Summary Of Just Get Up And Dance By Dave Berry
“ Nobody cares if you can’t dance well. Just get up and dance” by Dave Berry. To me as an art student and a person who grew up performing theatrical dances, dance is a way to express oneself and find life within the beat of music. With dance you are telling a story to your audience members and captivate them with freedom of one's expression. Dance is moving rhythmically to music, typically following a set sequence of steps, or a person who is moving quick in a lively way. Dance is an art form in which human movement becomes the medium for sensing, understanding, communicating ideas, feelings, and experiences. Dancing first started as an ancient temple ritual such as dancing before the Gods. By doing this they believed that the Gods would bring them crops and help the citizens have a plentiful year. This type of dancing that originated from Egypt was viewed as spectacles in courts. Dancing was a peaceful and blissful way of showing emotions to people to please them. An idea that started off as a ritual eventually lead to ballet which from then and over time had advanced to new movements and new
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techniques. As dance evolved throughout the years and grew in popularity, a new movement developed during the twentieth century, the new predominant movement was called expressionist dance. Expressionist dance is a European dance form that is part of the German movement also known as Ausdruckstanz. This new movement related to the expressionist art movement which began as a reaction to another popular art movement, naturalism and impressionism. Expressionist dance had techniques composed of the use of theatre, film, and visual arts. It involved the construction of mysterious personality with a slight hypnotic control over the whole dynamic liberated and free body. Expressionist dance are all manifestations of dance after 1900 that cannot be subsumed under the system of classical dance. Its most important representatives were Rudolf Von Laban and Mary Wigman. Both of these talented dancers and choreographers possessed an understanding of dance and its true art form as being a philosophy of life. These influential dance performers explained dance as a metaphysical experience. An large group of dancers belonged to the expressionist dance movement, such as the Socially Critical Voleska Gert or the Communist Jean Weidt. These people were all striving to bring expressionist as an individual “world vision” through dance touching on natural body movement. Expressionist dance did not touch techniques that came to be used for America’s modern dance, but rather a new type of system of movement. These new techniques used for expressionist dance movement influenced the youth of movement and derived the new fresh blood and flesh of dance. It also empowered new health movements and educated gymnastic education. Rudolf Von Laban is a dance artist and theorist that developed a new system of natural and harmonious body movements that became the foundation and strength of expressionist dance body movement. Rudolf Von Laban said, “ German dance equated the liberated body not with an enhanced power to signify a wide range of emotions but with the power to signify and or experience a single, great, supreme emotion: ecstasy.” Ecstasy was seen as a tool and technique to shatter mechanized modern dance subject into harmony with the bod, nature and the unconscious rhythm of life. Rudolf was seen multiple times dancing in meadows and by river fronts to the beat of a drum getting in tune to his subconscious inner thoughts and his true self. Rudolf Von Laban thought that it was important to record his system of movement in order to improve and expand his techniques. So Rudolf invented a symbolic alphabet, which was used as Kinetography or script dance later on in international developments up until now is now known as “Labanotation”. When he developed this headlines screamed saying “ A New Way To Success. Mr. Laban teaches you how to write down Dances.” This new development “Labanotation” applied to other fields including cultural studies and non-verbal communication theory. Rudolf Von Laban was very dedicated and empowered by the new dance movement of expressionist dancing and taught his techniques, styles, and tools to his students; to whom, one of them is the other co-representative leader in helping giving birth to this breakthrough dance movement of expressionist dance was Mary Wigman. Mary Wigman was a dancer and choreographer who was Laban’s most famous disciple rising star pupil. Mary Wigman followed his lead and worked upon a technique based on contrast of movement, expansion, contraction of pulling and pushing. Mary worked with Rudolf Von Laban for years especially during the First World War when she worked as his assistant in Leipzig. Mary also empowered and strengthens the new dance movement sweeping the dance culture by using different types of Eastern and African music in her performances with an emphasis of percussion. Expressionism called for great emotion and Wigman used it in her dances. Mary showed this by dramatic gestures and expressions to as an integral part of her performances. Mary’s dances touched on existential human experiences, but also metaphysical subjects. One example of her using these techniques in her dance performances is her crazy performance of “ Hextentanz” which was performed without music. Wigma’s dance pieces are remembered for her tragic, dark character and are described as introspective dances that reveal vibant and exciting life. In the year of 1920 to 1921, Mary started her own dance school, which became known as “ Dresden Central School” of simply “Mary Wigman-Schule”. Where the center and focus of study was expressionist dance as an artistic trend. Wigmans Performances weren’t well received by critics and audiences members of her time. However, her style and techniques are still a great influence on all types of genres of the dance community. Expressionist dance movement expanded and flourished throughout the dance community.
Many brave risky dancers and choreographers wanted to take part in this new movement. This new dance movement style and technique was being passed down from teachers to students. After Rudolf Von Laban gave influential promising education of expressionism dance to his student Mary Wigman and she then passed it down to a great friend of hers named Hanya Holm. Hanya opened a dance school based on principles of German expressionist dance. Hanya took the concept of Rudolf Von Laban and Mary Wigman’s idea of expressionist dance which expressed the human emotion and that it started from within. Hanya transformed the German expressionist dance principles and made them freer and more abstract. Hanya was taking what was already done and giving the dance concept a new twist and fresh new
take. Expressionism is an artistic style in which the artist attempts to depict none objective reality but rather the subjective emotions and responses. The style form of expressionist dance has accomplishments that aim through distortion, exaggeration, primitivism, and fantasy, through dynamic application of formal elements. Expressionist dance is just another way for a person to break away from the real world life situations and find peaceful bliss in enjoying the passionate movement and creation that one can perform to world. Expressionist dance is still used today in many ways of showcasing ones feelings but also in performances of dance, theater, and poetry. “ To dance is to reach for the word that doesn’t exist, to sing the heart song of a thousand generations, to feel the meaning of a moment in time” By Beth jones.
techniques. As dance evolved throughout the years and grew in popularity, a new movement developed during the twentieth century, the new predominant movement was called expressionist dance. Expressionist dance is a European dance form that is part of the German movement also known as Ausdruckstanz. This new movement related to the expressionist art movement which began as a reaction to another popular art movement, naturalism and impressionism. Expressionist dance had techniques composed of the use of theatre, film, and visual arts. It involved the construction of mysterious personality with a slight hypnotic control over the whole dynamic liberated and free body. Expressionist dance are all manifestations of dance after 1900 that cannot be subsumed under the system of classical dance. Its most important representatives were Rudolf Von Laban and Mary Wigman. Both of these talented dancers and choreographers possessed an understanding of dance and its true art form as being a philosophy of life. These influential dance performers explained dance as a metaphysical experience. An large group of dancers belonged to the expressionist dance movement, such as the Socially Critical Voleska Gert or the Communist Jean Weidt. These people were all striving to bring expressionist as an individual “world vision” through dance touching on natural body movement. Expressionist dance did not touch techniques that came to be used for America’s modern dance, but rather a new type of system of movement. These new techniques used for expressionist dance movement influenced the youth of movement and derived the new fresh blood and flesh of dance. It also empowered new health movements and educated gymnastic education. Rudolf Von Laban is a dance artist and theorist that developed a new system of natural and harmonious body movements that became the foundation and strength of expressionist dance body movement. Rudolf Von Laban said, “ German dance equated the liberated body not with an enhanced power to signify a wide range of emotions but with the power to signify and or experience a single, great, supreme emotion: ecstasy.” Ecstasy was seen as a tool and technique to shatter mechanized modern dance subject into harmony with the bod, nature and the unconscious rhythm of life. Rudolf was seen multiple times dancing in meadows and by river fronts to the beat of a drum getting in tune to his subconscious inner thoughts and his true self. Rudolf Von Laban thought that it was important to record his system of movement in order to improve and expand his techniques. So Rudolf invented a symbolic alphabet, which was used as Kinetography or script dance later on in international developments up until now is now known as “Labanotation”. When he developed this headlines screamed saying “ A New Way To Success. Mr. Laban teaches you how to write down Dances.” This new development “Labanotation” applied to other fields including cultural studies and non-verbal communication theory. Rudolf Von Laban was very dedicated and empowered by the new dance movement of expressionist dancing and taught his techniques, styles, and tools to his students; to whom, one of them is the other co-representative leader in helping giving birth to this breakthrough dance movement of expressionist dance was Mary Wigman. Mary Wigman was a dancer and choreographer who was Laban’s most famous disciple rising star pupil. Mary Wigman followed his lead and worked upon a technique based on contrast of movement, expansion, contraction of pulling and pushing. Mary worked with Rudolf Von Laban for years especially during the First World War when she worked as his assistant in Leipzig. Mary also empowered and strengthens the new dance movement sweeping the dance culture by using different types of Eastern and African music in her performances with an emphasis of percussion. Expressionism called for great emotion and Wigman used it in her dances. Mary showed this by dramatic gestures and expressions to as an integral part of her performances. Mary’s dances touched on existential human experiences, but also metaphysical subjects. One example of her using these techniques in her dance performances is her crazy performance of “ Hextentanz” which was performed without music. Wigma’s dance pieces are remembered for her tragic, dark character and are described as introspective dances that reveal vibant and exciting life. In the year of 1920 to 1921, Mary started her own dance school, which became known as “ Dresden Central School” of simply “Mary Wigman-Schule”. Where the center and focus of study was expressionist dance as an artistic trend. Wigmans Performances weren’t well received by critics and audiences members of her time. However, her style and techniques are still a great influence on all types of genres of the dance community. Expressionist dance movement expanded and flourished throughout the dance community.
Many brave risky dancers and choreographers wanted to take part in this new movement. This new dance movement style and technique was being passed down from teachers to students. After Rudolf Von Laban gave influential promising education of expressionism dance to his student Mary Wigman and she then passed it down to a great friend of hers named Hanya Holm. Hanya opened a dance school based on principles of German expressionist dance. Hanya took the concept of Rudolf Von Laban and Mary Wigman’s idea of expressionist dance which expressed the human emotion and that it started from within. Hanya transformed the German expressionist dance principles and made them freer and more abstract. Hanya was taking what was already done and giving the dance concept a new twist and fresh new
take. Expressionism is an artistic style in which the artist attempts to depict none objective reality but rather the subjective emotions and responses. The style form of expressionist dance has accomplishments that aim through distortion, exaggeration, primitivism, and fantasy, through dynamic application of formal elements. Expressionist dance is just another way for a person to break away from the real world life situations and find peaceful bliss in enjoying the passionate movement and creation that one can perform to world. Expressionist dance is still used today in many ways of showcasing ones feelings but also in performances of dance, theater, and poetry. “ To dance is to reach for the word that doesn’t exist, to sing the heart song of a thousand generations, to feel the meaning of a moment in time” By Beth jones.