Contemporary Dance: A Style Of Dance In Contemporary Dance

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Contemporary dance is a style of expressive dance combining elements of various dance genres, it strives to connect the mind and the body through fluid dance movements. It first originated from ballet, however changed when Isadora Duncan adjudicated that she didn’t want to dance ballet. She disregarded that refined ideology and came up with the concept of contemporary dance; where the body moves freely and doesn’t have restrictions, embodying raw human emotion. Pioneers of contemporary dance comprise of the internationally known Isadora Duncan, Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham. These three dancers helped to revolutionise contemporary dance and express their interpretation of it. A range of movements that originated from these dancers are …show more content…

An array of contemporary dance actions performed by the two talented young dancers successfully made Michael’s piece world famous, now regarded as an effective example of contemporary dance. The stretching all over Kayla’s body by Kapono’s hands demonstrate sharp precise movements that are normally seen in this style of dance. This sequence of actions begins at 1:54minutes and ends at approximately 2:02minutes. The dancers are seen standing centre stage, facing towards the middle of the audience in a right diagonal. Male dancer Kupono is in a diagonal stance behind female dancer Kayla, hidden from the audience’s view, almost shadowing her while his left hand is positioned on her left shoulder. This ignites an uncomfortable feeling from the audience as his dominant characteristics are already beginning to be exposed to the audience. Kapono’s character has power and control over Kayla’s character in this segment. His right hand quickly comes straight across her mouth, while this action is in motion he begins to emerge from the darkness and into the audience’s view, leaving the audience with an uneasy feeling. Both of Kayla’s hands grab onto his hand in which is covering her mouth; in hopes of discarding his hand. This specific moment in the dance conveys a great deal of symbolism, linking the actions with the overall universal theme. The hand over her mouth symbolises the constant addiction that Kayla’s character is struggling with, it shows him as the drug; endeavouring to intoxicate her. This is then followed by his left hand running down against her hip in a pressed motion, causing her to react by fiercely pushing his hand off, leading to an aggressive movement from the male dancer as his hand grips her left hip. In contrast to this; she tirelessly flicks his hand off. As Kayla unostentatiously gets weaker, Kupono becomes stronger.

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