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- Herausgeber: Books on Demand
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
This book offers a comprehensive toolbox of approaches to analysing and creating contemporary choreography. Are you ready to deepen your understanding of the world of dance and the creative process of choreography? In this book about choreography you will learn how to develop dance and performance. In order for you to truly enjoy the process of choreography, I will offer you tools to help you enter into a creative flow. Because ultimately, that's what it's all about: getting into a free flowing joyful process with the dancers and having plenty of fun along the way, as you develop a solo, a duet or a group piece for the stage or a film. You will learn how to expand your repertoire and how to trigger in your dancers, identification and connection with your theme. I will present various ways in which you can develop and structure your work. Tools with which you can introduce tension, multiple facets, variety and powerful dynamics into your dances, allowing a dramaturgy to emerge. You will receive over 120 exercises to inspire you for your rehearsals or classes. You can now preview the entire book online for free or download a reading sample. Take a look. It will inspire you and your dancing and it will improve your choreography. When it comes to choreography, many dancers are initially lost. Nevertheless, there are people who can't dance and still develop great pieces. Maybe you're a gifted mover, but that doesn't mean that your material works in one piece. Even if your movements are great and others admire you for how you dance, it can happen very quickly that the sensation of your skills wears off very quickly and your movements seem arbitrary. Especially if you have transferred them to a group. And you ask yourself in such a moment: What am I doing wrong? My dancers are great, my movement material is innovative, but on stage it all seems interchangeable and it's just movement. And you think: This is all pointless. No, that's not it! It's about how you deal with everything. How you connect the dancers with your ideas and with your material. How you manage that the dancers make your visions and your movements theirs. How to get them there to identify with what moves you. But even that is not enough. You need to know more about how dramaturgy works in dance. How you build up an arc of suspense and what that has to do with space and rhythm. How to create interesting contrasts and how to deal with music and movement. This book covers all of that.
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Choreography.
80% of a choreographer's work is knowing your craft!
Most choreographic techniques work regardless of the choreographer's own dance skills.
Dance.
Like music, dance permits us to participate in the sensations and moods of the soul. Dancers do not perform like a musicians – they inhabit existence in the moment of movement. Like music, musicians capable of throwing light into the gaps between emotional states, which would otherwise remain hidden within human beings. Dance can comprehend things of the soul and magnify them until they become visible – it is capable of expressing heaven on earth. Its substance is an intermingling of knowledge and the non-verbal that no academic treatise can define. There lies an unfathomable mystery in dance which we may musicians approach at a moment of movement. Within the essence of dance‚, there is a core which exudes a fascination we can locate emotionally as we encircle it. Dance is the seeking after this inner core, in order to come closer to the mystery – within movement.
www.choreo-book.com
Acknowledgements
I thank all the dancers who feature in the photographs in this book.
My thanks go to my teachers at the Laban Centre in London, from whom I learned a lot about choreographing; and also to the tutors at the Tanzwerkstatt Konstanz who invested much patience and love in their dance students. I would also like to thank Erwin Schumann and my teachers in Zurich, in whose classes I discovered the existential in dance.
Also, my thanks go to the directors and choreographers with whom I have worked.
I am grateful to the many students who gave me their trust and tried out the studies and exercises I developed for this book. My thanks also go to Jeanette Neustadt for proofreading the first draft, and to Dr Christiana Rosenberg-Ahlhaus for revising the second draft. I am very grateful to Werner Nater for the countless hours he spent on the third draft. Thank you to my editor, Bärbel Philipp, and to my graphic designer, Alf Ruge.
Thanks to Annett Walter and Sophia Loth for their support.
Thanks to my translator Simone Kick and thanks to Betty Pabst, Bernd Hänisch, Rolf Wrobel, Alf Ruge, Vera Bandeira, Holger Vocke, Hai Vu Nguyen, Florian Bornträger, Felix Alexander Neudeck, Celine Weigt, Ulf Leuteritz, Nina Niestroy, Bernhard Mohr, Sophie Krabbe for the wonderful photos.
I am indebted to my wife, Luise, whose great interest has informed both my performances and my writing of this book. Her patience and attentive support have greatly contributed to my work.
Table of Contents
Studies
Exercises
0
Introduction
Becoming a choreographer
From dancer to choreographer
Career changers
To what degree can I learn to be a choreographer?
Chapters
1
Sub-text and spirit
Drawing on internal resources
Intention
2
Theme – Structure – Dramaturgy
Theme and material
Structuring a dance piece
The dramatic arc
Experiencing time within a dramatic composition
Progression
Turning points
Building up to a turning point
Retardation
Parameters of intensity
Example: Storyboard
Structuring source material
Transitional scenes
3
Design principles
Direction
Focus
Structuring pathways based on literary sources, plays, musicals or opera
Personal space
A technical break-down of personal space
The limits of internal and external space
Metre
Music and movement
What role does music play in choreography?
4
Thematic development
Connections between theme and dancer
Repertoire
Working with the third dimension
Manipulating available movements
Framework
Manipulation parameters
Developing manipulation parameters by transferring the essence of a movement onto a group or body parts
Manipulation parameters from extreme changes in dimension
Manipulation parameters from movement quality
Transferring movement segments from one point in space to another
Changing the dance space changes the performance
Manipulation using temporal aspects: Rhythm and tempo
Manipulation using complementary elements
Developing movements for a theme
The indirect approach
The direct approach
Definitions
Synonyms on movement level
Non-verbal and emotional links between theme and movement
Image
Music
Sculpture
Inner substance and evocative setting
Using visualisation to develop movements specific to a theme
Working with elusive themes – abstraction and focus
Summary of approaches to choreographic material
5
Arrangement and composition
Internal components
Internal and superordinate form
Structures
The language of space
Implied emotion in an empty space
Balance points in space
Places and spaces
Change of perspective and 'black holes'
Directing attention in overlapping actions
Spatial arrangement
Space within the arrangement
Establishing relationships
Levels
Composition and its elements
Unisono
Opposition
Generating movement through axes
Motif, counter-motif and counterpoint
Symmetry – Asymmetry
Intensity
Position – flow – transition
Rhythm
Compositional variation
6
Solo
The solo in contemporary dance
Choreography and development
Where do I start?
A basic choice of approaches
Technical approaches: Gesture, manipulation, opposition, movement quality, and composition
Examples for spatial approaches
Examples for qualitative approaches
The connection between emotion and body
Developing a character
1. Approach
2. Vita
3. Interview
4. Improvisations and Approaches
5. Dream and Strength
6. Shapes
7. Interview
The character develops
Identification and empathy after Lee Strasberg
Impulse points in your hands
Gestures
Costume or object
Walking and moving
Movement quality
Body parts
Developing solos
Systemic constellation
IV.
Autobiographical solo: important stepping stones and emotional, life-changing experiences collected in a dance
Translating music into dance
Movement synonyms
7
Pedagogical aspects
8
Acting, language and dance
Dance as an interlude in a play
9
Dance and film
10
Stage design
Experience – association – feeling – understanding – connection
11
Lighting
Lighting parameters
Colours
Perception
Stage lighting
Floodlights
Spotlights
Profile spots
PAR lights
Dimmer
Light design
12
Study and exercises
Epilogue
About the author
Notes
Studies
1 Relationship between source material and interpretation2 Transitions3 Tension between audience and performance space4 Directions between dancers in relation to the audience5 Focus I6 Focus II7 Focus III8 Focus IV9 Mapping a literary source10 20 different directions11 Counts and accents in music12 Musical interpretation13 Implementing turning points and dynamic units of time14 Turning points and dynamic units15 External, relational manipulation parameters16 Developing manipulation parameters17 Reverse phrasing18 Transforming individual sequences19 Manipulation parameters20 Manipulation parameters from dimension21 Effort defined by material22 Manipulations using separate elements23 Transferring movements within the body24 Free and constrained manipulations25 Manipulations with energetic changes26 Manipulating space within the kinesphere27 Translating movements from one spatial level into another28 The influence of the dance space on choreography29 Manipulation using tempo and rhythm30 Devising complementary elements31 Accumulation32 Linking theme and movement via synonyms33 Theme and structure34 Constructing a thematic setting35 Using visualisation36 Abstraction and basic components37 ABA structure and canon38 The potential of space39 The effect of different positions in space40 Different arrangements of balance points in space41 Settings in landscapes42 Connection and isolation in space and in emotion43 Spatial tension44 Movement to the motif of 'closeness – distance'45 Negative Space46 Spatial relationships within the arrangement47 Islands and paths of focus within an arrangement48 The living climbing frame49 Transforming medium level movements i50 Compositions of space51 Synchronicity in relation to dynamics52 Opposing attributes53 Developing a piece from a gesture54 From symmetry to asymmetry55 Tighten and expand56 Setting up positions in a movement flow57 New paths into familiar positions58 Phrasing with different parameters59 Mini plays60 Film61 Stage designExercises
I. The internal spaces of the body1 Hearing2 Partner work – divided3 Different circles of4 Guided improvisation – composition – group exercise5 Inner spaces – mental journey6 Visualisation7 Subtext 'II. Structure and dynamics8 Exercise for structure and dramaticIII. Stage spaces9 Spatial tension10 Spatial tension – stationary11 Spatial tension through movement quality and tempo12 Different relations between action and reactionIV. Structure and dynamics13 Exercise for structure and dramatic arcV. Scene, language, and dance14 Plot15 Storytelling16 Gestures17 Image18 Poem19 Personal story20 ColoursVI. Music21 Movement combinationVII. Relationships22 Impulses23 Towel impulses24 Mirroring25 Rolling Point26 Obstacles27 Taking weight28 Absorb - divert29 Support30 Nodes31 Connection32 Snapping33 Push and release34 Balls – TrioVIII. Movement quality35 Light and heavy36 Rolling and gliding37 Chinese letters – developing into partner or trio exercise38 Waves39 TwisterIX. Group dynamics40 Switching leaders41 Collective decisions and reactions42 Walking in a circleX. Music and movement43 Relationship between beat and dance44 Approaching a composition using graphical notes45 Verbally defining a piece of music46 Transferring musical structures to dance47 The music plays with the choreography48 Dialogue: musician - dancer49 Sounds50 VowelsXI. Rhythm51 Body percussion52 Vocal rhythms53 Rhythmical structure54 Vocal rhythms dominating the movement rhythms55 Rhythmic transformations56 Rhythmic observation and transfer57 Breaks58 Accents and inner impulses60 Translating two-dimensional rhythms59 Impulses61 Musical lyrics and complementary elements0 Introduction
A great number of choreographers are self-taught. Many arrive at dance by a roundabout route, bypassing dance training and entering the dance world directly as choreographers. In dance training, on the other hand, dance students are rarely taught any sound choreographic techniques. At best, those who are interested in choreography will have the opportunity of putting their work up for discussion, but they are hardly ever given insight into different methods of how to develop a piece of dance, simply because many teachers do not follow a specific method themselves. The examination of what makes a piece a success or a failure is rarely included in dance training.
Many of the themes discussed in this book are addressed in practice and theory as part of choreography courses offered at some universities. These educational institutes differ in terms of how they divide up the individual elements that comprise the subject of choreography, sometimes considerably, and they differ as to where the focus will lie in their particular course.
This is a book for dancers, choreographers, directors, performers and teachers. It offers comprehensive insight into a variety of approaches that can be applied in the development of contemporary choreography, providing choreographic tools with which dance pieces can be adapted and analysed. It is, so to speak, an overview of the methods you can use to transform an idea into its realisation, the stageproduction.
Further, I will address the process of structuring a dance piece and the theme-related development of movements, as well as elementary components of dance pieces such as composition, movement qualities and spatial laws. Some of the individual chapters, such as those discussing set design, film and lighting go beyond the subject of choreography, examining these fields of expertise so close and important to the staging of dance.
If you are not a dancer, reading this book will give you an insight into the choreographic process and thus offer you the opportunity of developing a closer understanding of the world of dance.
Each chapter contains field-tested exercises that are useful for dancers as well as actors or other performative artists whose main focus isn't dance.
Becoming a choreographer
From dancer to choreographer
Most dancers who have been dancing all their lives, always focused on their own bodies, will at some point begin to choreograph. The step from dancing to choreographing presents a radical change in a dancer's working methods. Whereas before they were busy checking their shoulder placement, their turnout and their pointe, now as choreographers they are confronted with things outside of the body. From one day to the next, they have to shift their attention from their internal space to what is around them. They have to see things from different points of view, develop a vision, research a theme, and withstand the pressures of production.
The change of focus from inside to outside alone requires an immense amount of strength. As a choreographer, you are the decision-making authority in the piece. As a dancer, you are told what is right and what is wrong. Jumping in at the deep end as a young choreographer, it usually doesn't take long until you find yourself overwhelmed, and even if you are outrageously talented, you may find that no-one is born a master choreographer.
Career changers
In the experimental theatre scene (whose techniques often also inspire the more established theatres), you will find directors who do not have the slightest idea of the nature of dance, let alone about how to harness the potential of dancers in the staging of a multidisciplinary performance.
They will have an idea, a mental image of their dance scene; what they lack, however, is a methodical approach towards developing that scene. Visualising a scene takes place in the mind’s eye, it is made up of intertwining emotions and abstract sensations that are hard to unravel, and has nothing to do whatsoever with real people treading the real boards in a real theatre.
It doesn't matter how well you describe your vision to your dancers - they will never see what you see. They will always see their own mental images. Flesh out your ideas as you may, what your listeners visualise will always be something different; it is always their own image. Rehearsals are usually swarming with different mental images, and there is an infinite number of ways how to translate an idea into a scene – every dance troupe has to approach this in their own way.
Some of these approaches I will describe in this book. They serve as building blocks for making and developing choreographies. The building blocks will change as your work progresses, and you will add others into the mix. You will have to find your own way of combining the blocks in order to develop your own dance language.
To what degree can I learn to be a choreographer?
Inevitably, a large part of the art of making choreography defies definition - which is why there are so few books on the subject, despite the numbers of technical approaches having grown substantially in the last decades of the 20th century. The spectrum of available choreographic techniques expanded enormously as modern dance forms emerged, Eastern energy work was integrated and an increased understanding about theatre and performance was drawn from experimental theatrical forms. This not only changed and improved our understanding of dance and choreography, but also raised the number of techniques for analysing and staging dance.
Exactly which technique you choose is not important, since they all obey the same laws on the level of design. The same design impetus can be fed into any number of different techniques. To what degree you will learn the craft of choreography will depend on your willingness to work and how much you enjoy performing, on how you respond to the stimuli that you find in this book and in the wider world of dance, how you develop them, in analysis and experiment, and how you use them to create your own truth. The HOW is the thing - how you unfold your technical spectrum as a designer, how you observe it through a dramaturgical lens.
Dance begins where words fail. Dance is experienced through your senses, and they just are not verbal. That is one of the challenges of choreography: a balancing act between intuition and intellect. It means to work with something intangible, non-verbal, ephemeral, which, nonetheless, wants to be, and can be, studied intellectually. Intellectual analysis takes place on many levels. All of its integral components inform one another, so that they cannot be singled out, and must be seen in context with one another.
However valuable such analysis may be academically, it excludes the non-verbal and is thus only half of the story. Without the other half, it will never really make sense. Often, choreographers get obsessed with one of these halves. Many educational concepts are similarly one-sided. What would be desirable are educational approaches which successfully integrate both aspects. Dance is non-verbal, but it does need to be broken down intellectually during the choreographic process without losing its intuitive source.
As choreographers, we need to develop a creative mind-set which allows us to interpose technical analysis into the impenetrable magic of dance without losing touch with the intuitive.
There are tools which can combined with each other in the process of choreography.
These tools or aids take the form of practical techniques.
For your work to be a success, what will be decisive is how you are able to adjust techniques to suit the given situation, and according to which criteria you select them.
A choreographic technique is composed of four building blocks:
These umbrella terms are discussed in chapters, which are structured according to specific themes.
Chapters
Chapter 1 Sub-text and spirit
Chapter 2 Subject matter – structure – dramatic theory
Chapter 3 Design principles
Chapter 4 Thematic development
Chapter 5 Arrangement and composition
Chapter 6 Solo
Chapter 7 Educational aspects
Chapter 8 Drama, language and dance
Chapter 9 Dance and film
Chapter 10 Set design
Chapter 11 Lighting
Chapter 12 Studies and exercises
In order to grasp the connections between the building blocks of choreography, I recommend that you first read through all of the chapters so that you can link them intuitively.
The second step is to try out the studies and exercises. Let yourself be inspired rather than guided by the suggestions.
Develop your own research.
Don’t work in a chronological fashion; let yourself be guided by your own interests.
May this book inspire you! May your dance enrich the world!
1 Sub-text and spirit
When we watch a dance piece, we see more than just human bodies. We perceive energy, spirit, soul in a dance performance – or the lack thereof. It is, therefore, worth asking how we, the choreographers, can fill a mere set of steps with a deeper meaning, a subtext that touches the audience. Without this subtext, the performance will seem disappointingly empty, no matter how sophisticated the choreography or how excellent the dancers. Spectators will walk out feeling unsatisfied, but unable to put their finger on what they were lacking, and the critics' reviews will be along the lines of 'Pretty, but predictable'.
It takes more than dance steps to provoke an emotional response in an audience. It takes more than dancers who play their part in the piece. What makes dance come alive is when we witness dancers feeling their movement. In a group piece, we will notice how each dancer experiences their steps differently, sometimes opposing another dancer's feeling, sometimes harmonising with it. Many choreographers expect their dancers to innately know the secret behind the dance steps and be able to share it with the audience through their 'expression'. Unfortunately, this hardly ever works. The dancers don't know what kind of expression is expected of them. I recently overheard two dancers talking about how they often didn't know what they were supposed to represent, and how difficult it was to dance expressively when they didn't really know what the dance was about. They worried about making mistakes, and they solved this problem by holding back their own emotion and just moving with 'general expression'. Is this what a choreographer really wants? 'General expression'? If that is not what you want, you will need to inspire your dancers. Let them feel. Encourage them to nurture and show emotion in their dance.
Drawing on internal resources
For many people, art is the expression of an inner conflict or tension. They draw from this tension when creating their art. Imagine, for instance, a man moving from Greenland to New York. He cannot get used to the confined spaces. Before his mind’s eye, the houses are constantly overlaid by visions of wide-open spaces. His sense of constriction and his longing for open space create tension within him. From this tension emerges the desire to produce a dance piece expressing these thoughts, and to share his experience with other people living in New York.
If you want to use material from an internal conflict in a dance piece, you need to find a connection, an open channel between your inner reality and the outside world. Merely seeing images of wide, open spaces between skyscrapers doesn't make our Greenlander's experience a piece of art. He needs to be able to translate his sentiment into movement, and then check whether his translation truly expresses his experience. So our channel has to work in both directions – inside to outside, and outside to inside. Developing and refining this channel is key to any artistic work, because it is only with open, fine-tuned channels that we can connect to both our inner selves and the outside world, feel how we react to the world, and feel how it prompts us to create dance pieces.
Naturally, going through everyday life with our channel wide open also makes us vulnerable – without walls around our soul, unprotected, out in the open. You will feel when you are open, allowing the world inside, and when you are keeping it out. When you completely shut out all external impulses, you may notice that you keep choosing the same topics for your pieces, or you may feel as if you were running out of ideas altogether. In the end, it is our choice: either we can be satisfied living between constant repetition and total lack of material, or we decide to work on the connection between ourselves and the world, inside and outside.
Choreographers are always training their dancers. On one hand because better dancers means better dance pieces, and on the other because choreographers improve their own practice while training their dancers. So if you work with your dancers on developing their internal resources, you will benefit from it as well.
If you use one of the following approaches to your material, your dancers will need to be familiar with the theme you want to develop:
Guided composition
The dancers improvise and react to directions from outside.
Visualisation
Basing movement on imagery.
Identification
Moving according to a previously outlined character sketch.
Emotion
Developing movements from a set emotion.
Intention
Whether you are putting together a show dance repertoire or developing artistically authentic material as an expression of your innermost self, each movement, each set and each piece has an intention and an associated stylistic form.
Connection between intention as a whole and movement
Whenever you watch dance rehearsals or pieces at the theatre, ask yourself:
Can you feel an intention in the dance sequences (even if you can't express it verbally)?In group pieces, do the intentions of the individual dancers complement or contrast each other when the dramatic arc requires it?Is there an overall intention and an associated stylistic form?Do you perceive a scenic intention?How do the dancers' movements show intention?What precisely expresses intention?Is there anything that seems replaceable?Because it is difficult to express the intention for the dance in words, it is all the more important to keep in dialogue with the dancers. Convey to them WHAT IT IS. What is the piece about? What are we doing? If we can't answer these questions, if we don't feel where we are going before we start, we won't get anywhere.
The power of the choreographer's initial impetus to stage a piece often dwindles once the rehearsals become more and more complex. But growth ends when the roots are cut, and your intention is the root of your piece. Keep reminding yourself what your intention is. Your intention gives you and your dancers a point of reference. It tells you where you are going and what you are looking for, and if you succeed in sharing this with your troupe, it will give them a sense of direction and of meaning.
If you take commissions for choreographies on a certain theme, you will have to delve deep into the material until you discover something you can identify with, a personal intention in the given theme. You need to whet your appetite for creating a piece for and the only way to do this is to find the the point where your personality and the material meet. If you are asked to choreograph a dance for a play, it can be a challenge to meet the director’s vision as well as identifying with the material.
Experiment with the following extremes to get a feeling for the connection between form and intention:
When does the style of your choreography express your desired overall intention?
At which points does it depart from it?
2 Theme – Structure – Dramaturgy
Even before a piece is created and staged, its energy is already there. It translates into the choreographer's impetus, seeking its expression. The form of the energetic expression is made up of different elements gathered around a central theme or idea.
You can choose any theme or idea: movement for movement's sake, the occupation of the Central African states, simple dancing to music, or experimentation, but you must have one, otherwise you have nothing to develop. Everything you bring together to create your performance, the dancers, the lighting, all the elements that are external to the choreographer, none of it exists unless you can develop an intention from an impetus.
Theme and material
In principle, you can create a good piece from any topic. It is what you make of your theme that counts, much more than the actual theme itself. However, if your subject matter is shallow in terms of content, it will take more blood, sweat and tears to turn it into a good piece than it otherwise would. Sometimes, a really promising theme turns out to be nothing but a bauble once you've started to work on it; sometimes, an idea that seemed nothing more than a trifle develops into an excellent theme that may stay with you for a long time. If you come across a topic and you can immediately specify how you are going to create a piece from it, it may well turn out that you have narrowed down the theme too early. Give your material time to develop. Don’t feel guilty about putting it out of your mind or putting it aside. If it means something to you, it will return later on, pulling your sleeve and asking for attention.
If an idea seems promising because it illustrates the zeitgeist, but just does not evoke any images in you to translate into dance, decide whether this idea really has enough choreographic potential. If the idea doesn't speak to you, simply 'making a dance to this theme' will make it appear weaker and more superficial instead of revealing all its dimensions and deeper meaning.
When you are looking for themes, go for visual ones and those that awaken in you the feeling that you need to resolve them via the medium of dance. Notice how you react to each theme in terms of the images and thoughts that come to you. If you feel drawn to a story, consider the mythological aspects of the story – or whether it has an archaic component to it, a deep, non-verbal theme that speaks to you. In short, find something in it that you can only express through dance. Avoid using dance just to illustrate a story or plot.
The advantage of a story that can be told theatrically is that the audience will identify with the characters and get drawn into the story. As the narrative unfolds, the audience will forget the boundaries between reality and fiction. They will follow the characters through situations where they must rise above themselves. On their journey through the narrative, the protagonists often resolve a deep, unconscious conflict within themselves. They go through a kind of metamorphosis as they brave obstacles and tests, and their personality evolves into something larger or more resolved than it was at the start of the story.
Since narrative plots usually rely on verbal forms of expression, they don't easily translate into dance. It is difficult to create characters with whom the audience can identify just by means of dance. It is not in the nature of dance to serve as a mouthpiece for narratives that rely on plot and identification with characters. Dance is more about transforming a story and taking it to a higher level, closer to the emotional and spiritual than to the world of rational thought. Keep this in mind when you examine your idea. If you find that all you want to do is tell a story, consider whether it wouldn't be more efficient or appropriate to work with actors.
Using dance as a medium to develop a plot line is very difficult, and will hardly go beyond tedious pantomime. As the nature of dance is much closer to the allegorical than the narrative, it is best at revealing symbolic or allegorical aspects of a character or plot. Take care not to confuse plot and intention, however, as intentions can have narrative qualities. An example: A wants to approach B, but B cannot stand being close to A. The conflict is between the two characters, and it could be set up as a dramatic sequence, but it is not a plot yet, and certainly a long way from Romeo and Juliet.
Now, you might want to argue that you have seen profoundly touching dance interpretations of stories such as Romeo and Juliet. Ask yourself, however, whether it was really the story that touched you, or that the dance expressed something deeper that went beyond the mere narrative. Didn't the piece emphasise other aspects of the story than the plot?
This is basically what every novel that genuinely touches you does - it goes beyond the plot and opens the door to a deeper level of understanding or feeling. In literature, this is done via literary devices, and although we may think what touches us is the plot, it is them that add dimension and intensity to the story. If we just 'dance the story' without looking for a movement equivalent of the literary devices, we lose that extra depth.
If you want to create a piece from a story, make sure you not only understand it at plot level, but also be aware of its mythological level, the 'big stories' behind all fiction that give it more meaning and depth. Some authors deliberately base their stories on mythology, such as the Cinderella theme in Pretty Woman, or the triumph of the weak over the strong in Rocky, or love defying death. In many stories, however, the mythological level manifests rather in a vague feeling of an extra dimension behind the story than a clearly identifiable myth. Take, for example, Heinz Strunk's Fleisch ist mein Gemüse, a novel about a musician who struggles to find his place in life, but finally finds a woman to love. Many readers will read the story with a sense of foreboding that all that awaits the characters is emptiness, that there is nothing to which they can look forward. Emptiness seems to lurk behind the protagonists and pervade the setting, tapping into the readers' own fear of the great void beyond earthly life. This is a theme with a mythological dimension, one that could well prove a fruitful source of inspiration for choreographic work. For other readers, the same story is much more about hope, the knowledge that even those who are struggling with relationships will finally meet the love of their life. There is mythological material in this theme that calls for expression beyond words, speaking to and about all the people living in loneliness and isolation who no longer dare to dream for themselves and yet, on a barely conscious, deep level, still cherish the hope that fate may have something wonderful in store for them.
Questions to ask of your theme:
Is it possible to capture one essential aspect of the theme specifically through dance?What do you associate with the theme that is difficult to verbalise, but sparks dance imagery in you?Are there different ways of approaching the theme?Are there any sub-themes within the theme?What does the theme have to do with you? Does it provoke different emotions within you?Have you given the theme enough time to develop?What do you personally want to achieve with this piece?The structure of a dance piece
The structure of a piece extends from its opening right through to the finale.
Imagine that you are sitting inside a bubble of acrylic glass that is flying through a landscape. The bubble ducks and dives through a narrow thicket, branches whipping its sides, then plunges into a strange, sinister mass that silently oozes past. Your vehicle picks up speed, the mass through which you were struggling disappears, and you are shooting through wide open space towards to a funnel. Inside, you come upon a road and start to travel down it. But the bubble starts to skid, hurtling along out of control, until it bursts, and you land on soft, pillow-like ground.
The spectator is the traveller in the bubble; the piece you are choreographing is the landscape, and it is up to you how long the action stays in which part of your landscape. If you look at the whole journey, it is the shifting between environments that makes up the structure of the piece. If, several minutes into the piece, the audience get the impression that they are on an never-ending road, stretching into the distance, they will lose interest in that road, because they don't have to engage with what you are doing. They can engage if you structured the landscape accordingly so that they are caught up, effortlessly, in what is happening. To achieve this, you need to develop a sense for when your bubble has spent long enough in each respective environment, and what kind of environment you next need to plunge into. You design the landscape within your theme according to the journey you want to undertake with your audience, and you choose when to stop and where.
Example
If you want to stage a piece about war, this does not mean that you have to have 15 dancers running about and fighting like madmen. You could show a child walking along a road, or a lone figure sitting motionless. Perhaps you do want to go for the option with the 15 dancers. But will it capture your audience? The different faces of war are different parts of your landscape, and it is up to you to arrange them in a way that keeps your audience interested.
The emotional intensity of a dance piece and its development over time
Do not insist on what you want to see on stage when you are working on a scene. Instead, focus on how you feel when you watch it for the first time in context, without any additional explanation. If it doesn't have the effect you are looking for, change the structure. The same scene might work really well somewhere else in the piece. If you are bound to a particular sequence of scenes, then you will have to consider altering the scene altogether.
Referencing the same subject matter in several scenes will require you to find different ways of expressing it during the dance piece.
Embedding your content differently into the structure does not mean you are being overly accommodating to your audience; it means that you are engaging it. That is an important difference. Have you ever watched a film that was so scary or suspenseful that you wanted to look away, but found couldn't? Your eyes were glued to the screen, even though the content made you feel very uncomfortable? If you are sucked up into the slipstream regardless of content, be it pleasant or jarring, that means the structure of the piece flows, proof of the artist's attentiveness to detail and craftsmanship. If a piece is badly structured, it will work against any quality you want to achieve, because you lose the audience’s attention. If you are afraid of being too accommodating to your audience, do not try to be jarring by employing a clumsy structure. Unleash all the emotional power of your dance vocabulary and its narrative possibilities by creating a structure that supports rather than hinders it.
Introduction
The audience want you to grab their attention. They arrive at the theatre with the whole world on their shoulders, and it takes a little time before they can prise themselves away from their thoughts and concentrate on your dance piece.
So, the first thing we need to consider is the introduction:
How do you introduce the piece?
How much time does the introduction need?
15 seconds? Ten minutes?
Do you introduce the characters individually or in groups?
How long should the introductory phase be?
Are you making a statement, are you postulating a thesis?
How will you bring your theme to the audience’s attention?
Middle section
The introduction is followed by the middle section which usually progresses through a sequence of of different parts that complement and contrast each other. This is where the piece gathers momentum and reveals its core, so be careful to avoid overly predictable dynamics. In other words, don't fall into clichéd patterns.
Questions to ask about the middle section of the piece:
How many elements make up the middle section?
Do these elements have a common denominator on a deeper level?
In terms of their dynamics, how do the elements contrast with each other?
Does the middle section go through some kind of progression?
Does it build towards a finale?
Finale
The finale needs careful planning, since it sets the mood in which your audience will leave the theatre. Make your conclusion clear and unambiguous. It strains the audience’s nerves to be tricked into thinking they are seeing the finale, ready to applaud, and to then have to sit through yet another and another scene.
Questions to ask yourself about the finale:
Do you want an open ending, a soft fading out, creating the illusion that the piece never really ends, or do you want a clear stop?
Does the piece end with the climax?
Can you identify aspects of the finale that set it apart from the rest of the piece?
How do you want to leave your audience - having reached a conclusion, looking to the future, or feeling euphoric?
Structural considerations
Structuring a dance piece
Naturally, it is difficult to work on one particular section of your dance piece and keep an overview of the entire structure at the same time. You could compare it to walking through a forest – when you are in it, it is really hard to tell where exactly you are in relation to the forest as a whole. But it would be much easier if you first sketched a map of the entire forest from a bird's eye perspective. Now, while a forest is a physical thing you can see and divide into individual parts, a dance piece is an entirely different matter. The problem is that, at the start, it is not there yet, and so it is not at all clear how it should be divided or structured. A very experienced teacher of improvisation once said to me, 'I get on very well if I prepare in great detail beforehand, and then don’t stick to it.' Were he not to prepare in advance, he would have no framework for his work. He knows he has something that he can fall back on, and that gives him freedom. He has a map of the terrain in the back of his head, which permits him to move unrestrictedly without losing his way. Structure is that map at the back of the choreographer’s mind.
Don't imagine the structure of your dance piece as a finished, rigid thing. Rather, think of it as provisional, mutable, flexible, otherwise it will rob you of all the creative opportunities that may present themselves along the way. In the end, it doesn't matter exactly how you manage your framework, as long as it works for you. You may choose to plan ahead every detail in advance, or to arrange the final sequence of your scenes the day before the opening night. What matters is that there is a solid framework at the core of the piece, because structure is key to whether your audience takes an interest in your work or not. If your piece is well-structured, you will capture your viewers’ attention, even if they are not particularly interested in the actual theme of you piece.
Two types of structure
Structuring in advanceStructuring as you goThe choreographer prepares a full structure for the entire piece and spends rehearsals developing the scenes.The choreographer develops material for each scene during rehearsals based on his theme and its associations, and then structures the scenes to form the piece.Structuring in advance
There is always some kind of material available to the choreographer before rehearsals start. Sometimes it is a piece of music, sometimes a literary reference or a theme. It may be a series of movements or an aesthetic concept or simply individual images in his mind’s eye. The question is to what degree you want to structure your material around a framework at this early stage. A framework has the advantage that it gives you a sense of direction in your own piece, which makes it easier to define goals connected to the dramatic arc of your piece, its form or aesthetics. You will see the dynamics of the dance and the scenes in front your mind’s eye, and then on paper, and you will be able to feel the necessary intensity of individual sequences or scenes in advance. Structuring your dance piece prior to starting rehearsals allows for a dialogue between the choreography and the subject matter. Also, having an idea of the necessary intensity of each scene will help you work out a suitable approach to developing scenes.
Creative goals in the dramatic arc suggest the choreographic approach required.
Structuring as you go
Many choreographers and companies refuse to be restricted by structure, choosing a purely associative approach to create scenes, dances, pas de deux, films and music to go with their theme. If you work within a pre-defined structure, you will find it harder to access things that fall outside of its confines. You may have richer material resources and a broader range of scenes available to you if you choose to forgo a structural framework and allow yourself to be inspired by the theme in an completely open way. The material you develop from theses inspirations can then be structured and linked together in a dramatic arc.
It does not matter which of the two structuring types you choose – what is important is to be aware of which approach you are working with. Be clear about whether you are freely developing material in the moment, irrespective of any dramatic arc, or whether you need to develop a form, dynamic or aesthetic of the piece to fit into a certain place in your dramatic arc. Being fully conscious of the working method you choose gives you a better hold on your piece and leads more quickly to satisfying results.
If you choose to structure your dance piece as you go, you will need to fit scenes and fragments within your dramatic arc.
The dramatic arc
Every piece, even if it is only a minute long, has a dramatic arc. During the dance, the audience’s level of attention will change, depending on the individual sections of the piece and their dramatic arrangement.
The effect of the sequencing of the scenes produces the piece’s dramatic arc (thick line).
Now, remember that whatever the audience sees just before and after any given moment within a dance piece as important as the moment itself, it is essential that a choreographer develops a sense of the whole. In order to consider one moment in relationship to the whole piece and to be able to properly visualise the dramaturgic dynamics of a piece, many choreographers and directors will sketch the dramatic arc out on paper, referring back to the drawing when they are working on a particular scene. The dramatic arc is always part of a stage performance, even if you don't pay any attention to it. Over the course of the show, the audience will experience moments of tension and relaxation. These moments that build or ease intensity can be visualised in the shape of a curve.
Experiencing time within a dramatic composition
Time is always relative. Measuring it means to abstract it from our experience. What we experience and label as 'real time'is purely subjective. Our emotional state determines how quickly time runs for us - a day can feel like a year, and an hour may pass in the blink of an eye.
In a dance piece, I create time. Since there is no such thing as objective time,
