She doesn’t typically give her students counts, so when she does, she does so for a reason, she reminds them. Sometimes she’ll sing-song music to help students hear different layers and rhythms. She’ll ask questions such as “what if you danced the way this person is singing?”, “what’s the dynamic and emotional quality of this music?”. Jackson will also push students to explore different ways of relating to music, whatever it might be. She emphasizes how she starts guiding her students to tap into their musicality right from the start of class, in isolations, through progressions (“across-the-floor”) into the combination (and improvising to the music before learning it!). “Sometimes we’ll just play!” she says joyfully. Jackson will also have students dance the same choreography to a different song – pushing them to see how certain movement relates to (or diverges from) two different sets of rhythms, tones, and aural atmospheres.īarker does a sort of inverse of that: varying up isolation movement phrases in her warm-up to the (mainly, sometimes with new songs here and there) same music. For example, one week they danced to a funky and syncopated James Morrison song, and the next a more mellow Mumford and Sons song (where the music was also more background than driving the movement). Mindy Jackson, contemporary teaching artist (STEPS on Broadway), consciously offers her students different styles of music and ways of relating to music week to week. One at a time, they can be digested and enjoyed a lot more easily Elements of dance Try out movement with different types of music, as well as different ways of understanding the musicality at hand – explore! This is what Nicole Ohr, NYC-based tap teaching artist, calls taking “one bite at a time” when learning – a great dance tip! From choreography to musicality to various qualities of the movement, there are many different bites to take. Usually, before long, they’re improvising in the ways that she’s looking for. Her example opens a door for them, a door to moving as their own authentic selves. “What’s your movement? That’s what I want to see.” In those cases, she’ll jump in and improvise with her students. “I want to see more than step-touching,” she says with a laugh. "Limits and structures can help us avoid falling into the same ruts of how and what we create." - Mindy Jacksonīarker has found that, at times, students can feel awkward when asked to improvise – looking at each other and step-touching to whatever rhythm they hear. Improvising allows them to experience the music, and how it feels to move to it – with its tonal, rhythmic, and emotional layers – before she adds the physical and mental challenge of learning choreography. She finds that students are so anxious about dance technique and learning the choreography that they get disconnected from the music and the truth of the movement: that “heartbeat” she wants them to find. This approach also helps students to find “freedom” in their body, the kind of freedom that’s essential for authentic musicality and overall dance artistry, Barker believes. To her, that helps students find the “heartbeat” of the song – the same “heartbeat” that’s in the movement that she’s about to give them. Sheila Barker, NYC-based jazz teaching artist (Broadway Dance Center, Marymount Manhattan University), has her students improvise to music before she teaches choreography – the same music to which she’s set that choreography. To get you started, here are four approaches for doing just that! Find musicality first Improvise before layering in choreography. Never fear – it’s a skill that can be worked on, just as we work on our tendus and pirouettes. One could even argue that it’s an essential skill for a stable, sustainable career as a dance artist. Music isn’t a requirement of dance as an art form (a lot of wonderful postmodern dance work has a score of silence, for example) – but it can contribute to process and product in unparalleled ways.įor all of that to materialize, however, dancers need to have a strong sense of musicality: an ability to dance in ways that meet the music at hand, resulting in a deeper illustration of concept, atmosphere, or simply the beauty of the movement.Īs such, many choreographers, casting directors, and producers look for dance artists with a mature sense of musicality. Musicality is an element of dance that’s key to artistry, and – sometimes – even our fundamental enjoyment – of dance. It often, though not always, shapes the concepts and qualities of the dance art that we create and present. Music: it inspires us and (literally) moves us.
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