improvised dance

[stonetoflesh]

I imagine I won't get any responses, but I figured I might as well toss this out:

When I was a graduate music student at CalArts, my free improvisation group did a series of improvisations (unperformed) with a dancer. We (the musicians) would base our improvisations on the movements of the dancer; the dancer would base her improvisations on the music we were improvising. It was a very interesting experience-- lots of fun for all involved, and it prompted us to think differently about how to approach our respective arts.

Any improvising dancers in here?

 

[CelineDion]

I did once and it was fun

 

[Multi-Elis]

myself. It's where I do best. Though I haven't improvised yet with live musicians (African drummers excepted) . It's really difficult to enter the "flow", the state of mind you need to be in to do it well. You need to be so into the music, so into the premise of your mouvement, (the inner-logic that holds it together) and at the same time aware of what you are doing and of spacial composition. It's really difficult.

 

[islandgrrl517]

What's the difference between improvised dancing and interpretive dancing?

 

[stonetoflesh]

What's the difference between improvised dancing and interpretive dancing?

I'm no expert on the subject of dance, but it seems that improvised dance can certainly be interpretive-- "improvised" implies that the choreography is done spontaneously as the music is heard, as opposed to premeditated or precomposed.

 

[Crono]

I'm no expert on the subject of dance, but it seems that improvised dance can certainly be interpretive-- "improvised" implies that the choreography is done spontaneously as the music is heard, as opposed to premeditated or precomposed.

By that definition, wouldn't pretty much any form of social dancing (ballroom, swing, tango, etc.) be a form of improvised dancing?

 

[stonetoflesh]

By that definition, wouldn't pretty much any form of social dancing (ballroom, swing, tango, etc.) be a form of improvised dancing?

I would think that they aren't improvised; there are specific steps or movements for all of these forms of dance (as evidenced by the variety of "learn to _____ dance" books and videos available), and are often set to specific dance rhythms or musical styles.

 

[Multi-Elis]

Though you can say that the order of the steps and the variations added to them are improvised. A pre-choreographed ball room dance for a competition isn't, but in informal settings it is often improvisation. It involves the same kind of difficulties: when do you start introducing the spins? How do you keep it interesting for your partner? For the people standing around watching? How are you going to make use of the space around you? Of the variations in the music? You have to think about all these aspects while leading the dance. It's the same with other forms of improvised dance. You have to be in this state of mind where your brain and your emotional expression are working together and not cancelling each other out.

 

[stonetoflesh]

Though you can say that the order of the steps and the variations added to them are improvised. A pre-choreographed ball room dance for a competition isn't, but in informal settings it is often improvisation. It involves the same kind of difficulties: when do you start introducing the spins? How do you keep it interesting for your partner? For the people standing around watching? How are you going to make use of the space around you? Of the variations in the music? You have to think about all these aspects while leading the dance. It's the same with other forms of improvised dance. You have to be in this state of mind where your brain and your emotional expression are working together and not cancelling each other out.

I see what you're saying, I guess I've just been approaching it from the context of my OP-- freely improvised music and freely improvised dance simultaneously playing off each other-- as opposed to improvisation within defined frameworks. No worries though, it's cool to get a dancer's perspective on this; again, I'm no expert...

 

[Multi-Elis]

What difficulties do you find when you improvise with music for dancers? I'd like to know more about that aspect.

 

[New Creation]

I did for 13 years although never with live music. I would imagine that to be very challenging!

 

[Living Soul Dance]

What's the difference between improvised dancing and interpretive dancing?

Improve is Unchoreographed.
Interpretive dance is usely choreogaphed