Dance And Stimulation Of Senses Arts Presentation Help Chapter: DanceHow dance stimulate the senses? including moving images, force, sign language, and col

Dance And Stimulation Of Senses Arts Presentation Help Chapter: DanceHow dance stimulate the senses? including moving images, force, sign language, and color. I already attached the book pages I need the power point slides and not only heading but the full/complete note that will be presented. Chapter 9: Dance
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Figure 9.13 Traditional tights and tutu.
Source: Douglas Kirkland/Corbis
A Question to Ask
What themes and ideas-narratives or abstract ideas-does the dance seek to communi-
cate? Or is the dance a divertissement?
HOW DOES IT STIMULATE
THE SENSES?
The complex properties of dance make possi-
ble diverse and intense communicative stim-
uli. We can respond at different levels to an
artwork-including the level of ignorance.
We can achieve levels of understanding, levels
of meaning, and levels of potential response
whether we have extensive knowledge or lit-
tle. The more sophisticated a balletomane we
become, the fuller our benefit will be.
222
Chapter 9: Dance
A Question to Ask
How did the lighting design for the dance use color, angles, and movement to enhance
perception of the dancers and to help portray emotion and meaning?
form helped create the statement he wished
to make.
MOVING IMAGES
Like every other artwork existing in space,
dance appeals to our senses through the
compositional qualities of line and form,
not only in the bodies of the dancers, but
also in the visual elements of scenery and
costumes. In this regard, and like painting
and sculpture, horizontal lines stimulate a
sense of calm and repose. Vertical lines sug-
gest grandeur and elegance. Diagonal lines
stimulate feelings of action and movement
(see Fig. 9.11), and curved lines, grace (see
Fig. 9.13). As we react to a dance work, we
respond to how the human body expresses
line and form—when standing still and
when moving through space. If alert and
perceptive, we recognize not only how the
choreographer has created lines and forms,
but also how those lines and forms repeat
from dancer to dancer and from dancer to
mise-en-scène.
Often the kind of line created by the
body of a dancer forms the key to under-
standing the work of the choreographer.
George Balanchine, for example, insisted
that his dancers be almost skin and bone.
For him, that reduction to elemental human
FORCE
We noted in Chapter 5 that the beat of music
makes a fundamental appeal to our senses.
Musical beat can set our toes tapping and
our fingers drumming. Probably, we respond
most basically to the dynamics of the dance,
its dancers, and its music. A dancer’s use of
vigorous and forceful action (see Fig. 9.11),
high leaps, graceful turns (see Fig. 9.13), or
extended pirouettes appeals directly to us,
as does the tempo of the dance. Variety in
dynamics—the louds and softs and the highs
and lows of bodily intensity as well as musical
sound—forms the dancer’s and choreogra-
pher’s way of providing interest, just as does
the actor’s, the director’s, and the painter’s.
SIGN LANGUAGE
Dancers, like actors, can stimulate us directly
because they are human beings and can em-
ploy many symbols of communication. Most
human communication requires us to learn
A Question to Ask
How does the interaction among dancers, sets, lights, and costumes help to create mean-
ing in the work?
Chapter 9: Dance
223
a set of symbols—we can respond to dance
at this level only when we have mastered its
language. Many systems of sign language,
like the Delsarte, use conventionalized arm,
hand, and head positions to create meaning.
Likewise, a dance like the hula communi-
cates its meaning through hand movement.
Nonetheless, a universal set of bodily
communication symbols also exists (so psy-
chologists tell us)—for example, a gesture
of acceptance, in which arms extend out-
ward with the palms up. Holding the hands
outward with palms out as if to push away
signifies rejection. When dancers employ
universal symbols, we respond to their ap-
peal to our senses just as we would to the
nonverbals or body language in everyday
conversation.
freely with color. A face or body tinted red,
for example, does not create the distraction
it would in most theatre productions. There-
fore, we often see much stronger, more col-
orful, and more suggestive lighting in dance
than in theatre. Designers use more satu-
rated colors, higher intensities, and explore
the qualities of the human body, as form,
much more strongly by light from various di-
rections. The same occurs in costumes and
settings. Because dancers rarely portray roles
high in lifelikeness, costumes can communi-
cate through abstract means.
On the other hand, scene designers
must exercise caution in utilizing color so
that the dancers continue to take focus in
the stage environment-unless the chore-
ographer intends to synthesize the dancer
and the environment, as the choreographer
Merce Cunningham often does. In any but
the smallest of stage spaces, the elements of
the setting can easily overpower the human
body since the setting occupies so much
more space. Nevertheless, scene designers
use color as forcefully as they can to help re-
inforce the mood and meaning of the dance.
These examples of how dance affects
our senses remain rudimentary. Perhaps more
than any other art, dance causes us to ascend
beyond our three cognitive questions—What
is it? How is it put together? How does it af-
fect the senses?—and dwell on a fourth level
of response—What does it mean?
COLOR
Although dancers use facial and bodily ex-
pressions to communicate some aspects of
the human condition, we do not receive as
direct a message from them as we do from
the words of actors. So, to enhance the danc-
er’s communication, the costume, lighting,
and set designers must strongly reinforce
the mood of the dance through the environ-
ment they create. Color forms their most
effective tool in this regard. Because dance
does not depend on lifelikeness as much as
in the theatre, lighting designers can work

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