Things you can do with the cards:
use them as material to show students overlaps and differences between dance and other art forms. You can also use them in designing your choreography.
combine them with cards from other focus areas. Take a look through the Choreographer Book in this regard too: for instance, the complex structures of Ludwig van Beethoven’s string quartet “Große Fuge op. 133” inspired Belgian choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker to create her choreography “Die große Fuge” (1992).
You can find ideas for developing assignments here.
The focus area “Dance and Other Arts” deals with the overlap between contemporary dance and other forms of artistic expression. It is intended to motivate students to examine the common ground shared by the performing arts and the non-performing arts both mentally and physically, since one of the most significant characteristics of contemporary dance is its interdisciplinary nature.
Impulses from other PERFORMING ARTS, such as SPOKEN THEATRE and MUSIC THEATRE, the VISUAL ARTS, photography, MUSIC and LITERATURE, extend the field of creative possibilities and can provide inspiration for dance. As an example, photographs of bodies in motion can be used as a departure point for developing movement sequences for dance. Or slam poetry can trigger creative ideas: the rhymes and cadence, the sound of the voice or the lyrical content can all serve as inspiration for dance improvisations.
Connecting these various art forms in a dance setting leads to a journey of discovery that can manifest the proper conditions for experiencing, exploring and visualising synergies. Students learn new approaches to creating a work of art and extend their experiences in dance through the body and its movements.
Spoken Theatre
Musical Theatre
Variety/Cabaret
Puppet Theatre
Cinema
Video Art
Sound Art
Digital Art
Performance Art
Object Art
Impressionism
Expressionism
Pop Art
Action Painting
Sculpture
Plastics
Print Works
Manga
Graffiti
Photojournalism
Sports Photography
Fashion Photography
Theatre Photography
Constructivism
Deconstructivism
Modernism
Structuralism
Disco
Electronic Music
Hip-Hop
Jazz
Classical Music
Folk Music
Pop
Traditional Music
Fairy Tales
Fables
Short Stories
Novels
Poems
Rap
Song Lyrics
Poetry Slam (Spoken Word)
individually, in pairs, group
Work in pairs to transfer the principles involved in animating marionettes to your own bodies.
One of you plays the puppeteer by pulling on imaginary strings attached to the limbs of your partner and letting them go again.
The other partner plays the marionette and reacts to the movements of the puppeteer.
individually
The painter Jackson Pollock became famous for his wildly expressive, often very colourful paintings, which he realised in especially large formats.
Transfer the dynamic movement of form and colour from one of his works to the space. In doing so, imagine that the walls, floor and ceiling are your canvases. Your body parts are your brushes and you can create your own different “colours” by varying the type and expression of your movements.
individually
Take a look at different artistic photographs of people in motion and imitate their poses and postures by copying them as precisely as possible.
Afterwards, combine the individual poses into a movement sequence, paying particularly close attention to the transitions from one pose to the next.
in pairs, group
In the world of music, a conductor guides an orchestra using signs and cues.
Transfer this principle to dance by specifying different signs for various movements like rolling, walking, turning around in a circle and so on.
Then, choose a conductor and have them direct the movements of their partner or the rest of the group using these signs.
group
Read a short story together and make a list of what you feel to be the key words or phrases related to it.
Use this list to develop freeze positions or poses, which you can then combine into a movement sequence. Your dance retells the story.