performance by UA Dance entitled Color Wheel. It was held in the Stevie Eller Dance Theatre. Color Wheel was indeed a wheel: six different performances gave viewers a broad taste of what dance has to offer; from ballet to tap to jazz. The pieces performed were choreographed by a wide variety of choreographers, from Jerome Robbins, known for West Side Story, to James Clouser, professor at the University of Arizona. The performance provided a well-rounded view of dance as a whole. The first…
… And 5,6,7,8! The lights shine on the stage, the music begins, my heart is pounding, and I start to dance. For as long as I can remember, dancing has been a part of who I am. I have put in an endless amount of time, sweat, and blood, and I couldn’t imagine my life without it. It brings me so much joy and freedom. Dancing is something that feels unnatural and silly to many people. It is not as easy as it looks. Through the years of countless classes and recitals, I know plenty about being the…
Strange Fruit; a solo first performed in 1945, was created by a woman named Pearl Primus. She was in a dance company that encouraged her to address social issues through movement. The soloist performing Strange Fruit in a woman who is witnessing a lynching. Ms. Primus was reflecting on the struggle of black share croppers in the south. The message and purpose of this piece is clear. I am sure during its time it must have caused a stir in the audience. Even today I think it would cause discussion…
In a dark, desolate Spanish cave, music comes to life as you enter in. The sudden claps from castanets make the whole room hush. Eyes follow the swift movement of the dancers. Such emotion fills the room; jubilation, bliss, anger, fear, and love. Spanish culture comes alive when the flamenco dance begins. The history of this dance brings together the melting pot of people, traditional music, Latin dancing, and mystic surroundings. Tourists with their cameras ready for action, stare at the…
others. There’s people that dance for fun at parties, there’s people that like dancing a lot so they join a dance team, and there is people that love dancing so much that they even want to major in it. Also, there’s people that are born to dance; they don’t have to try that hard to be about to perform a dance move, and there’s people that have to practice a lot to be able to do a dance move. Well, I am in the middle. I like dancing a lot that I’ve joined dance teams, and I dance when ever I am…
The music was good, and I was able to catch the names of two more songs played by the DJ: Ya Basta by Frank Reyes and Papa Boco by Amarfis. The songs all had a driving beat. I enjoyed watching the people moving, particularly the way their bodies moved and how…
Being able to choreograph and perform in dance concert is a very unique and amazing experience. Creating ideas with everyone around you and transforming those ideas into a masterpiece is a process like no other. With everyone’s opinions out in thin air, you can put all of your ideas into one to create something so beautiful. In Modern especially it was really intriguing to watch the whole process of how the dance was created. Since we did originally have a combo to go off of, it was different…
through the Department of Cultural Affairs City Council Initiative, supported IATI Theater’s Latin Dance Senior Swing Workshop, a cultural engagement program brought to United NSC in Brooklyn. This body awareness workshop taught and promoted the Latin culture while dancing and learning the history of the best known Latin social dances. Taught by our dance instructor Walter Perez, based on the exceptional dance idioms of Tango, Salsa, Merengue, Bachata, and Cha-Cha, all sessions/classes of this…
Dance Essays for The Rumba and The Merengue There are many folk dances that are performed around the world but two of the most popular are the Rumba which originated in Cuba, and the Merengue which originated in the Dominican Republic and Haiti. (The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica) The rumba is a dance that rivets its image on the mind. With so much history, rumba has been and is a dance of conflicts: love versus hate, aggression and harmony, sexuality and prudence. Musically, it taps…
Called, "The Mother of Dance", Isadora Duncan was one of the most influential dancers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Her technique was a precursor to modern dance and she became very popular in Europe for her naturalistic approach to dancing and performances to classical music. She faced many struggles throughout her lifetime, with her children dying after their nanny had accidentally driven into the Seine River and her husband committing suicide. Then, not much later, Isadora died…