The Essential Guide to Contemporary Dance Techniques E-Book

Melanie Clarke

• Herausgeber: Crowood
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 271

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

The Essential Guide to Contemporary Dance Techniques explores the multifaceted learning processes and underlying principles behind the technical skills and abilities of a contemporary dancer. The depth and complexity of this challenging sensorial, intellectual, reflective and creative process is presented with clarity, to support every training dancer in achieving the most from their learning experiences. Insights into three major technical forms: Graham technique, Cunningham technique and Release-based technique, reveal the distinct approaches, processes and experiences possible in contemporary dance training. Essential technical and performance considerations are covered, including: breath; alignment; core activation; connectivity; dynamic qualities of motion; use of the body; use of space; action and finally, relationships to the audience. With personal contributions from respected teachers at top dance institutions, this practical guide offers a unique insight into the expectations and processes of professional training classes as well as the success you can achieve with them. With images from real-life technique classes and dynamic performances, this is an essential companion for all contemporary dance students.

Leseprobe

The Essential Guide to

CONTEMPORARYDANCETECHNIQUES

Cunningham class featuring dancers Alice Lebant and Valeria Famularo; Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. Copyright James Keates.

The Essential Guide to

CONTEMPORARYDANCETECHNIQUES

MELANIE CLARKE

First published in 2020 byThe Crowood Press LtdRamsbury, MarlboroughWiltshire SN8 2HR

[email protected]

www.crowood.com

This e-book first published in 2020

© Melanie Clarke 2020

All rights reserved. This e-book is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication DataA catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 78500 700 2

CONTENTS

Dedication and Acknowledgements

About the Author

Introduction

1. Learning Contemporary Dance Technique

2. Essentials of Good Technique

3. Graham Technique

4. Cunningham Technique

5. Release-Based Technique

Appendix I: Techniques Quick Comparison Chart

Appendix II: Contributors

Glossary

References

Bibliography

Index

DEDICATION

For J and E: you can achieve whatever you work for.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

There are many contributors to this book whom I would like to thank: firstly, dance technique teachers working in high profile institutions have shared their practices to provide an insight into approaches to teaching and learning, as well as identifying what they consider to be essential features of contemporary dance techniques. All these contributors explore their practice from the perspective of teaching on Higher Education programmes in contemporary dance, and willingly entered into dialogue about their practices; more detailed biographical notes about them may be found in Appendix II.

I would also like to thank the following: the photographer, James Keates, who brought his expertise and open willingness to photograph real technique classes to produce images for this book. The dancers who participated in the photographed classes. Helen Thomas for sound advice, feedback and encouragement. Ruth Clarke and Tyrone Duff for constant support and belief in me (I could not have done any of this without you). In memory of my father, N. Clarke, who was a performer, and my grandfather, W.H.R. Evans, who was a teacher.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Melanie Clarke grew up in Stockport with parents who were both performers. She studied Musical Theatre at North Cheshire Theatre School from the age of four to eighteen. Her mum says that she did her first dance class at three but didn’t like it; however, at the age of four she asked to go back, and she hasn't stopped to this day. She discovered Contemporary Dance at fourteen, and at eighteen started the BA Hons Dance Theatre at Trinity Laban Conservatoire for Music and Dance (then the Laban Centre). Two years after graduating she returned to Trinity Laban to take on a Graduate Internship, and the year after joined the faculty whilst completing her Masters in Dance Studies, which included Dance Documentation and Reconstruction, Dance in Education, and Choreography.

She works as an independent choreographer alongside her teaching, creating, performing and touring works as a solo artist and alongside her company, bluewhite. She has created and toured eleven original works, and choreographed commissions for TanzTheatre Giessen and Trinity Laban.

At Trinity Laban she is currently Programme Leader for the Dance Diploma Programmes. She is a Teaching Fellow of Trinity Laban and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She teaches Release-based Technique and Choreological Studies, tutors students’ research, and choreographs new work.

Fig. 1: Melanie Clarke.JAMES KEATES

She has presented conference papers on Labanotation and applications of Laban’s theories. With Joukje Kolff she notated a score of Yvonne Rainer’s seminal work Trio A, which is available to loan from the Dance Notation Bureau in New York. Melanie reconstructed Trio A on dancers for the ‘Move Choreographing You’ exhibition at the Hayward Gallery in 2010.

INTRODUCTION

In this book the essential features of learning the technical skills to prepare to work in the contemporary dance genre, and the routes and pathways that this learning process could take are identified and highlighted. This book is written from the perspective of the training dancer – what learning to dance through a particular style and technique of movement might be like. It is not aimed towards establishing a series of ideals that the dancer must conform to, but to support an understanding of the learning situation in the context of its development and approach. The intention is to allow access to the requirements of different technique practices, but also an insight into the purpose of these processes.

The three exemplars of technical practices presented here will be analysed for their learning potentialities. The aim is to reveal a practice in terms of its origins and purposes, and its subsequent development as a methodology for passing on dance skills. The three technique forms are Graham Technique, developed by Martha Graham; Cunningham Technique developed by Merce Cunningham; and Release-based Technique developed by many dancers and somatic practitioners. These have been chosen from the plethora of possibilities for their distinctiveness from each other, and for the span of time that separates their development, Graham Technique emerging from the 1930s, Cunningham from the 1940s and Release-based from the 1980s. All these techniques are still practised, or still influence practices in the twenty-first century.

New techniques are emerging from the development of dance as an art form, and from the developing range of possibilities for movement creation and performance influenced and emerging from dance heritage, popular culture, globalization, the new understanding of the body and other artistic practices.

The three techniques outlined in this book attempt to delineate aspects of contemporary dance heritage and changes in practice that influence current higher education teaching programmes. The myriad unnamed practices of individual teachers have developed from a heritage that exists in and around these three exemplars. By understanding the distinctiveness of these three practices, an understanding of contemporary dance technique can emerge. Exploring and analysing these approaches will open up a reflective capacity, which can be applied to all dance experiences.

My personal understanding of contemporary dance technique comes from my own dance training and subsequent twenty years of professional practice as a teacher, dancer, choreographer and movement analyst. As a teacher of contemporary dance technique in higher education, I have reflected on, and researched around my experiences and approaches, and have discussed such teaching with colleagues and visiting artists. My approach to discerning my own practices, and those of others, comes from my embodied ‘knowing’ as a dancer, inter-related to my knowledge of two practices developed from the pioneering work of twentieth-century choreographer, teacher and researcher, Rudolf Laban.

Laban was an active researcher into dance and human movement, and he instigated methodologies for exploring and illuminating dance as a practice; these are Labanotation (the symbol system first conceived by Rudolf Laban in 1922, and developed as a comprehensive framework for movement analysis and recording), and choreological studies (the field of analysis of the structures of human movement, and the application of these to dance performance). These two approaches create a framework for understanding and articulating movement in ways derived from dance, rather than other areas of analytical study. Labanotation and choreological studies provide a lens through which dance practice can be illuminated, and a language through which it can be articulated.

The structure of this book is an example of one of these approaches, as a choreological framework is used. This field of study utilized Laban’s insight into the structures of human movement, to develop ways of understanding, analysing, exploring and creating dance as a performative act. The qualitative and intentional acts of movement emerge from the constants of the physics of the moving body within the environment of our world, but become embodied acts of communicative and expressive potential. Part of the dancer’s ability beyond the bio-mechanics of the body is the skill to select or manipulate movement to create a visual affect. This factor is what distinguishes dance from other physical activities, and allows for the title ‘performance art’.

Art is a created act, it is something that is made, and made to be viewed. The performative nature of the dancer’s skill means that achieving the physical requirements of the movement goes hand in hand with a performative approach, as dance is the integration of both. Using a choreological framework to view dance technique will highlight this relationship and integration, and make the discernment of the skill acquisition embodied in these practices accessible. Knowing what specific sets of skills are embodied in different practices can enable a clarity in what the dancer is trying to achieve and understand through them. The aim is to support the doing and knowing that comes from embodied learning.

CHAPTER 1

LEARNING CONTEMPORARY DANCE TECHNIQUE

THE EVOLUTION OF CONTEMPORARY DANCE

Contemporary dance is a broad and diverse art form despite its relatively short history. It arose in various parts of the world in the twentieth century as a liberation from the structures and aesthetic of ballet, as individuals searched for new forms of dance. As the body was freed from the corsets and morality of the nineteenth century, a more visceral and socially relevant theatrical performance became possible. Pioneers such as Ruth St Dennis and Ted Shawn, Rudolf Laban, Isadora Duncan and Loi Fuller worked to find new forms of theatrical expression, and instigated the foundations for a creative explosion in dance.

One hundred years later there is a wealth of avenues for movement exploration in terms of learning opportunities and creative possibilities. In the twenty-first century, individual expression, creativity and innovation are synonymous with contemporary dance as an art form. But what does that mean for the aspiring dancer? Dancing may be a spontaneous act of freedom of expression in everyone's life, but dance as an art form is a learnt and created act. Through educating ourselves in movement, we, as contemporary dancers, not only enable our movement possibilities to surpass the average, but we also develop our bodily awareness and understanding of movement.

Part of this learning is through contemporary technique classes, since, put very simply, learning a technique is learning a way to do things – providing yourself with the knowledge to be able to do something. But dance technique is not just one thing, but an array of approaches and methodologies akin to the array of artistic practices in contemporary dance. Dance technique is a physical learning process, and not only a bio-mechanical one. It is an experiential envelopment in a vast array of processes, practices, aesthetics and sensations.

LEARNING THROUGH EMBODIED PRACTICE

In contemporary dance educational programmes in the UK students usually do not study only one particular set of forms and structures – that is, one technique form – but have an experiential knowledge of diverse movement possibilities, and the particular application of these to diverse tasks and processes. Different schools, such as higher education conservatoires and university dance departments, approach this education in different ways. Many provide access to a range of techniques or a range of teachers with different backgrounds and approaches. Some programmes include supplementary training separate from what is called technique class, such as fitness classes, conditioning, Pilates, yoga, somatic practices, experiential anatomy. Improvization practices can be considered as technical training or as creative practice, or both.

Whatever the structural approach, as a dancer you have to discover yourself within the application of your bodily movement to the approaches presented to you. You need to learn, for example, how you can understand the sensations of your hip socket functioning, and how you use that embodied knowledge to move your legs and torso in particular ways in different practices, with different uses of energy in time and space for particular expressive or performative purposes that you generate or in which you find meaning. Not a simple task! It takes time and dedication to achieve this for every aspect of yourself as an integrated and performative whole. Although it can seem daunting at times, understanding what you are trying to achieve can help to make sense of the process of learning, and how you support yourself within it.

Fig. 2: Release class taught by Zoi Dimitriou, featuring dancers Alice Lebant, Valeria Famularo and Carolina Ravaioli; Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, London.JAMES KEATES

There are no direct pathways from learning one technical practice to performing within that style, so the contemporary dancer needs to be technically able, but also adaptable to current and future creative practices and performance modes in an open and ever-changing genre. The very open-endedness of contemporary dance as an artistic practice can actually throw into question what good contemporary dance technique even means, as it is not an end in itself. Current choreographic practices in contemporary dance utilize the performers’ creativity through improvization and task-based movement creation, and so often embodied creative decision-making can be desired as much as physical facility and/or a particular movement skill set.

The requirement to be not only a strong technician, but also a creative practitioner implies the possibility to use what is learnt in creative ways. Learning technical skills should then not prevent creative choice, but should enable the dancer to physically achieve the creative vision (which often evolves from creative processes) of others (or themselves).

Thus, learnt movement skills need to be open, accessible to creative exploration, and this requires education into movement potentials and physical strategies rather than the simple ability to repeat movement patterns. In other words, the steps, and picking up steps, is not the aim. Remembering movement phrases is a useful skill in the learning process, but it is not the goal. The ultimate achievement is to acquire body management and performance skills through experience. Experiencing dance is to use all aspects of yourself: you use the physical abilities of your body, the abilities of your brain for pattern recognition, retaining concepts, reflecting on experiences and connecting ideas together, and you use your personal approach to expression and communication.

Fig. 3: Students in a Graham class taught by Geneviève Grady, featuring dancers Kirbie Franks and Jessy MacKay; Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, London.JAMES KEATES

Knowledge and understanding comes from the integration of all these things within the experience of dancing. Dance practice is an embodied practice whereby you, as a whole person, are the thing you represent, the dance. What you gain in the practice of learning in, about and through dance is knowledge about yourself as a dancer, as well as dance as an activity and as an art form. The learning is not just the doing, but a reflection on how the dance is experienced to be produced by the dancer. You become the repository of all your learning and experience, and you can call on all, or any of that to facilitate your performative intention. In this way dance can be said to be an embodied practice.

Fig. 4: Floor exercises in a technique class, featuring dancers Anna Broome, Pagan Hunt, Federica Bertani, Mitchell Davis, Laure Dubanet and Alice Lovrinic; Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, London.JAMES KEATES

DANCE TECHNIQUE

Dance technique teachers have a responsibility to enable an education in dance, as well as the acquisition of physical skills and abilities – but how to do that is not set in stone. There are many named approaches to learning contemporary dance technique. Various forms of technique were developed through the twentieth century by particular artists with particular creative visions. Initially these technical forms were to establish an aesthetic basis for an individual’s choreographic practice, but these forms are still widely utilized in dance training as methods for accessing dance skills. Then dance technique practices arose that used an approach to technique teaching that was not attached to a choreographic vision. In the twenty-first century all styles of technical training are adapting to the demands of the profession in order to equip dancers with open technical skills and creative potentials.

Individual teachers have the possibility of developing a personal teaching approach, which means they do not have to teach as they were taught, but can themselves adapt and make choices to facilitate the learning of particular groups of individuals. Due to this professional freedom, dance technique forms are approached as a basis to teach from, rather than an imposed structure. Techniques are not historical records of previous choreographic styles, but working practices in the pursuit of dance skills. Given this variability on approach, student dancers are exposed to a range of practices and approaches. Experiencing differentiation in learning can support a dancer’s adaptability and creative potential.

However, it can make learning dance a complex and potentially confusing process. The contemporary dancer does not just need to execute different steps, but must be open to different approaches to learning, different physical sensations, and different performance modes. Understanding the background and aesthetic basis of different forms, as well as the approach to learning and performing embedded in the basis of different forms of technical practice, can support the learner to make these adaptations and access the broad perspective of contemporary dance.

In this book three distinct approaches to learning contemporary dance will be discussed: Graham, Cunningham and Release-based techniques. There are many different forms and practices of dance technique developed by choreographers or by teachers as methods of enabling dancers to experience particular ways of moving, and to gain skills. There can be as many approaches as there are teachers teaching them, as there is no set form for what contemporary dance is, and thus no one way to learn it.

Some technical practices have been used for many years by influential choreographers and teachers such as Merce Cunningham, Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, Jose Limon and Lester Horton, and their practices have become established as technique forms with designated names (usually the choreographer’s surname). Other practices, such as Release-based technique, are various in appearance but bonded by a set of principles. There are also approaches that are an amalgamation of ideas and methods by individual teachers, or new and emerging technical styles such as Flying Low and Gaga Technique.

Fig. 5: Dancer Anna Broome; Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, London.JAMES KEATES

Individual teachers are generally free to choose what and how to teach, and so each individual teacher’s approach can be distinct. Some follow a particular lineage and teach from a named perspective with a particular set of concerns, although how they go about teaching it will still be reliant on their personal experiences, and the context in which they relate to their students.

There is no syllabus for contemporary technique as there is for other dance forms, such as ballet and tap, through organizations such as The Royal Academy of Dancing (RAD) or the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing (ISTD). As previously stated, it is not a series of steps that you learn how to do. Rather, it is how you learn about how to achieve things with and through your own body. The goal is to enable and educate yourself in dancing. This can be a shift in thinking, as dance classes are not a place where you necessarily have to get it right. Instead it is a place where you can learn from mistakes, experiment, try different methods and approaches, and discover new things.

As you learn about yourself, as a mover, you start to realize the complexity of the resource you have; that is, yourself and the field of dance. Through the practice of technique class, you build awareness, and through this awareness you build skills, knowledge and values. You need to reflect (think deeply and carefully) on the process of learning and the sensorial experience of moving, and thus on your awareness of yourself as a learner and a dancer.

Reflective practice is about taking time to consider your experiences, and what you can glean from them; thinking about what has happened to you in your experiences and interactions with others may provide information about your learning preferences and reactions. How do you manage challenges, how do you deal with frustration, when is it easy for you to focus and stay motivated, and when is it difficult? By cultivating a self-reflective awareness you can develop effective learning strategies using a range of different approaches. Self-reflective awareness can support you in developing your personal autonomy and in taking ownership of your learning.

Fig. 6: Working autonomously, featuring dancers Kirbie Franks and Anna Broome; Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, London.JAMES KEATES

Fig. 7: Feeling yourself moving: Release class taught by Melanie Clarke, featuring dancer Luca Braccia; Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, London.JAMES KEATES

Sometimes these reflective experiences can be called the ‘toolbox’ – a set of open possibilities that can be combined, re-ordered, mixed up, integrated, to fit the circumstances. Toolbox is a useful metaphor, although it can imply that the skills are something separate from you, which of course they are not – dance knowledge is you: once you learn something through embodied experience you are changed, as you now incorporate that knowing in who you are as a person. Being open to the possibility of changing is therefore essential for learning. Gaining your embodied knowledge is facilitated by teachers offering you explorations and experiences based on the free sharing of their knowledge.

Your discernment in recognizing and appreciating the offering of your learning opportunities is a motivation for this book. You cannot be taught how to be the dancer you are, but you can have the techniques revealed to you that can enable you to embody intention without hindrance. Technique class is a preparation for dancing and an opportunity to dance. It is where you can build the possibilities to let the dancing emerge from you – to create it and express it. Dance is a way of being, a method of self-expression, a personal empowerment. There is a term called soma, which is the lived, self-aware body, the integration of all that constitutes a person as a physical being. Dance is a method of meeting yourself as a self-aware physical being, and from that place you can develop, transform, learn and change through conscious practice.

Different dance forms and techniques have distinct styles and performance modes. Individuals may have preferences for particular ways of moving based on their character and personal idiosyncratic movement preferences. Thus, understanding the particular movement choices and performance functions of different techniques can reveal the approaches within a technique which can affect the feeling state in the body when they are executed; this is why individuals may prefer certain styles to others, or may be more challenged by certain styles than they are by others.

Technique classes are the means to learn how to achieve dance, and should never be an endless repetition of unachievable steps. It is a means of moving towards enabling you to be an individual, and thus is a process of discovery that involves the whole person in a personal journey; it is a subjective (personal) experience, as we are it. Learning means gaining new knowledge, so a learning process is about exposing ourselves to things we don’t know, and gaining insight into them. This is very different from getting steps right. Aiming for accuracy is a good ambition, but correctness should not be the main, or only, criterion for success.

KNOWLEDGE AND COMMITMENT

One of the potential frustrations of learning dance technique is that you can’t just do the movement you want to do. You may make an approximation of something based on the embodied knowledge you already have, but that means you are re-enacting what you already know, rather than developing new skills. To develop new skills you have to find a way into opening up and utilizing possible functions of the body that you are not yet aware of. This often relies on a process of discovery that can take you out of the comfort of what you know you know, as you have to rediscover yourself in new ways in order to do new things in your own body.

Your teacher can support that process through structuring a learning journey over time, building up embodied knowledge and skills in order to make particular movements possible to achieve. They can also provide insights from their own acquired knowledge in how they learnt to understand how to create movement with their body. Ultimately, however, it is the student who has to do the learning, as it can only be subjective knowledge. As Release Technique teacher (with an MSc in Dance Science) Tina Krasevec says: ‘It is really up to them in creating this, it is not up to me to create this: they are really creating this, and I am just trying to support that.’1

Talent needs to be nurtured and pursued to really exist. No one is born a professional dancer; they may show aptitude, but it is a strong dedication and motivation to learn that enables aptitude to become manifest as ability. Likewise, creativity does not spring out of nowhere: rather it is the ability to use knowledge and skills in interesting and new ways. To create dance there needs to be a conscious decision-making process, and that implies some knowledge on the part of the maker. The gaining of knowledge takes focus and many hours of work; the deeper and more sophisticated the knowledge, the greater the choices and possibilities for the dancer. Learning processes take time – there is no quick route. A commitment to the process of learning over time is essential, so the motivation to learn must be strong.

Undertaking a focused, developmental approach to learning, facilitated by someone with greater knowledge, can be an efficient long-term process but can also feel somewhat removed from the ultimate goal. Understanding the need to build the foundations of movement knowledge, and refine the skills that underpin successful execution of movement, can often be the biggest hurdle to overcome when starting to approach dance learning in professional training. This process can happen at any time of life. There is a myth in dance training that you have to start young – in fact learning can happen at any time, it just takes time.

Fig. 8: Working your body, featuring dancers Kirbie Franks and Alice Lovrinic; Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, London.JAMES KEATES

Fig. 9: Positive learning environment, featuring dancers Alice Lovrinic and Rosemary Copp; Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, London.JAMES KEATES

The motivation to keep going is essential, and support, encouragement and access to quality learning experiences motivate the endeavour to continue. The length and depth of that learning process means dancers have to work safely and with attention to their health and well-being, alongside a commitment to physical work and mental focus. Understanding what you are trying to achieve in your technical practice can support a positive and healthy learning process.

CHAPTER 2

THE ESSENTIALS OF GOOD TECHNIQUE

Class is for the dancer to get to know themselves and how they work.2

EMBODIMENT

There are some fundamentals that underlie dance as a practice, and these are how we, as humans, are structured and function. A major feature of all dance practice is the fact that we have a particular structure to our body:

•Our eyes are at the front

•We have verticality, as we walk upright on two feet

•We have two symmetrical sides

•We have dexterous arms and hands that allow us to manipulate our environment

•We have skeletal, muscular, organ, fluid and fascial systems and functions that give us our shape and movement potentials

•We have bodily processes such as respiration, circulation and digestion

•We have senses that bring us information about the external environment – our exteroceptors

•We have senses that allow us to sense ourselves from the inside, through internal perception, so we feel our basic emotions such as hunger, we feel our relationship to gravity, and feel ourselves moving by sensing the positioning of our bones and the tones within our musculature. These are our interioceptors

•We have energy to use, but we also require recuperation

•We exist in gravity

•We always need to support our weight in gravity

•If we let go, we move downwards

•To go up and counteract gravity we need force. We can use force to jump, but then we will come down again

Because of these things, human movement works in particular ways. We have our bodily structure, our anatomy, and a physiology, which is how it functions, and we use a certain force to move in gravity (assessing this use of force is biomechanics). The combination of these things gives rise to certain constructions for human movement, which we all learn through experimenting with movement as we grow as children, so we learn through experiencing with our integrated mind and body.

Dance learning works in the same way: we learn through doing, through experience and practice, enhanced and supported by a questioning and seeking outlook. By seeking to learn what we do and how we go about it, can change us. We can change and expand our understanding and our physical capabilities. Our learning is embodied, in that once we gain understanding/experience of something it makes us different; our body can change, our mental pathways and connections can change, and our interactions with our environment can change.

Bodily movement is normal: we are all built to move, but due to that normality the process of movement is forgotten and becomes merely an unconscious background to our lives. Dancers reawaken the conscious awareness of their movement capabilities, and they develop their expertise in dance through using the learning capabilities and possibilities that exist in and through ourselves as embodied people. This learning process involves the whole person in an integration of mind and body, through doing, sensing, feeling, reacting, responding, reflecting, and so on. We also function as social beings who communicate with each other, and our social interactions are also structured. How we interact with others is a form of communication: we understand people by observing their movements, as much as anything else, and we ourselves are observed by others.

Fig. 10: Cunningham class taught by Hannah Cameron, featuring dancers Lewis Sharp, Aisha Stanley, Jessica Chambers and Holly Smith; Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, London.JAMES KEATES

As dance is not just a physical exercise, but a social and communicative expressive form, becoming aware of ourselves as embodied beings within our social environment is a big step in gaining dance technique. We learn to use ourselves as individual people, as the medium for our practice requires a self-knowledge that infuses the learning process as much as our individual performance. We learn in group contexts, and we learn through collaboration, observation and interaction as much as through practice and direction.

Fig. 11: Partnering in motion: the head-tail connection. Release class taught by Melanie Clarke, featuring dancers Alessandra Ruggeri and Luca Braccia; Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, London.JAMES KEATES

Fig. 12: Class practice. Technique class taught by Hannah Cameron, featuring dancers Jessica Chambers and Alisha Stanley; Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, London.JAMES KEATES

The main aim of technique is to learn how to integrate movement intention with execution, so we can do what we decide we want to do. This involves understanding movement and how to achieve it, which involves an integration of the awareness of the sensation of motion with the result of motion, but also an understanding of how the result of that motion will be seen by others.

In order that you can become a creative dancer you need to gain knowledge of yourself and of the medium of dance. Understanding the constructions of dance as constructions from the patterns and structures of human movement can enable understanding and choice-making in performance. These structures may be shared, but simultaneously everybody is different. Relating the ideas and structures to the reality of your bodily experience allows you to assimilate information within the internal sensorial experience of moving.