Trolley Dance Research Paper

African Aesthetics in America’s Finest City I travel with my mother across town to explore and expand our dancing horizons. Several dances are performed throughout the beautiful city of San Diego. We trek across a long road to a red tent, pick up our passes and join the other spectators at our first stop of the day. The seventeenth annual Trolley Dances brings people of all ages, ethnicities, and dance knowledge to one place to experience “America’s Finest City” and some of the city’s most talented performers. Six choreographed pieces dance in various parts of downtown San Diego and Balboa Park. They explore artistic creativity and reach with their music, style, and movement. After the first two performances, we stroll up about a block to …show more content…
One woman dressed in black with a blue and green striped skirt comes to the middle of the grassy stage, front and center to perform a mini solo at the halfway point of the routine. Her arms gracefully rotate up and over her head, creating an arc-like picture, several times at an even pace with the live musicians while her legs move at a pace twice as fast underneath her. The woman’s lower body shuffles across the natural, green landscape, with such control and energetic execution. The other performers and musicians join in with cheers of encouragement and enthusiasm, telling me that they are just as happy performing, as I am watching them dance. With a bright smile on her face, she continues this tiring movement for several counts before continuing with the other performers behind her in a slow tempo tendú-step gesture. This artist’s use of polyrhythm in this moment creates happiness and delight, and sets the overall tone of the performance to be one of community and …show more content…
Just as the other aesthetics, this idea is embedded in the dancers’ movements. A younger woman, wearing a black tank top and a orange printed skirt, changes places with another soloist to have her own thirty seconds of fame. She reminds me of myself when I tried African-style dance for the first time, and I cannot help but smile and laugh to myself. The woman keeps a cool expression as she begins jubilant, high, fast walks. She continues with graceful, high knee lifts that resemble chainé turns with her hand forming a picture frame around her face. Just when she looks as if her solo is over, her lower body picks up the pace and starts with a fast kick-ball-change movement while her arms go around her sides and come back in front of her with a loud clap. The style looks to be new to her and being a dancer myself, I know the movement is extremely quick and difficult. However, her face and body language never shows just how strenuous it really is. This woman’s use of the Aesthetic of the Cool generates a lighthearted state of mind and effects the routine in a positive