a dance should not work in opposition to the tempo or rhythm of the music, any more than there is no reason for the rhythm of a dance to be regular.

Generally, the more movements performed within a particular period of time, the faster the tempo. This is obvious, so it should be equally obvious that, if the tempo of the music is fast (i.e. there are a lot of notes in a particular time-period) and the tempo of the dance is slow, then a real tension is created which can have a great effect upon the audience.

One of the first things that a would-be dancer has to learn is how to count! By counting the rhythm of the music, (s)he can relate movements to the beat. Dancing to the beat normally means one movement (or pause) per beat (which is the easy and, for most people, natural way to move to music), whereas if a movement is carried across a number of beats, then the dancer is working in opposition to the tempo of the music. Clapping and counting exercises are an essential start to learning to dance!

Levels

Dance exists within space as well as time and the choreographer must consider the spatial variations available and make proper use of them. The variation which is often forgotten about by beginners or those whose background is in disco dancing is variation in level. Movement can be high (reaching upwards or leaping or jumping), low (crouched, sitting or lying) or in the middle, which is where most movement takes place. Movement on each level has its own effect and a variation in level always provides more interest.

Pathways

Another spatial variant which forms part of the choreographer's armoury is the pathway: the direction of movement through the dance space. Those whose ideas of dance derive from disco tend to think mainly in terms of forward and back (down- and upstage), but there are numerous movement pathways (sideways, diagonal, circular, semi-circular, figure of eight, and so on) and as many combinations as you can think of. Each pathway has its own effect on the audience.

Shape

The shape the body takes in the course of the dance is obviously important, for each shape says something to the audience. When I first introduce a class to dance, I tell them there are four basic body shapes:

• The Pin: a long, thin shape, made by stretching the body as high as it will go, reaching up with the hands and balancing on the tips of the toes
• The Wall: a wide shape, made by stretching the arms and legs as wide as possible
• The Ball: made by wrapping yourself up into as small a space as possible
• The Screw:a twisted shape - standing upright with the body twisted from the waist so that the head is looking backwards and the arms are wrapped round as far as they will go.

Although this is very basic indeed, it is also true that all other body shapes derive from these.

Dynamics

The Dynamics of a dance are what gives it its emotional impact. Basically Dynamics refer to how a movement is done. Movements can be percussive, flowing, angular, smooth, jagged, hesitant, confident - the list is endless. Dynamics - the quality of movement - is central to all dance creation and performance.

Relationships

Relationships are all about the way dancers interact with each other in the course of the dance piece. There are many forms of interaction:

• Solo:Here the dancers work independently of each other. What they do relates in some way, even if only because of the fact that they are on-stage at the same time
• Unison: This is when all the dancers work together, all doing the same thing at the same time.This is the sort of realtionship which most kids will naturallly fall into, even though it is not always appropriate.
• Canon: Here one dancer sets off the movement of another by coming into contact, or adopting the same pose, or by some other signal.

Travel

There are two kinds of movement: movement of the body in a particular space and movement of the body through space. You might call the first static movement - the body is moving (or, at least, parts of it are) but it remains in one place - and in dance we call the second (movement from one place to another) travel. The reason we give it this name is that it is important to distinguish between these two types of movement.

Stillness

Just as in Drama a pause can be extremely significant, so in Dance stillness can make a great impact on the audience. Young actors (and the not so young!) often find it very difficult to hold a pause for any length of time - for pauses require a great deal of confidence and discipline - and young dancers and choreographers often have the same problem. Stillness is an important dance technique.

Variations on a Theme

Just a couple of days ago I was discussing, with one of my GCSE Expressive Arts students, a dance piece she was making. "I'm a bit worried about it," she said. "It's only a couple of minutes long and I've used up all the moves I can think of that suit it." It came as quite a surprise to her when I said that it isn't necessary for every move to be different, that there is nothing wrong with repetition and variation.

"What," I asked her, "is wrong with variations on the movements you've already used?" Suppose you're making a dance which contrasts freedom and being hemmed in, why not use precisely the same moves, but with a different dynamic? Take the simple idea of making a wide sweeping movement of the arms. To express the idea of freedom and, perhaps, its associated joy, you bring the hands up to the chest and then curve the arms out smoothly, reaching wide as if embracing the world. Now, when the tone changes, when the dancer is expressing the idea of being hemmed in, what is wrong with using the same gesture but, instead of the arms going out to their full width, they are stopped halfway?

You can, I suggested, go beyond that (for it's sounding a bit like the walled-up-in-a-glass-case mime exercise!) and, instead of the gesture being stopped in its tracks, as it were, you allow the elbows to go slack and and the arms to droop. This might suggest defeat. Or you could change the sweeping nature of the gesture to one of fighting against the constraint, and you have a totally different mood established. You're using the same gesture but introducing a variation.

We sat down and watched a video of Christopher Bruce's Ghost Dances (a brilliant dance piece - if you get the chance to see it, grab it with both hands) and watched how Bruce keeps re-using the same movements and gestures (much as a composer will re-use the same tune but in a different key, or inverted, or with a change of tempo).

She went back to work happy, and the finished piece was beautiful.

(It turned out in the end that she got an 'A' Grade for the piece!)