Dance Magazine: I love dancers. I love them for their capacity to engage deeply with the materials of the present—what is here and where we are. What I love most is that dancers recognize this work isn’t about creating fixity or permanence, but instead the vital practice of renewing connection with ideas daily—figuring out how they might emerge at the confluence of bodies, environment, history, needs, and experience.
3 comments:
Dance is so cool, one of my favorite directors is also a dancer and the way they view the world is actually incredible to me. The way they view everything as choreography, the intention behind the way that we move. One of the last run sheets I had to make actually, I had help from them and let me say I have never had a more beautiful amazing series of scene changes. They had such an organised methodology to what was happening and how, everything was so much more timely and overlapped in a beautiful way. They suggested I run the scene change rehearsal while using eight counts, and wow. That was life changing. The performers and techies alike both found a lot of benefit in aligning movements of larger pieces with music, especially since one of that show’s largest set pieces was like twelve feet tall; too large to see people on the other side of it. Dancer brain is a good thing to keep in mind, even as a technician.
I agree whole heartedly that dancers are absolutely fabulous and their brains are incredibly interesting.The points that the author lists are also absolutely right, mobility of thought, there is no permanence, everything is moving and changing constantly. That is a mindset that is so valuable and should absolutely be celebrated more than it is already. Also looking towards the future in the short term, the next movement, next step, next breath. It is absolutely thrilling to see, watch, and it leaves you reevaluating who you are and what you stand for. Maybe that's getting too personal or existential, but it's how I feel. After being a dancer and a viewer, I am firm in this belief. I appreciate this author for bringing this idea to light and also encouraging others to think on this topic and experience it. There is also such an interesting connection that she makes between dancers and citizenship. Its something that I would have not ever considered before.
I am not someone who has any dance experience. I have never been a dancer outside of when I was maybe five years old and I have never worked in a dance space. One thing I do have experience with is this idea of studying people's perception of things around them and how it leads to making different decisions. I spend a lot of time studying this but I have never seen it applied in this way before. I think it makes perfect sense. I was first thinking about how it could apply to the theatrical world not expecting the article to be applying itself to the everyday person. Everything we do shapes how we process information and I always think about how artists are different than others. I also think it would be interesting to bring the idea of discipline/training into this conversation. I think dancers experience motivation differently than others and could be added to this idea.
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