Drama in Dance and African Influences

Today’s session started with the group going over duets, but this time Carla gave us specific characteristics to work with.  One dancer would be isolated, doubtful, and wanting to find a connection with someone, the other dancer, but doesn’t know how to fully explain his feelings.  The other dancer would be strong, determined, and also wants a connection but already knows how to go about forming one.  It made the duets have a lot more energy and created a wider range of dynamics. 

The main bulk of the class was taken up by learning a new routine.  The routine incorporated both contemporary and house techniques.  Again, emphasis was given on extension and grounding yourself in House/African technique.  In both Carla’s and Alexandra’s technique classes, a lot of emphasis is put on lowering yourself: “The ceiling has dropped” is said to us many times during our classes with Alexandra, and today Carla re-iterated that exact point – with this centre of gravity low to the floor, it makes everything have more clarity – there is more to see in a movement that is extended and low – stretched beyond what the anatomy of the body can do, as Francesca Castaldi states in her chapter, African Dance, Africanist Discourse, and Negritude: “represent the narrative themes of the dances to … and relate the dances to “life experience,” making the body bends “deeply rooted in society’s needs and objectives, clearly defined by each dance theme”” (Castaldi, 1999, p. 44)

To finish off this week, we were broken up into trios and were told to experiment with contact improvisation.  I was with a group with two other boys – Alex and Lewis.  We came up with an amazing set of high energy movement, with jumps leaps and throws, which for next week we were told to develop further.