Dance: Dance and Performance Essay

Submitted By uglybabymama
Words: 1506
Pages: 7

Symbols of Dance
From the time I started watching this concert to the very end, every type of dance I learned about in this class was accompanied by it in its entirety. Each dancer exceled in their performances not only showing the growth they have gained in dance but the emotions that made each performance different in its own way. In the opening act Et Tu, the seven men came full-fledged showing off great athleticism abilities dressed in their all white attire with hoods. The unison they shared made me have different interpretations of the performance. One was a feeling of it made me think of purity like Jesus wearing white or a pure woman getting married wearing a white dress. The man in the center for majority of the performance gave me a sense of the others were mimicking or shadowing his every move in reference to struggles one has within them on a day to day basis. My last interpretation I believed related the most to the performance was a leader who has followers who are there for the highs and lows but end up turning on him and leaving him in the end just like in the famous movie, Julius Caesar. In the great movie that many have watched, including myself in high school, Brutus is the first to stab Caesar in the back followed by the rest of Caesar’s supposedly right hand men and I felt this performance accompanied that creating a sense of watch who you call your friends and beware of foes.
The second performance Innocent but Gone, related to the first performance as well to the purity interpretation. Girls go through the innocent stage in life until they reach a point of curiosity and venture off into finding answers. The girls in this dance used buckets as baggage for what they carry with them in life and also used them on their heads to foreshadow the blindness they will also engage some point in their lives. These interpretations can also be looked at as women that are gone in life or venturing away from home and leave so innocent yet pure but gone because they lack the knowledge of things to come or what they may see somewhere down the line in life. The buckets can also be used as shackles to hold them down from progressing out. The third performance which was a solo called Unbeautiful, was to me in my opinion a dance about how a girl has self-esteem issues and doesn’t know how to gain the confidence in front of others so she hides behind closed doors. Her dark dress, music, and lighting all helped bring in the feeling she felt unbeautiful to others but just needed the boost of confidence to feel beautiful within her. She was so depressed that she beat herself up mentally and as said in the lyrics to the song she danced to “Stranger by Katie Costello”, “stranger you’ve followed me so far Until the roads converged as did the stars Stranger the moon looks blue tonight your photo framed within my mind but not tonight” those lyrics to me channeled the feeling that she had of feeling unbeautiful and like she did not belong amongst others.
The To Thine Oneself be True performance made me feel humbled that an icon like Michael Jackson was recognized as well as the dance form of tap dance which Fred Astaire paid tribute to whom Michael admired as well. Astaire’s “consummate ability won him the admiration of dancers and choreographers in all forms of dance” (Page 84, Lihs) whom all said he was very interesting, inventive, and elegant. The performance was accompanied by one of Michael Jackson’s all-time greatest song which was Human Nature. The song reflected the performance by describing that you do what you feel is inside of you to do and not what society puts forth on you to do. Be yourself and don’t pretend, whatever makes you feel happy is fine to do is what I felt this performance was trying to capture. The fifth performance Lady M...Oh, was a dark performance that crept me out but used the dark vibe to tell a story that needed to be heard. The performer in this dance used movements of Labanotation while being