DRAMA IN THE COMMUNITY YEAR 1 (DINC1)
B1003009
DC104
‘WHAT MOTVATES PEOPLE TO DANCE AND CREATE DANCES?’
WORD COUNT: 1,854
The aim of this essay is to discuss dance; the focus will be on what motivates people to dance and create them. Firstly examining the work of a professional company, ‘Frantic Assembly’ and a choreographer, ‘Martha Graham’ and exploring their work, before moving onto why importance of dance to human need and culture and why people are influenced to do dance. Finally the essay will look at how dance is a crucial aspect of contemporary society today. Dance in Education and Dance Movement Therapy will be used as examples. It will be demonstrated that dance has an important role to play and is essential to human beings.
Martha Graham was one of the most influential figures of the twentieth century in American modern dance and her techniques and styles are still practiced today. She became widely known throughout all ages. As time went on, she became more experienced and wiser in the modern dance field. Martha Graham, whose style was controversial, became one of the finest choreographers and dancers in the dance world:
“One of the great American artists of the twentieth Century, she was an electrifying performer and a deeply influential chorographer.” (Freedman 1998: 11)
Modern dance was revolutionised! Martha Graham had given it a new depth and dynamic expression of emotion. Her techniques were extremely unique, one of which she identified was a method to do with breathing and impulse control. Her movement originated in the tension of a contracted muscle, and continued in the flow of energy released from the body as the muscle relaxed. As explained in the biography, “The Life and Works of Martha Graham (De Mille 1991: 147), the spasm of the diaphragm is used to spark gesture. Another element of Graham’s techniques was that when falling, all falls were