The Desperate Heart Analysis

620 Words2 Pages

Valerie Bettis created the solo dance, The Desperate Heart, in 1943. The dance was created with a dramatic touch, depicting the feeling of lost love. Bettis set this piece with the objective of analyzing lost love in a back and forth matter. This goal was achieved throughout Bettis’ work with the help of music, lighting, attire, vocals, imagery, and choreography. The vocals at the beginning and end of the dance are a poem written by John Malcom Brinnin also named The Desperate Heart. My analysis is based off of Bettis’ solo performed by Brook Notary at a concert on June 11, 1993. The Desperate Heart expressed an emotion that is widely felt but hard to artistically portray. Bernardo Segal composed the music, which acted as a catalyst for intense …show more content…

There was an apparent synergy between the poem and the dance composition. At some points the movement created a visualization of the stanza being vocalized. When the poem said “only the cold stone hangs at the breast”, the dancer falls to the floor because of the weight of the stone. She then recovers from the fall with her head last to emphasize the chest area. Bettis’ used movement from both extremes that clearly exemplified the to and fro of the emotion. For example, she would use a very bound movement with little effort followed by an intense movement with great use of space. Other parts of the work repeated the same movement numerous times to emphasize one side of the two-sided emotion. Her movements went with and against the music but the movement always followed the speed of the score. These movements displayed ones yearning for lost love with the reaching of the arms and the leg extensions. There was also a large amount of movement directed toward the heart, the point of pain. Brook Notary eloquently displayed these emotions through her facial expressions. A majority of movement can be viewed as sporadic but definitive. There was even parts of the choreography that was spastic and isolated with one area of the

More about The Desperate Heart Analysis

Open Document