Dance: The Aural Setting
Silence
The voice
Sound (both natural & found sound)
Music
Choosing music
1. Balance – a piece of music which has large numbers of instruments or a rich production quality may not be best suited to a solo dance. On the other hand some music is sparse in its style and so may not be ideal for a large group dance.
2. Avoiding the obvious – music from the top ten or old favourites which you enjoy listening to, are not always the best for dance. Similarly, some well-known classical music or hits from West End shows can also prove difficult because people already know them so well that they already have their own set ideas about them, and this may mean that your choreography will be over powered by their preconceptions.
It’s your responsibility as the choreographer to research the availability of music. There is no excuse for not finding the perfect piece of music for your work. There’s a difference between music that works with dance in harmony & music that you listen to at home/club or on you mp3 player.
3. Quality – Make sure your copy of the music is of top-quality. If you’re using a cd have one copy to use during rehearsals, and then another copy for the performance/assessment.
4. Style – Explore different styles of music to see what would best fit you’re theme/stimulus/choreography/ideas. Eg. African, Spanish, Jazz, Medieval, Electronic, Classical, Folk, World, Latin etc.
5. Live Music – you may know other students who play an instrument/sing that would be willing to play live for your performance. You can get them to record their playing for rehearsals. You could even get them to compose a specific piece of music for your performance. You could work together to come up with something that fits your theme perfectly.
Using Music
There are a number of ways that a dance may be formed with music:
1. dance & music composed together
2. dance created first, then music composed for it
3. compose music first, then dance to it
4. a dance sketched in, then music composed for it or suitable music is found
5. music and dance composed separately, only to come together in the performance (Merce Cunningham did this a lot)
If you choose a piece of music first, you need to do a number of things to prepare for the creation of the dance:
1. Listen to it over and over again, carefully
2. Improvise to it
3. Develop an understanding of its feel, form, tempo, instrumentation etc (use written notes to help remember your thoughts & ideas).
Costume
Shape, colour & material are important in choosing costume.
Use Of Props Can:
Enhance the character
Have symbolic meaning
Add to the movement itself
In the case of very large props, become almost the set itself as well
