“To succeed in the Contemporary dance industry, dancers should be able to develop a wide variation of skills in technique, improvisation, choreograph understanding and a keen sense of adaptability, within the specialized education and the professional development that will make the dancers prepare them for industries over nature.”
Contemporary dance is a type of dance movement where you can express your movement and feelings, it connects the mind and body through different type of music. However contemporary dance is stresses versality with improvisation. Contemporary is based on the floor and not standing up, however you do stand up and dance, but it is on the floor. This type of genre can also be used with different type of music. The first type of technique there is in Contemporary is, Lester Horton technique was created from 1906 to 1953. Lester Horton was a professional American dancer and choreographer; he started training in Native American dance traditions and then later studied in the styles of ballet and modern dance and other styles. The reason he created this technique is because he based on for dancers to stay in shape and improve in their performance. This can also improve how many less injuries this dancer can have. Quote relevant to this, “I am sincerely trying now to create a dance technique based entirely upon corrective exercises, created with a knowledge of human anatomy “(Horton, 1953). Another technique that is famous in contemporary is the Graham technique is an incredibly famous technique that was created by Martha Graham from (1894 to 1991), she is also an American dancer and choreographer. Martha wanted to create a technique that helps the dancers improve on contraction and it can release their muscles and shows the empathy of their connection of the relationships of breath and movement. Although the Graham technique gives a dancer that requires a lot of strength in flexibility, contract, release, and hinge. Dancers must learn the “Graham Walk” this is a way of walking that involves a lot of contraction of the torsion. Finally, he will use this technique for dancers, to connect with the floor so the dancers can be more powerful when using it. A warm up teachers do before a contemporary class is stretching because as dancers get older they are more prone to injuries a warm up to improve their ankle strength is called “Pogo Hops”, in this warm up you do standing in a parallel feet with shoulder with apart, chest up and high but also hands on hips. Start by doing little hops like “Bunny hopes ” in reality, the focus you need to do is having a lot of focus on pushing off and then you must land through your foot and ankle. When doing this you have to feel like you are slapping the bottom of your toes on the ground, and then you must immediately lift them before your shins. The weakness of this is that if you do this in bear feet and not of done this properly you will hurt your ankles, which then will cause a bad injury. Another warm up that is good in Contemporary is “Crab reach”, this warm up helps a lot of dancers by putting both feet on the ground like being in a back bend position, and then put down one hand down behind you a little bit further away from your shoulder, you have to make sure that the way your fingers are facing when coming to the stretch it is important that you have the way your stretch is correctly so that you cannot be prone to injuries, you cannot have fully extended arms and belly to make the stretch better. “You are unique, and if that is not fulfilled, then something has been lost” (Graham 2012) . How you get education in Contemporary dance is that you learn the rhythm of the music in the song, when it comes to knowing background of your dance is that you can get told your background and then learn and research certain things about a deep topic you know when you are performing your dance, you will not offended anyone if this subject will offended anyone in the audience. “If I could tell you what it meant, there’d be no point in dancing it “(Duncan 2021). The type of experience a dancer would need if she or he would like to go in the professional world is going to a lot of auditions, in contemporary auditions the dancers show of their most talented skills in front of casting directors and choreographers. Some dance auditions could be different because, there are some similarities when preparing for an audition. An example of this is dancers normally arrive at least 15 – 30 minutes early to stretch, change into their audition clothes and finally most of all practice! Most of the time casting directors and choreographers, they would like her or she to do it in solos and can be put on the spot is well to improvise, however a different type of dance style and technique dance movement. Although most choreographers in the audition they show you a piece of what you will be doing in the show so they know you can do that style. To get into the audition before coming they will put into an email their CV and headshot to let the director know all their personality and talent. However, most dancers like to show off their talent on social media for example the main one is Instagram. This is because dancers, have a good chance of getting famous when having an account public. So, any type of good dance choreography they learn the dancers put it on social media, and then if he or she gets a popular amount of following some directors or choreographers contact that dancer to come for an audition and have more opportunity for themselves. Professional dancers work life before going into auditions can be performing for companies, tv shows and sometimes theme parks. “You live as long as you dance” (Rudolf 2017). When it comes to the dance industry the size and growth in a year has been estimated over £2 billion, when it comes to dancing it is one of the fastest – growing in the world. In the dance fitness industry is estimated $2.56 billion around the world, the most popular dance style in the world is contemporary. A main choreographer that influenced Contemporary, the first one is Merce Cunningham. Jose Limon, he is a Mexican choreographer and because most contemporary dances within masculine movements, his choreography was background in religion, literature, and history. “The most essential thing in dance discipline is devotion” (Cunningham 1944). Dance in a whole has helped dancers in contemporary by showing their emotion, on how they are feeling when they are given a background story and use their on emotion for their part of the story. This is because people in this generation struggle a lot within mental health issues, so dancers use contemporary dance as an advantage to show and express on how they are feeling. “Life is a dance. Mindfulness is witnessing that dance” (Ray 2023). The history behind contemporary dance, this style of dance was created in the 20th century. This type of dance is a classic style, it also emphasizes freedom, there are no limits on style and technique. contemporary is not always about the type of movement it is mainly on the stage that affects the dancing the most because the lights have a main effect on stage when coming to what type of dance if it’s a song about “Death” for example you might do dark and red to represent the the death within the dance. The two types of dance topics that choreographers use is “Issues of gender and sexuality” and finally ” Bullying”. Why teachers use the topic of “Issues of gender and sexuality” because they want to show how it is hard for men doing contemporary dance because it is mainly for girls and the way they move it does not fit with the way men can do contemporary dance so when dancing everyone can feel involved with everything and not feel left out. The next topic is “Bullying”, dance teachers want to do bullying in a dance because of how it has affected a lot of people in the world, so the choreographers want to create an awareness for people to stop doing terrible things to people’s mental health. Dancers can also relate to this a lot because people can be bullied in the dance world on the way they look for doing dance with the words “Your too fat to do dance” and it will affect dancers for the rest of their life and how they would like in the mirror when dancing. In conclusion, is an extremely competitive world to be in and when dancing they need to know how it is important for education, experience, and technique. This will help them artists to contribute to the landscape of dance. Finally, experience does not only enhance a dancers ability but shapes them as a dancer.
Websites I used in this Essay :
- Blume, J. ( 2023 ) The Evolution of Contemporary Dance – LiveTheDance is a dance blog – Guides, Reviews, Tips for Dancers
- Blume, J (2023) The Journey of Contemporary Dance: Past to Present – LiveTheDance is a dance blog – Guides, Reviews, Tips for Dancers
- Graham, 1923 Contemporary-Dance-Handout-.pdf (reigate.ac.uk)
- (2021) Lester Horton’s Dance Techniques – 641 Words | Internet Public Library (ipl.org)
- Bedinghaus. ( 2019) What Is Contemporary Dance?
- Bedinghaus (2019) Guide to Dance Warmups: 9 Essential Dance Warm-Ups – 2024 – MasterClass
- Editorial team (2024) FAQ: how to become a professional dancer | Indeed.com UK
- “Free moving dance” ( 2021) ‘Free moving’ dance has healing benefits for mental health | UCLA Health
- Blume. (2023) The Journey of Contemporary Dance: Past to Present – LiveTheDance is a dance blog – Guides, Reviews, Tips for Dance