Dance Lecture

Well, I had to skip out of lecture a bit early on Wednesday because I wasn’t feeling to good and didn’t want to share my illness with fellow classmates (in more ways than just one!!!). Since I had to leave during the second have of class, I am unsure whether we got into the theater portion of the lecture. I sure hope not because theater is one area of humanities that I have actually have an interest to learn more about. I am not saying that other areas of the humanities are boring or unnecessary; it is just that I can sit through a theater performance and feel comfortable being there and actually enjoy. What I did enjoy learning about dance is the elements that are involved in dance and being able to recognize those elements in dance such as the Thriller music video that we were able to critique. We can see these elements in the most primitive forms of dance such as in native tribes who still use dance to tell stories of their tribe. Most often, they are able to use the organized movement of their bodies to teach the youth of their tribe of their traditions and the history of their tribe. If you are able to see a tribal dance, you can see that there is usually a narrative message involved in the dance. The dancers are interacting with each other or the audience in order to convey their message. The dancers usually have painted up bodies as well as dressed up in any ritual clothing involved in such dance. One dance that comes to my mind it the war dance of the Polynesian people since we see this type of dance at football games. Right off from the dance, you can tell that the dance is used to intimidate the opposing tribe or team or what ever it may be. It seems to be a very precise dance in which all the dancers are able to yell in sync as well as dance in sync. It is a very emotional dance and this is usually portrayed in the faces as well as the fast and physical movements of the dancers. The in sync yelling and movements convey a sort of brotherhood that exist between the dancers as if they are all together to fight for the same cause. I am not sure as to whether this would be done to any music or drum beat but I think that they yelling among the dancers adds enough to the dramatic elements of the dance. This is just one of many examples of how the elements of dance are included in even the most primitive forms of dance. In fact, I believe that dance may have been one of the first areas of the humanities to be developed. I am not sure if the book mentions this anywhere or mentioned in the lecture but it seems that it would make sense. There is no instrument needed in order to develop dance unlike the other forms of art. A beat may be needed in order to get the body moving but this usually can be provided by relatively anything you can beat together. In fact, dance may have even provided the influence needed to develop instruments. We often see other forms of art and styles build off one another so this surely could be one good conclusion (just a thought).
What is also interesting about the elements of dance is that when an individual or individuals participate in dance, they don’t have to think about including all the elements of dance in their routine. Dance seems to naturally include these ideas or people just naturally involved the elements of dance in their routine. I mean, do you think that a tribal dance was developed around the elements of dance. I highly doubt it. Therefore, I believe dance can be one of the easiest and universal forms of arts. It is easy for us to connect with dance and understand the movements of dance because we experience those forms of movement on a regular basis.