Dance Elements PDF

# Dance Dance is an art form of the human body. A dancer's materials are their arms, legs, heads, and torsos. Dancers isolate their body parts or manipulate their entire body to create a shape, lines and forms along with the movements. ## Elements of Dance Elements of Dance are the foundation con...

# Dance Dance is an art form of the human body. A dancer's materials are their arms, legs, heads, and torsos. Dancers isolate their body parts or manipulate their entire body to create a shape, lines and forms along with the movements. ## Elements of Dance Elements of Dance are the foundation concepts and vocabulary that help students develop movement skills and understand dance as an artistic practice. ### BASTE - **B**-ody - **A**-ction - **S**-pace - **T**-ime - **E**-nergy These elements of dance are the building block of all forms of creative movement and a great place to start when talking about or analyzing a dance performance. ## Who Dances? - The human body is what others see when they look at dance. Sometimes the body is still; other times it may be in motion. - A dancer can use the whole body, or emphasize individual body parts, when moving. ## The Dancer Dancers use their bodies to: - take internal ideas/emotions - intentions and express them in an outward manner ## Action - Any movement of the body while dancing is an **ACTION**. - Leaping, walking, hand gestures, facial expressions are an example of Action. - Actions can be in two ways: - **LOCOMOTOR** - **NON-LOCOMOTOR MOVEMENTS** ### Non-locomotor or axial movement Any movement that occurs in one spot including a bend, stretch, swing, rise, fall, shake, turn, rock, tip, suspend, and twist. ### Locomotor movement Any movement that travels through space including a run, jump, walk, slide, hop, skip, somersault, leap, crawl, gallop, and roll. ## Space **SPACE** is defined as where the body moves or the area occupied by the dancer's body, whether in personal or general space. Movement activity occurs within space. - When movement is complete in an area large enough for one individual, it is defined as **personal space**. It is space that no one else invades or occupies at the same time as another person. - **General space** is a larger area that is used by several individuals or an entire class. ## Dimensions of Space ### 1. Direction Dancer movement may go in different ways: - forward - backward - sideways - up - down ### 2. Size Magnitude of a body shape or movement from small to large movements. ### 3. Pathways Patterns made as a dancer moves through the air or on the floor. There are three categories of pathways: - **straight:** A straight pathway is created when the mover propels the body or an object in a linear direction or straight line. - **curved:** A curved pathway is created when the movement follows a continuous S pattern. - **zigzag:** When straight pathways are connected, forming continuous Z's, a zigzag pattern has been established. ### 4. Levels - The vertical distance from the floor. The three levels of movement are: - **high:** the area above the shoulders. - **medium:** the area between the knees and shoulders. - **low:** the area below the knees. - Parts of the body can certainly move in all three levels. Equipment can be manipulated at various levels as well. ### 5. Shapes The form created by the body’s position in space. Aspects of shape are open/closed, symmetrical/asymmetrical, angular and curved. ### 6. Relationship How are the dancers positioned in space in relationship to one another? Are they: - close together or far apart - in front of Or beside - behind or over or under - alone or connected to one another. ### 7. Orientation Which ways the dancers are facing. ## Time **TIME:** The relationship of one movement to another using the certain rhythm and timings. We can think of time in the following ways. ### 1. Clock time We use clock time to think about the length of a dance or parts of a dance measured in seconds, minutes, or hours. ### 2. Timing Relationship When dancers move in relation to each other (before, after, together). ### 3. Metered Time A repeated rhythmic pattern often used in music (like 2/4 time or 4/4 time). If dances are done to music, the movement can respond to the beat of the music or can move against it. The speed of the rhythmic pattern is called its tempo. ### 4. Free Rhythm A rhythmic pattern is less predictable than metered time. Dancers may perform movement without using music, relying on cues from one another. ## Energy - Energy helps us to identify how the dancers move. - Energy also represents the quality of the movement. - The effort the dancers use can communicate meaning, depending on the energy involved. ### 1. Attack The movement sharp and sudden, or smooth and sustained. ### 2. Weight Movement show heaviness, as if giving into gravity, or is it light with a tendency upward. - The qualities of heaviness are typically associated with having slower movements without much momentum behind them, which gives dancers an opportunity to emphasize each movement. - A light quality would look like fast flowing movements with plenty of space between steps where jumps might have height but not too much force behind them. ### 3. Flow The movement seem restricted or bound, with a lot of muscle tension, or is it relaxed, free, and easy. How smoothly you transition from one movement to another throughout your routine. ### 4. Quality The movement tight, flowing, loose, sharp, swinging, swaying, suspended, collapsed, or smooth, vibratory. - Swinging (using legs, then arms, then the whole body) - Collapsed (swing a leg up, then collapse the body over it; repeat, alternating legs) - Sustained (melt gradually all the way to the floor until finishing in a stretched shape) - Suspended (on both feet and allow arms to follow; find a point of balance, balance on one foot) - Vibratory (begin a soft beating of the feet on the floor and allow the vibration to move up through the body like a volcano until it erupts out through the fingers)