The Art of Making Dances

The Art of Making Dances

In Doris Humphrey, "The Art of Making Dances", she elaborates on her thoughts of movement in dance. She first explains how dance has expanded over time. She expresses her feelings on the kinds of individuals that should be granted the opportunity to be choreographers. She feels that choreographers need to know their body, have and opened mind, observant, sensitive. They need to consume traits of inspiring nature, imaginative, dramatic ability, articulate, and musically literate. She further talks about subject matter. A piece that one creates should have meaning behind it, even if the audience doesn't quit understand.

As the book proceeds she describes the different kinds of structures one could pursue. Symmetry and Asymmetry are the two categories of design that are defined. They also can be oppositional and successional designs. Her meaning for this is to show balanced and unbalanced structures. Then to continue the craft of dancing, she offers new positions, turns them from a solo to multiple bodies and yet still conveys meaning behind her composing.

Her most extensive point was that of using stage space. All movement has characteristics that are sharp accent, sustained flow, and rested. The rise and fall of movement and how there is stillness before and motion. This leads into the last part of the book which are the elements. The elements of dynamics, rhythm, gestures, words, music and if chosen props, can create the personality of the dance. Theses elements can be every powerful in stylizing a dance. Doris Humphrey was a great figure in the dance world. She understood gravity and its force upon the body. This helped her define dance and movement in a whole new way.

Reflection

After reading "The Art of Making Dances", I feel that Doris Humphrey was way ahead of her time. She discovered a system of dance and put it into words for generations of dances to endure. Her theory of "fall and recovery" was the foundation of her teaching method and her choreography. The importance of tension and relaxation in the body, is the fundamental building blocks of dancing today. She also based vocabulary such as opposition and succession on movement, which is very much still used today. She has made some lasting contributions to the world of dance.

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