1.) Personal Views of Beauty in Dance and Movement

South African boot dance

Introduction:

In this session, students examine their preconceptions and perceptions of beauty in movement and dance, develop a list of associated words, and begin to consider their preferences as situated in socio-cultural, artistic, and aesthetic domains.  In classroom and homework exercises, students explore their visual and somatic senses and develop language to describe their observations, sensations, and bodily memories.  Throughout this unit, students will return to these two modes of perception: the visual and somatic.

Classroom activities:

In small groups, ask students to share personal information including name, year in school, major, favorite music, and why they decided to take this class.  Informally share each group’s findings.

Ask students to write a response to the following question: What do you find beautiful in dance and movement?  Save a list of these responses for the last session.

Show 10-15 short clips (10 minutes total) of dance and movement forms. Choose, for example, from Giselle, South African "boot" dance, ice skating, Elizabeth Streb, bharatanatyam, pro football, Rennie Harris’ Students of the Asphalt Jungle, 1980s Soul Train, Wodabe, Javanese bedoyo, Shall We Dance Salsa; Gene Kelly animation,  Savion Glover tap, Martha Graham's Lamentation, Alvin Ailey's Revelations, and hula. While observing, students write responses to the following questions:  What is your personal response to this movement (like, dislike, indifferent, find beautiful, repulsed, excited, etc.); What stands out for you?

• On the board, chart student preferences: most preferred, least preferred, most beautiful,  least beautiful.

• Lead discussion on preferences, asking:  On what were your preferences based (beauty, power, complexity, etc.) ?  Did your preferences depend on what is familiar to you?

• Lead students in a meditation and writing exercise

  1. Instruct students to close their eyes and let images from the videos come into view. 
  2. Let these images fade and bring attention to body sensations (pain, itches, pressure of weight against chair, air on skin, etc.)  Ask yourself:  What is going on in my own body right now?  Just pay attention to it.  As you do so, let attention shift to breath: watch and feel your breath moving in and out, circling through body. 
  3. Now, staying with your attention to breath let it bring up from your body a childhood memory of a movement experience (This need not be dancing, but can be running, rolling, walking, any moment of moving that comes up).  Hold that memory steady and study it: What does it feel like, in its details; What does it look like?  Examine the setting in detail; Are there any sounds, voices? 
  4. Slowly bring attention back to your body and its sensations here in this room. 
  5. Keeping the memory fresh, open eyes and write notes on what happened.

This meditation can be enhanced with pauses, encouragement to stay with breath, let the mind go, relax the muscles of the face, etc.  Watch the students and respond to their body language.

If there is time, students may offer their experiences.

Closing:

To close the session, summarize student preferences of beauty in movement and dance. Note expanded or extended personal views of beauty and the evolving lexicon created in the class.  Reflect on the collected viewpoints of beauty in dance and movement through socio-cultural, artistic, and aesthetic domains of inquiry created in class.

 

Homework:

• Read Siegel, Marcia.  "Rethinking Movement Analysis," unpublished manuscript 2007 and Sklar, Deidre. Movement Observation Checklist, unpublished manuscript, 2006. 

• Interview five people of different ages, genders, and ethnicities (you may include grandparents, neighbors, etc., but be sure to include at least two strangers). 

  1. Ask each person the following questions:
    • What is a dancer?
    • What kind of dance or movement do you like? 
    • What kind of dance or movement do you find beautiful?
  2. Transcribe answers to all questions.
  3. Be prepared to share your findings in list form indicating age, gender, ethnicity for each informant.

• Write up your movement memory (from class meditation) in a one to two page descriptive essay, trying to give the reader a strong somatic and visual sense of your experience. If students did not have a movement memory in class, they should repeat the exercise at home.

• Bring in magazines that contain a broad spectrum of images of beauty and movement (sports, fitness, fashion, dance, popular culture).

 

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