Creativity and Cognition in Contemporary Dance
| Creativity and Cognition in Contemporary Dance |
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Sample VideoThe video to the right is from Chapter 6 of Thinking in Four Dimensions. This chapter starts from the convergence of artists and social forces that gave rise to new creative possibilities. It can be said of Quiescence that the movement material is mostly in a ‘minor key’; that the repetitions of reaching, falling, slowness, turning away and shutting out—mostly manifested in the uppertorso—suggest a palette of feeling which is consistent in the sections in which it occurs and recurs. In striking contrast is a sequence with elastic ‘wires’ stretched in silvery strands across the stage space. Here the choreographic invention is in passages of extreme busyness, of agitation, scurryings and flutterings and a certain chaotic urgency. It is noticeable that feet and legs are used with clarity and precision, and often in unison passages against a solo dancer. Whatever an individual observer might make of these qualities, it is clear that there is an intention on the part of the artist to communicate something of significance. |
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Sample VideoThe video to the right is from the Prologue to Thinking in Four Dimensions. The chapter maps some distinctive features of classical ballet versus contemporary dance. All forms of dance tell us about the societies that produce them. Is it
any wonder that Swan Lake, choreographed under the tyrannical regime of the
Czars,
is full of images of entrapment? Even the famous dance of the little swans
has pathos as well as comedy in its criss-cross, locked-together patterns.
The four dancers repeat their steps in unison, and then repeat again. Not till
the last second of their dance can they free their arms and momentarily try
to be airborne, before sinking on their knees. |
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