The Dance of Death, Essay Example

Space and Shape in Taylor

Paul Taylor’s Promethean Fire work uses space in a deliberately meaningful way, in terms of the stage his dancers occupy. Most of the piece is noticeably contained by his dancers, who create and maintain a circular border for the choreography within, which creates a visible contrast between this human activity and the expanse above and beyond it. At several points, and when the choreography becomes more rapid and diffuse, this circle is broken and the space is suddenly occupied in angles reaching to beyond the wings. Most of the time, however, the structure, while fluid, remains intact, setting a stage-within-a-stage for the principle dancers and evoking a sense of a tight community in turmoil.

In terms of shape, Taylor’s dancers combine minimal elements of classical ballet movement within an overriding, starkly modern choreography which presents a kind of human scaffolding on a single plane. The circular formation defining his use of the space, occasionally evolving into a corps de ballet line behind the principles, seems designed to reinforce a sense of structure and symmetry. There is as well a stateliness to the movement of the dancers as they define the dance’s perimeter and simultaneously engage in the dance; winding shapes of cascading bodies and limbs, synchronized in falling and rising, add to a sense of a natural order in shape. In the midst of this the order is violated in the center, which then stretches the structure to the limit. It evokes chaos in a preserved harmony which, given the piece’s theme, is appropriate.

Ballet and Modern Dance Opposed

Modern dance itself, beginning in the late 19^th century, was famously born out of a rebellion against traditional ballet. It was as though all the restrictions of classical ballet training and movement were not modified, but actively fought against. Pioneers in modern dance like Isadora Duncan and Martha Graham made it clear that they were not interested in carrying on with balletic expression, as they found it both unnatural to the body and limiting in its range.

The most striking example of how this rebellion took physical form was in Graham’s now-iconic “flexed foot”. It was not enough to remove the ballet slippers on her men and women; they defiantly were never en pointe, and there was almost a sense of a deliberate, flat-footed stomping when her dancers took the stage. While certainly a less serious artist, Isadora Duncan, preceding Graham in the world of dance, was the first prominent choreographer and dancer to openly violate ballet precepts and perform work that emphasized the flat foot and the flexed ankle.

What emerges as important from that single revolution in technique lies less in exactly what it abandoned from ballet, and more in why. In watching Graham’s Appalachian Spring, for example, there is a strong sense that the classic ballet stance was discarded because it interfered with the story-telling she needed to do. Rigid ballet postures, particularly the en pointe position, only permit so much bodily movement; the delicate connection to the floor is paramount and is the chief aesthetic attraction. Graham created pieces that required broad strokes and, as she was drawn to Americana, as in Appalachian Spring, she needed as well to tell her story in a folk mode.

It is hard to assess what came first, the greater freedom in selecting from all kinds of music to serve as choreographic themes, or the freedom of motion modern dance embraced. Each was dependent on the other from the start, and this is another break from the world of ballet. It is certainly possible to create a classic ballet to Aaron Copeland’s Appalachian Spring, but the vision of Graham required a more down-to-earth, gritty naturalism. Ballet has always been rooted primarily in the work of classical composers, with some infusions of modern composition as inspiration. Modern dance both demanded and exploited new musical expressions. In breaking through the physical boundaries of classical ballet, it required a musical range just as free of borders.

A notable example of just how modern dance welcomes the unexpected is the work of Twyla Tharp, who choreographs to popular songs. She has created dances to the music of David Byrne, Billy Joel, Bob Dylan, and Frank Sinatra, either choreographing to commissioned pieces or staging work to their established hit songs. Tharp as a modern choreographer infuses virtually every style of movement into dance, including jazz, ballet, Western, and swing. In a sense she represents the penultimate break from ballet, in that there is no absolute adherence to any specific style. “…Tharp’s dances…contrasted dance and pedestrian movement vocabularies and mixed trained and untrained performers” (Foster 209). It is hard to imagine a greater departure from ballet than the use of untrained dancers.

Modern and Ballet Dance Similarities

As vastly different as ballet and modern dance are, the reality is that both rely upon what the human body can do in terms of extension and motion, and ballet training had a great deal to offer to the modern school. All that was needed was for the initial phase of rebellion to pass. Decades after her groundbreaking modern work first captured attention in the 1920’s, “Martha Graham declared that she ‘had no problem with classical ballet’…Suddenly Graham company members began showing up in ballet classes” (Walther 94).

Before this, however, signs of ballet were in modern dance, chiefly because they could not be entirely excluded. Almost every piece of choreography requires extensions and lifts, and these were defined by ballet because it provides virtually the only ways to achieve the best aesthetic, and physically compatible, results. Moreover, as time passed and the disdain for ballet’s rigidity faded, modern choreographers realized there was a wealth of potential in the form they had fought against. Twyla Tharp, for instance, uses ballet in a deliberately whimsical manner. In her choreography set to the band Supertramp’s Loverboy, she has her male lead gently lift his partner in a classic ballet posture, his hands poised at the base of her spine. The girl is as well arched fully, and with pointed toes extended. Then the male carries her to the side of the stage and seemingly tosses her off.

In finally accepting the traditions and training of ballet, modern dancers and choreographers have expanded their own repertoires and opened up new, creative channels. They have seen that employing ballet is not a surrender, but a valuable component in any free-form or narrative dance expression.

Works Cited

Foster, S.L. Reading Dancing: Bodies and Subjects in Contemporary American Dance. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1986. Print.

Walther, S. K.  The Dance of Death: Kurt Jooss and the Weimar Years. Zurich, Switzerland: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1994. Print.