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Week 3 AssignmentDADASD

1) The document discusses the importance of listening to the music rather than counting beats when performing as a dancer or musician. It notes that focusing too much on counting can take away from truly feeling and interpreting the music. 2) It provides the example of ballerina Margot Fonteyn's performance in "The Sleeping Beauty," where she was able to capture the audience through subtle emphases and the illusion of extending movements to match the music. 3) The document also discusses the idea of parallelism between music and dance, where musical elements like rhythm, melody and groupings of notes can correlate to actual dance movements and choreography. It argues that dance and music work best in harmony rather than as

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21 views

Week 3 AssignmentDADASD

1) The document discusses the importance of listening to the music rather than counting beats when performing as a dancer or musician. It notes that focusing too much on counting can take away from truly feeling and interpreting the music. 2) It provides the example of ballerina Margot Fonteyn's performance in "The Sleeping Beauty," where she was able to capture the audience through subtle emphases and the illusion of extending movements to match the music. 3) The document also discusses the idea of parallelism between music and dance, where musical elements like rhythm, melody and groupings of notes can correlate to actual dance movements and choreography. It argues that dance and music work best in harmony rather than as

Uploaded by

QFTW
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Quincy Huynh

Rachana Vajjhala
Music R1B
3 February 2015
To beginner musicians playing their instruments and dancers trying to get the chorographical
routine right, it is important to think about the beat and all the technicalities of the music. At least that
was what it was like for me. I would tap my feet, trying to keep the beat: (One, two three, four; Two,
two three four). That is why Balachines quote Just listen to the music, dont count in Jordans
Moving Music struck me as a strange thing to say if I read it as a younger musician, but I think
Balachine is right. There came a point in my musical career that I just stopped counting beats and
listened for cues. From that I gained a better sense of intuition and feeling for the music, which is
what ballet dancers have to do to execute the music in a reasonable interpretation, reasonable being
in a way that doesnt make the audience confused. Actually, if executed in the right way, it can
capture the audience just like Fonteyn did for a rendition of The Sleeping Beauty, where she put
strong emphases on bass notes with her feet and with the timing of her leaps, she gave the illusion
of extending the descending arc. Her performance is an example of synesthesia, where the audience
can physically feel the way she dances and see the art she creates through her steps. The title of the
chapter is Hearing the Dance, Watching the Music further enforces this. Fonteyns dance was a
clear example of gesture in music affecting the audience.
There is also the idea of parallelism in music and dance, where groupings of notes with their
rhythm and melodies can correlate to the actual dance. Slow, soft melodies correspond to light steps
and so on. It ties in to the idea that Weller gives, where dance is a visual language that communicates
the music. One is not the medium of the other; they work in harmony. Dance without music is
awkward, and music without dance seems to have no clear ideological meaning.

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