White Man Sleeps

White Man Sleeps

Ideas for short answer questions

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1) Briefly describe the two main arm gestures used as motifs within

White Man Sleeps in sections 1 and 2.

Section 1 contains one of the arm gestures used as part of a motif in

White Man Sleeps. All the dancers perform this arm gesture at some

stage in section 1 of the dance. This recurring arm gesture is in

introduced in section 1 where the right arm circles the head clockwise

and meets the left arm in front of the head where the hands end up

palm to palm and stretched out. At the beginning of section 1 this

motif is introduced by three dancers while they move from stage left

to stage right and are then joined by the two other dancers. Then

duets are performed which include a phrase of movement with this motif

and even when the music changes, repetition of the phrase occurs.

Later in this section, jumps are added to the phrase and the

choreography starts to develop with spatial and directional changes as

well as changing fronts. Finally all the dancers repeat the phrase and

transform it a little in accumulation canon to finish off this

section.

Section 2 contains another of the arm gestures used as part of a short

phrase of movement in this dance. This motif is introduced after the

opening duet for section 2. It consists of a female dancer wrapping

her head with her hands as if to frame the head indicating that the

dancer may be supporting herself or holding hers...