With reference to practitioners individual philosophies of dance training and your own practice, select an exercise sequence and analyse how this can be achieved.

University Degree Creative Arts and Design

Dance Technique incorporates more than athletic ability. A dance technique class aims to build physical expertise while simultaneously developing artistic comprehension and sensitivity.

Use information discussed in lectures as a guide and reading to support you analysis and discussion.

The statement above is both right and wrong. Dance is an art and some form of technical ability is required. But do technique classes look at purely athletic ability and should performance qualities be part of the lesson and vice versa? And what is athletic ability? Cardio-vascular, isometric and isotonic strength are the three key athletic strengths, but Sylvain LaFortune asks “if strength, what kind of strength? What kind of stability? Speed? Flexibility? Cardiovascular?” (Not Just Any Body 2001:84) In this case athletic ability under dance techniques can be all of the above and more.

Also it is important to think about how technique classes may be different to the performance and rehearsal classes. In a performance the adrenaline rush can cause a certain something extra to appear, something that is almost impossible to recreate in a technique class.

To look at this further, the broad varieties of technique classes will be separated in this essay. Modern and Classical philosophies will be subdivided into Graham and Cunningham technique and the Classical classes of Balanchine, the British Theatre Dance Association (BTDA) and Checcetti. Graham and Cunningham techniques are popular modern techniques and many institutes use their class formations today. The BTDA is an established syllabus in the UK and Balanchine has created one of the most important classical dance companies in the USA. Checcetti is a technique widely used across the UK particularly in dance colleges. Personal experiences in the above and other techniques studied will be spoken about especially contemporary classes at higher education. Comparisons will be made in hope of understanding the essay statement.

To finalise an analysis of an exercise sequence taught at the University of Wolverhampton, Dance Studies, Technique One class will be made with reference to technique classes looked at in this essay.

A Balanchine technique class is a perfect example of when artistic comprehension is developed along with technical expertise, even possibly more that athletic ability.

Nothing in a ballet class is for your health; nothing is for the stretch in it. It’s for the beautiful movements that we can learn to make… if you want to stretch and feel good, go to the health club, do a Pilates class, get a massage – that’s fine!

Balanchine in Schorer 1999:30

The dancers were expected to be fully warmed up before class and Schorer describes the purpose of class to give their movements “the qualities required for a beautiful and interesting performance” (Schorer 1999: 22)

The goals were refinement, control, articulation, and the highest possible levels of skill and finesse, all aimed ay making real, if only briefly, the idealized beauty of the human body

Schorer 1999: 22

However, as well as making movement beautiful, Balanchine also looked at technique in great detail – it is from the technique that the beauty comes. His classes were not planned; instead he concentrated on elements that needed perfecting, usually from watching the previous night’s performance. In and “ideal” class, Balanchine would teach a class that would “include many variants of each step”. But as an “ideal” class was not always practical he would concentrate on just a few elements, leaving others for another day.

Although executing technical exercises will increase athletic ability ...

This is a preview of the whole essay

Schorer 1999: 22

Although executing technical exercises will increase athletic ability and strength, it is clear that this was not the primary aim of Balanchine. His classes were to practise making beautiful movement – not developing athletic strength.

The British Theatre Dance Association was founded in and I studied their syllabi for over ten years in ballet, modern, acrobatics and tap. The ballet grading system starts with prepatory, primary and Introduction to Grade 1 aimed more at the younger beginners (up to ten years) and then Grade 1 through to 5, followed by Pre Elementary, Elementary, Intermediate and Advanced for the more experienced dancers. Grade 5 must be obtained before Pre Elementary examinations can take place, each grade being taken in progression there after.

At the Kim Perkins School of Dance, where I studied, each class was the same each week. The exercises up to Grade 5 consist of bar work, port de bras, adage and allegro. The bar work concentrates on the technical aspect, each exercise short, not too complex and performed on both sides. The port de bras becomes more artistic as it progresses up the grades, starting with a simple transition from low first to first, opening to second and then back down to low first, the higher grades including Grande port de bras over the front leg and more elaborate use of the upper back. The adage and allegro look at individual technical aspects, with a repetition often being made. A dance is choreographed by the individual teacher, which consists of elements studied during the class.

When and examination is taken only five marks out of 100 can be awarded for performance presentation. However, although it is principally the technical quality considered, during the dance artistic values can increase the mark out of ten.

From the information above it is possibly true to say that the technique classes by the BTDA do not incorporate equal amounts of athletic and artistic expertise. The emphasis is more on the athletic strength.

However, this is not true on all ballet syllabi. An observation of a Royal Academy of Dance (RAD) technique class is quite different, predominantly the bar work. Each exercise appears as a short dance, the technical aspect supported by port de bras, and more often than not the exercise is finished away from the bar. The grading system is different from the BTDA, with 8 grades plus advanced levels, which can be taken adjacently.

Another Ballet technique I studied for a short period is Checcetti at Stratford Upon Avon College. Unlike BTDA the emphasis is more on the alignment of the upper back, shoulders and head as well as the arms. Whilst executing each exercise it is taught that if the performance was convincing errors in technique might go unnoticed. But not only is the positioning taught but the reason why is taught also. Ballerina’s used to flirt with the rich men who would buy the balcony seats and the positioning of the head could increase eye contact with them.

Although the class is exhausting, athletic ability in the form of cardio-vascular strength is not pushed until the latter quarter of the class, yet strength in the isometric sense is worked on consistently. This was mainly in arabesque and developé exercises, where there is a necessity to lift the leg that little bit higher. From this it is possible to say that Checcetti technique does incorporate a lot more than just athletic ability.

The Modern technique of Martha Graham is “to train the body as to make it possible any demand made upon it by that inner which has the vision of what has to be said” (Graham in Cohen 1974: pg139). She describes the training of a dancer as “two fold”. Both the physicality and mentality have to be developed to make a mature dancer, over an approximate ten-year period.

First comes the study and practise of the craft which is the school where you are working in order to strengthen the muscular structure of the body. The body is shaped, disciplined, honoured and in time, trusted. The movement becomes clean, precise, eloquent, truthful.

Graham in Carter 1999:66

This athletic strength is important in order to allow the “inner movement” to flow through. Graham believes that dance is not created; it is already inside the dancer, often through “blood memories”. In I am a dancer (Carter 1998: pg 66) Graham describes one of her male dancers as not being able to be still, “he’s got the essence of a man’s inner life that prods him to dance”.

The second part of becoming a dancer looks at the mental development and from the need to dance.

Then comes the cultivation of the being from which whatever you have to say comes. It doesn’t come out of nowhere, it comes out of a great curiosity

Graham in Carter 1999:66

This is something that cannot be taught in a technique class, it is something that is developed naturally over time. But although her work was different at the time it was first performed, with her use of contraction and release technique, she did want her style to be beautiful.

And there is grace. I mean the grace resulting in faith… faith in life, in love, in people, in the act of dancing.

Graham in Carter 1999:66

Cunningham, a student of Graham, describes her classes as being repetitive. “They mostly thought to repeat the same thing” (Cunningham 1991: pg64). However, her classes were serious yet enjoyable.

As for discipline, she likes to think of it in St Augustine’s words, as “the regality of order”. “Technique” she says, “is a joy and a terror, a bore at times and necessity always. Those who do not have order and discipline can never be dancers.”

Mazo 1993:199

From this it can be said that Graham’s technique classes looked more at the athletic ability rather than aesthetic skills, yet sensitivity towards the movement is a necessity when performing Graham’s work.

Each Movement has an emotional meaning as well as a physical one

Mazo 1993: 157

A Cunningham technique class begins with the back, then followed by the legs. The arms are added but as they are easily move, Cunningham prefers to keep them still.

Cunningham works predominantly with the whole back, a great deal of work appears to be aimed at the more immobile lower back, but Cunningham is trying to work the connection between the back and legs.

I thought to try to make a connection between the back and the legs, rather that simply letting the legs go. You use the spine and pull the back using the muscles in the back which people rarely use. That’s why everybody has back trouble.

Cunningham 1991:60

From this comment it is possible to say that a Cunningham class works on athletic ability – strengthening the back muscle. But it is important to understand that Cunningham technique is about the movement, unlike Graham. For Cunningham, the beauty is in the movement and what the body can do.

Its seems to be one of the directions technique could go further or change, it’s not a question of aesthetics, but a question of what the body can do.

Cunningham 1991:64

Jacqueline Lesschaeve describes the final part of the class as “rhythmically very difficult” (Cunningham 1991:64). This develops the dancer’s rhythmical ability, as Cunningham does not use conventional counts in his choreography, unlike Graham.

Although the actual class is based more on strength building and flexibility, this is the artistic quality Cunningham desires of his dancers, and so Cunningham technique fits with the essay statement.

At Stratford-upon-Avon College, the Contemporary classes looked at different aspects of modern dance. Stamina in cardio-vascular strength was worked on a great deal in the eight-minute warm up, which was often done twice, whilst it was required to “perform” it. Flexibility was improved in leg swings, isometric and isotonic strength was increased, particularly in the abdominal muscles. Repertoire by various practitioners including Robert Cohen, Lea Anderson and Christopher Bruce are taught so that different performance aspects were learnt.

In assessments, performance skills were a major consideration; a confident dancer with artistic appreciation of the movement with an average technique could gain equal marks as a highly technical dancer with a lack of performance quality.

Classes at the University of Wolverhampton are quite different in some ways yet the same in others. There is not so much of an emphasis on all round athletic strength, but performance qualities are discussed and taught more.

“The Fives” is an exercise taught at the University of Wolverhampton Dance Studies Year 1 Technique Class. It is performed to a piece of music in 5/4 timing at a moderate tempo. It is a fusion between Cunningham and Graham technique and therefore it is appropriate to this assignment. The key to this exercise is getting past the “mechanics” of the movement; it needs to become “embodied” so that it can be performed freely. It is this performance direction and the use of 5/4 music that gives it the Graham feel. The use of breath is another technique Graham used to enhance her performances and quick breath can speed up the movement, particularly when the position goes from a high rise with the arms up into a deep plie in second with the arms crossing from high to a broad second, making it sharper. However the lack of contraction and release techniques pushes it away from Grahams style. Cunningham technique is present in the use of the spine twisting in one section, with the legs working individually from the torso – the arms are still in a broad second, the feet move to first in a turned out position, as the right leg tendus the spine twists to the right, the hips staying central and the arms and shoulders in a fixed position.

There are many reasons and skills that this exercise looks at. First of it encourages the brain to work in five rather than the usual four or three beats in a bar that dancers are used to working with. Another skill is embodying the movement so that it is performed from the inside out. Also there are the technical elements of turnout, tendus, chassés, quick devlopés and extension of the foot, plus balance and overall control in the abdominal muscles. Dennie Wilson, Dance Studies lecturer at the University, has explained that, unlike Balanchine’s beliefs, the movement should be enjoyed. The twisting in the hips, the extension in the legs, the movement out of the dancers personal kinesphere in the rond de jambe section, the speed in the double turn at the end. By repeating it on the other side it becomes more embodied and the skill of being able to repeat things on the opposite side is practised.

This is a good exercise to show how dance technique incorporates more than athletic ability.

From all of the above information it is possible to conclude that dance technique classes do incorporate more than athletic ability, it is just in varying degrees. Although there are many other techniques and teachers, it is quite possible to say that performance and artistic values are taught in some way in all classes. The idea of a class is to develop a technique of some form, which can then be incorporated into choreography, which is then performed as an art. The emphasis in a class may not be on the beauty of the body, the inner feelings or the sparkle in the eyes but without artistic sensitivity and apresiation the art of dance cannot be enjoyed.