Contemporary Dance Choreography and Spectatorship: Embodied Emotion

ISBN-13: 9783031449611 / Angielski

Lucía Piquero Álvarez

Spis treści

 

Chapter 1: Introduction. 4

The experience of emotional import as complex, bodily and thoughtful 5

Understanding emotion. 6

The affective realm and spectatorship. 9

Understandings of emotion in dance. 15

The ‘widely popular doctrine’ 16

Raw emotion and ineffability. 21

Emotion in Euro-American contemporary theatre dance. 23

4E cognition. 25

Experience of dance. 28

Spectator’s experience of Art 29

Aesthetic experience and disinterest 29

Kinesthetic empathy. 30

Establishing the research process. 33

Case studies. 38

Content organisation. 41

How to use the book and web resource. 42

 

Chapter 2 The analysis model 44

The method of analysis. 45

Movement Qualities. 46

Factors for analysis. 50

·      Weight or Force/Muscular energy. 51

·      Time/bodily rhythm.. 51

·      Kinespheric Space. 52

·      Flow.. 52

Observing movement qualities/efforts in the case studies. 53

Spatial-rhythm.. 57

Spatial forms in the analysis of choreography. 59

Virtuality, emergence, and perceptual properties. 60

The focal point 66

Analysis of video based on spatial-rhythm method. 67

Sound-movement relationships. 69

Structural relationships between sound and movement 70

Forms of analysis. 74

Reviews and my experience. 76

Video and still frame analysis. 78

Information from the creative processes. 81

Selection of examples for discussion. 82

 

Chapter 3. Case Study 1: Melancholy Spirals in Russell Maliphant’s Afterlight (Part One) (2009): Emergence, Expressiveness, and Emotional Import 84

Introduction to Afterlight (Part One) 85

Informed audience perspective. 89

Perceptual properties. 90

Remarkable features: Light 92

Notes on the choreographic process. 93

Analysis of properties and interactions. 94

Scene 1 | 02.10 | A sense of melancholy. 95

Scene 2 | Beginning of section 2 | A gasp. 101

Scene 3 | 07:56 to 07:58 | A silent cry of surrender 102

Scene 4 | 08:50 | A look of longing. 106

Scene 5 | 10:00 | A feeling of lightness. 108

Scene 6 | Final Scene | An impending loss. 110

Chapter Insights. 112

Emergence. 112

Expressiveness. 114

Emotional import 119

 

Chapter 4. Case Study 2: The poignant tensions of Crystal Pite’s Dark Matters (2009): Embodiment, Enaction and Emotion. 126

Introduction to the work. 127

Informed Audience Perspective. 131

Perceptual properties. 132

Sound/text 133

Light 136

Notes on the choreographic process. 137

Analysis of properties and interactions. 138

Scene 1 | 00:01 | The solo’s opening scene. 138

Scene 2 | 01:07 | Power 139

Scene 3 | 01:33 | Reaching to infinity. 142

Scene 4 | 01:41-01:54 | Control and vulnerability. 144

Scene 5 | 02:01- 02:14 | Ripple through the body. 148

6 | Words and meaning. 150

Scene 7 | Final moments. 156

Chapter insights. 157

Embodied cognition. 161

Enactive perception. 164

Social construction of perception; theatre and visuality. 167

Embodied Concepts. 169

Embodiment, enaction and emotion: a summary. 172

 

Chapter 5. Case Study 3: the despair of Petrichor (2016): Choreographer, analyst, audience, dancer 174

Introduction to Petrichor. 176

Informed audience perspective. 180

Perceptual Properties. 181

Remarkable features: Music. 181

Analysis of properties and interactions. 183

Scene 1 | 00:24 - 00:44 Struggle and melancholy. 184

Scene 2 | 00:44 – 0:55 | Floating, voice, and poignancy. 188

Scene 3 | 01:04-01:10 | Reaching towards the light | Actively taken by energy. 191

Scene 4 | 01:13 – 01:22 | Delicacy and surrender, ephemerality and power 193

Scene 5 | 01:53 | Second solo repetition - Breaking free. 196

Scene 6 | 01:57 and 02:14 A brief elevation | Big arch of the back. 196

Scene 7 | Final moment 200

Chapter insights. 202

The choreographer’s experience. 209

The dancer’s role. 213

 

Chapter 6. Conclusion. 217

Poignancy as a summarising example. 223

Main points for future research. 225

Dance analysis. 225

Other directions of research. 229

Final thoughts. 232

O autorze

Lucía Piquero Álvarez is a researcher and choreographer - she has produced and been commissioned to create choreographic work internationally. Lucía  completed her PhD at the University of Roehampton, UK, in 2019, and was a lecturer in dance at the University of Malta between 2012–2022 and head of the dance department between 2019–2022. Lucía is currently a lecturer in performance psychology at Trinity Laban, UK, and senior lecturer at Dance City Newcastle, UK.

Blurb

This book offers an approach which unites choreographic and spectatorial perspectives, and argues for dance itself—its materials, its structures—as a medium of emotional communication. Contemporary dance often seems to contend with issues of understanding, regularly being “read” in “languages” which alienate it. Even if emotion seems a significant part of people’s engagement with dance, its workings are often surrounded by an air of mysticism. Engaging with these issues, this study investigates the experience of emotion in Euro-American contemporary dance theatre. It questions its dependence on the artist’s personal emotions, and the assumption that it is mediated by representational meaning. Instead, this book proposes that the emotional import of dance emerges from an interplay between perceptual properties and symbolic elements in an embodied affective cognitive experience. This experience includes the background of the spectator as well as the context of work, choreographer, performer(s) and other creative agents.

Lucía Piquero Álvarez is a researcher and choreographer - she has produced and been commissioned to create choreographic work internationally. Lucía  completed her PhD at the University of Roehampton, UK, in 2019, and was a lecturer in dance at the University of Malta between 2012–2022 and head of the dance department between 2019–2022. Lucía is currently a lecturer in performance psychology at Trinity Laban, UK, and senior lecturer at Dance City Newcastle, UK.