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WORLD DANCE TRAVEL DIARY

Topics 5 and 6:

Afro-Cuban Dance

Latin Dance

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Topic 5: Afro-Cuban Dance

For this week’s workshop on Afro Cuban dance with Yasim Coronado Veranes, I was unfortunately unwell and unable to physically participate in the workshop. However, I learnt a lot about the cultural practices that guide this style of dance, making it one of the most educationally rich workshops throughout this entire unit.

For lots of the other styles of dances that we have learnt throughout the semester there has been a lot of cultural and community connections to the origin of the dance, where we then learnt an ethnic/folk dance with the guest teacher. This Afro Cuban dance style the first workshop where the origins of this dance have had a really religious connection, that being to the African originated religion Santeria, which we learnt in the workshop was developed in Cuba and then brought to Latin America and the United States. As this style did originate in Cuba, there are a lot of Latin and influences in the style Yasmin taught us, as well as hip hop influences which we discovered during the lesson.

Reflecting on the physical aspect of this workshop, those Latin and hip-hop influences on this style became clear when observing how Yasmin’s body was working as her instructed the class. The Latin style became clear in the use of the upper body, where there was a lot of rounded movements in the torso and hips, and especially the arms. This rounded arm movement I learnt was to mimic the movement of a traditional skirt thought could be worn during the performance of this genre of dance. The hip hop influence became more clear in the lower half of the body and the way that was used, being that the steps were very grounded, keeping the knees bent and the weight over the toes, similar to a lot of the ‘break’ style movements in hip hop.

The religious and cultural aspect of this lesson’s dance genre were what made it so interesting, rather than the physical aspect, which had been what drew me in to previous world dance styles. Learning about the Santeria religion and the deities, known as Orishas, that they worship made the meaning of this dance much more interesting as it became very clear that these dances can have great significance in the life of a person following the Santeria religion. While I learnt that there can be a strong spiritual meaning to the Afro-Cuban styles, whereby the spirit of their chosen Orisha feeds into the person and the moves represent that deity, there are also secular version of these dances which can be participated in by anyone. I found this very interesting as I had never heard of dance styles having different ways of performing, where they are controlled by religious practices. While my physical wellbeing hindered me from participating int his class I enjoyed learning about the history and cultural practices of Afro-Cuban dance immensely.

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Topic 6: Latin Dance

Our sixth and final topic, Latin Dance has been very fun and engaging to learn about over the last couple of weeks. Much like the other styles of dance we have learnt in this unit, I had not had any previous learning experience in this style until this semester. However, I did have a small intro to the Latin dance styles of samba and salsa, also with Rachel also for another unit, so being able to get a further look into these styles has been really exciting.

Latin dance has been very interesting to learn about due to the different cultural aspects that influence each difference style depending on where the dance and music originated from. Before we learnt any of the steps from the samba or salsa styles, Rachel would always take us through a really thorough warm up, ensuring the key parts of our bodies required for these styles were really stretched and ready, the hips and ankles in particular.  

After warming up our bodies, Rachel talked us through the step we were learning, breaking it down slowly while talking about the accentuated beats of the step and where pauses needed to happen to fit the rhythms. After learning the step without music, we’d try it at half speed with some music and then at full speed, which revealed something about my learning. For some of these steps, slowing them down and trying to do them at half speed was challenging as I had to think harder about where everything needed to be placed in order to perform the step correctly, I felt this type of challenge on our basic salsa step where a clockwise turn was incorporated on either the forward or backward step. I felt this one much easier to coordinate when done at full speed, on top of this I was able to get my body into the groove of the music and rhythm more when I didn’t have to think as hard about my steps and just let the music take over. On the other hand, for a step like the square formation step, also in the salsa style, doing this step at half speed gave me greater control over where to step and how to place my feet throughout. When it came to doing this step at double time or full speed, I found myself getting tripped up by my own feet multiple times.

Towards the end of our workshop focussed on salsa, Rachel gave us the opportunity to put all of the foundational steps we learnt together in our own time and order to have solo dance and really work on musicality, which I found to be a very enjoyable way to end the workshop, putting what we learnt into practice. I felt there were strengths and weaknesses in some of the steps in both styles for me, but Latin dance was a challenge that I found rather enjoyable and would potentially look further into after the completion of this unit.

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WORLD DANCE TRAVEL DIARY

Topics 3 and 4:

Chinese Dance

Indian Dance

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Topic 3: Chinese Dance

For my next World Dance workshop, we dived into the culture and style of Chinese ethnic/folk dance, led by QUT alumni, Hsin-Ju Chiu. In this workshop we learnt a short routine that was based off a traditional looking picture of two ladies dancing, each shown in different, but beautiful and intricate looking positions.

For our warm up we made sure to really warm up the legs and wrists, as a large part this style of dance requires a lot of bending at the knees, placing one leg against the other, and lots of difficult positions with the fingers and hands, so ensuring we danced safely was super important. During this warmup we also learnt some of the placements of the feet for the dance, I found these quite challenging as some of them are very similar with just one element changed, or require great balance to maintain sustain them, for the full length of that move.

Hsin-Ju, explained that there was 10 moves we would be learning and that they would increase in difficulty as we went along. After learning the first movement I became nervous as to how difficult number 10 would be if this is how intricate number one was. The most intensive part of these earlier moves was the placement of the fingers, an element of dance I have not had a great deal of exposure to before in Western dance styles. We learnt two different hand positions known as orchid hands, we used these multiple times over the course of the dance that we learnt. I found both of these gestures challenging as this is not an element I am used to doing in my dance training, and trying to coordinate all of my fingers to do something different at once, and then hold them in that position was particularly difficult.

The next greatest challenge was the element of creating shapes with the body and pushing my body into unusual positions. The main shape we were trying to create with our bodies was this curved shape using the hips and upper body, by pushing them in different directions. This was also rather difficult, as these positions were often created while standing only on one leg, meaning I needed to hold my balance while creating this shape with my body. We were fortunately given many opportunities to practice over the workshop, and I was able to find a comfortable position where I could evenly distribute my weight on each side, resulting in greater balance.

This workshop was truly very interesting and rewarding for myself as I enjoyed the context behind the dance we learnt, while learning a new dance technique specific to this genre, being the use of the fingers as well as the hands. This dance style also featured a lot of symmetry in that the steps were always performed on both sides, and I found this to be very beautiful not only to watch Hsin-Ju demonstrate, but also perform myself.

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Topic 4: Indian Dance

For our Indian Dance topic, we had dancer and choreographer Asha Shah lead us in a Bollywood dance workshop. Asha taught us a Bollywood dance, we she described as being part classical Indian dance, part folk dance, while partly including western influences such as hip hop and jazz.  I quickly learnt that this style of dance is very fun, exciting and energetic and requires a lot of stamina, as even the warm-up that Asha guided us through was quite intensive and upbeat. I felt as though this Bollywood style dance requires a lot of physical and mental energy to complete and perform well, as it requires coordination and stamina for the whole duration of the dance.

One of the classic Indian dance styles, Bharatanatyam, which we learned about is broken up into 3 components: expression, melody and rhythm, and while we didn’t learn this exact style of dance I believe that all three of those elements were super important to the Bollywood style dance that we did actually learn. Asha explained at the beginning of our workshop that we were using a very popular Bollywood song for our dance, as this song was very fast with a strong beat and liveliness to it, I found it very inspiring to help with my energy levels during the dancing.

The most challenging part of learning this style was about being able to use the whole body for all the steps, but at such a fast tempo while keeping up such high levels of energy. There was also a few steps that require the knees to be bent, in what we might call a demi plie position in ballet, and to sustain this bend while doing steps that move side to side; this proved very difficult to hold for that long period of time without needing to take a break, as I have not performed this kind of strength requiring step for as long as we were doing in this workshop. The other element of using the whole body which proved to be rather tough was trying to remember all the parts of the body that need to work together at the same time, to demonstrate the meaning of the step. One step may require that the feet, knees, hands, arms, shoulders and head all work at the same time for the meaning of the step to come across correctly. At the speed of the song we were dancing to, this requires great physical and mental energy to do correctly, as I previously mentioned.

Overall, while I found Bollywood dancing to be the most physically intensive, it was surely the most fun and energetic workshop I have participated in so far, and while many parts of this dance proved to be rather challenging, for the same reason they challenged me, these steps also made this dance so entertaining to learn about and perform in class.

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WORLD DANCE TRAVEL DIARY

Topics 1 and 2:

Indigenous Australian Dance

Polynesian Dance

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Topic 1: Indigenous Australian Dance

For the lesson on Indigenous Australian dance we attended a workshop led by Jeanette Fabila, a dancer, choreographer and performing artist who has worked with companies such as Bangarra Dance Theatre and specialises in Indigenous contemporary dance.

Jeanette started our workshop with an acknowledge of country, a very important step in recognising and paying respect to past, present and future custodians of the lands and understanding that this always was and always will be their country and we are just dancing on their land. Taking the moment to stop and reflect on this at the very start of the workshop sets up the tone for the whole lesson and helps us as students to understand the cultural importance of all the movements and dances we were about to learn.

The warm-up that Jeanette did with us began on the ground and was about connecting us with the land and making us feel grounded. I found this contemporary style of warm up rather challenging as it required of lot of strength in the body, using my core muscles to do the movements on the ground rather than my legs or arms. I also found this challenging due to the fact that I have less of a background in contemporary and am not used to that type of whole body movement, I also felt this way about the body roll up and down exercise we did next due to the tempo of the exercise. It required a lot of strength in the upper body and core to keep everything strong and smooth while doing the movement at such a slow pace.

Jeanette spoke to us about the dance of their totem, which she explained as being a spirit animal, where members of your family and/or community can see your spirit and associate with an animal. Being given the chance to pick an Australian animal that I felt represented me was a very spiritual and culturally opening experience for me as I do not come from a cultural background that uses such symbolism to create each person’s identity.

The most enjoyable part of this workshop was hearing about Jeanette’s experience teaching non-indigenous people about her culture and her dances and how she felt when they really connected with the meaning of the dance. She says that the dances are about the spirit of the culture and when non-indigenous Australians do it, it gives her great joy so long as they are doing it in respect of the culture.

The greatest takeaway I took from this workshop was the motto that Jeanette shared with us on considering indigenous culture from custodians and elders of this land, “look, learn, and listen to respect”, as I felt I gained so much appreciation for her dances and culture which I had previously little knowledge on.

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Topic 2: Polynesian Dance

In the self-directed Polynesian dance workshop I followed in week 3, I learnt a lot about the Hawaiian Hula and the Samoan Sasa dances. These two Polynesian styles of dance are very energetic and physically demanding but in rather different ways; the Hula in an upright position with a whole body approach including smooth and flowing arms and footwork compared to the Sasa in a seated position using lots of very fast and ‘striking’ arm movements and clapping.

I learnt that the Hawaiian Hula is known as the language of the heart and the movements come from the heart, and it is said that every part of the body needs to dance. I found this to be very true in learning the hula dance, it requires the whole body to move and is very physical demanding on the arms and knees. The physical demands of this dance however are very different to those of the Samoan Sasa, the former requiring lots of arm and feet coordination and making everything very large and smooth looking, and the latter being very fast paced with quick and intricate moves and clapping, which required a lot of focus and precision.

The hardest challenge I faced while learning the Hawaiian Hula would be the coordination of the arms and legs as well as the not knowing the meaning behind the movements. Neither the arm choreography or footwork was particularly challenging on its own, however both parts played a significant role in the overall dance and when pieced together proved rather challenging. This was due to my personal dance background coming from styles where one component is more important than the other one, which would play a supporting role in the overall vision of the dance. The other challenge I faced in this style was not knowing the cultural significance or meaning behind each of the steps, as I wasn’t familiar with the story behind it.

The challenge in learning the Samoan Sasa was entirely different to the Hawaiian Hula however, I was aware of the meaning behind the dance, a welcome style performance depicting everyday movements, specifically voyaging in this one. This made the significance of the steps clearer and more easily interpreted. The speed and intricacy of these steps was part I found very challenging and I have great respect for the dancers who do perform these dances frequently. Getting these moves correct at the right pace involved much more practice than what I had originally presumed about the dance, being that it takes place mostly seated.

Both Polynesian dances came with their own challenges and learning opportunities, but both were very enjoyable to gain a sense of the significance in their corresponding cultures. The grand and flowing movements of the Hawaiian Hula in comparison to the sharp and fast movements of the Samoan Sasa made for an exciting and varied workshop on these world dance styles.

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KDB210 DANCE COMPOSITION 2018

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Week 5/9 Tools

Audience Participation: audience participation is a really interesting way to make a performance very inclusive and engaging. It can completely change the mood and dynamic of the piece depending on how the audience collaborates with the performer.

Chance choreography: Chance choreography can be a wonderful tool to use when you’re stuck with what you’ve got, or to create something unique and nontraditional on the stage. I found it to be a really interesting concept, which while it won’t always be the best solution, could be very helpful for future use. 

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Week 5/9 Individual Work and Reflection

In both weeks 5 and 9, we all had a chance to work individually on our dance compositions, to test theories and ideas and get feedback from Steph and our peers. I originally went through many draft ideas before deciding on my final concept, these included the inspiration of wind, using the idea of a grid and being exploring confined by certain limitations. 

However none of these ideas were inspiring great movements or even ideas of movements. My final concept was to choreograph a few counts of 8, and have the an outside source completely determine the order in which I would perform these movements.

Steph helped me greatly to refine and perfect my idea by suggesting that it would be the audience to determine the movements rather than a soundtrack. I was greatly inspired by the workshops using chance, and also when we explored the relationship between audience and performer and the effect they can have on each other. So the idea of having the audience determine the order made me really excited to perform my piece. 

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Week 8 Tools

Iteration: The repetition of a movement or set of movements to create a motif or certain type of imagery. This can be really useful when presenting certain themes through performance, such as a fight. This links in with the accumulation tool which we explored in week 4.

Working with partners: As a dancer we need to be flexible not only in the genres of dance that we can perform but also with who and how we can perform. Partner work opens up a lot of opportunities to create intricate movements as well as large and dynamic steps for varying objectives.

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Week 8 - Choreography

This workshop was a very physically demanding workshop that was really fun and enjoyable. Starting with a really in-depth cardio warmup I was pushed to the edge, using my whole body to prepare myself for a good class on choreography and experimenting with movement. This class began with some individual choreography, in the contemporary style that I personally found really challenging. My whole body was always fully engaged in the movements and working very hard. Including a lot of floor work and body strength I did struggle slightly to keep up, but this class was a really great learning experience to have a deeper understanding of the contemporary style, and to manipulate my body in ways it hadn’t necessarily been used before.

After the individual choreography section, we got into partners and learnt some really cool and interesting partner work. Featuring repetition and steps of accumulation we created a piece of movement that almost looked like a fight scene and it was thought provoking and mentally challenging to remember the pattern. The second section of partner work was much more involved, and unique, featuring movements that I had never seen or thought of before.

Overall this workshop was incredibly interesting and challenging one of the most enjoyable ones all semester, I felt I gained new knowledge about a style that I was less familiar with, which will certainly help me in the future when it comes to working in different genres of dance.

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Week 7 Tools

Provocation: How else can we show emotions through movement? Is there a more in-depth and intricate way to explore human emotion through dance? How can we further our understanding of an emotion if we haven’t felt it per say? As dancers how can we express the human condition in our performances? Would this be easier solo or with a partner or group?

Principles of movement: Each genre of dance has a completely different set of basic moods set to them i.e. hip-hip might be confrontational and angry, ballet as soft and calm, jazz and exciting and happy. How could we use each style of dance in order to help us achieve the image of a certain emotion?

Emotion:

a strong feeling deriving from one’s circumstances or mood. Something that can be shown through different qualities of movement. Having the constraints of different emotions, changes the effect and aesthetic of movement.

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Week 7 - Inspired by Stimulus

This week we got to work in groups again to design and create a performance based off a piece of stimulus that we could choose from. My group and I chose to work with the poem ‘The Guest House’ by Rumi. 

From this poem we worked out the meaning of it and drew some key words from the text. We created a mind map to link these together with some phrases in the text that could be clearly developed into movements.

Personal Reflection: This was really interesting process we went through to try and draw an understanding and meaning from this text, needing to dig further behind the words to understand what was trying to be said. It made us work together as a team to come up with someone really deep and interesting and expressive.

After figuring out what the poem meant we decided to use our key words and phrases, which were actually emotions, and tried to figure out if they could be shown as a physical person or as a physical movement, how would they do that? We created another diagram that outlines what the tempo, dynamic and spatial awareness each emotion would have and decided to put these emotions in an order that could show somebody’s journey through life.

Personal Reflection: This was a really engaging and well-focused workshop where I partook in an activity that I hadn’t necessarily done before, to create something that has the potential to have a lot of meaning. Our dance showed a journey through different emotions that someone may be experiencing. And it helped me as a dancer to be collaborative with others to present a story through movement.

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Week 4 Tools

Retrograde: Meaning to move backwards, this can be applied to different parts of the dance, you could do the order backwards, the movements themselves backwards or the direction you were facing backwards. An interesting tool that could be used in future application.

Accumulation: Accumulation in dance is a good way to create a motif or reoccurring theme, particularly for a section of a dance. Start with one movement, and then next you repeat the first movement and add a second, then you repeat those two and add a third, and this continues until you have a whole movement section, featuring that pattern.