ELEMENTS OF DANCE

Body: Who dances? The Dancer!

Imagine a body moving with rhythmic purpose and motions, usually performing to music. That’s dance. Sounds simple, right? Dance critic Walter Terry.

Action: The Dancer does what? Moves!

___________ is any human movement involved in the act of dancing. What do dancers do? They move—this is the action they perform.

Non-locomotor or axial movement

Any movement that occurs in one spot including a bend, stretch, swing, rise, fall, shake, turn, rock, tip, suspend, and twist.

Locomotor movement

Any movement that travels through space including a run, jump, walk, slide, hop, skip, somersault, leap, crawl, gallop, and roll.

Space: Where does the dancer moves? Through space!

We’re not talking about the final frontier here! We’re talking about where the action of dance takes place. Dance moves through space in an endless variety of ways.

Level

Is the movement on the floor or reaching upward? Are they performed high, medium, or low?

Direction

Does the movement go forward, backward, sideways, right, left, or on a diagonal?

Place

Is the movement done on the spot (personal space) or does it move through space (general space, downstage, upstage)?

Orientation

Which way are the dancers facing?

Pathway

Is the path through space made by the dancers curved, straight, or zigzagged? Or is it random?

Size

Does the movement take up a small, narrow space, or a big, wide space?

Relationships

How are the dancers positioned in space in relationship to one another? Are they close together or far apart? Are they in front of, besides, behind, over, under, alone, or connected to one another?

Time: How does the Body Move in Relation to Time?

Choreographers have to make decisions about timing. Are their movements quick or slow? Are certain steps repeated in different speeds during the work? If so, why?

Clock Time

We use __________ to think about the length of a dance or parts of a dance measured in seconds, minutes, or hours.

Timing Relationships

When dancers move in relation to each other (before, after, together, sooner than, faster than).

Metered Time

A repeated rhythmic pattern often used in music (like 2/4 time or 4/4 time). If dances are done to music, the movement can respond to the beat of the music or can move against it. The speed of the rhythmic pattern is called its tempo.

Free Rhythm

A rhythmic pattern is less predictable than metered time. Dancers may perform movement without using music, relying on cues from one another.

Energy: How? The Dancer moves through space and Time with Energy!

So now we have bodies moving through space and time. Isn’t that enough? Not quite. We need the fifth and last element of dance—__________.

Attack

Is the movement sharp and sudden, or smooth and sustained?

Weight

Does the movement show heaviness, as if giving into gravity, or is it light with a tendency upward?

Flow

Does the movement seem restricted and bound with a lot of muscle tension; or is it relaxed, free, and easy?

Quality

Is the movement tight, flowing, loose, sharp, swinging, swaying, suspended, collapsed, or smooth?