tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/dance-5843/articlesDance – The Conversation2024-01-23T18:59:17Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2128772024-01-23T18:59:17Z2024-01-23T18:59:17ZHow to watch dance<p>Watching dance is watching an extraordinary and fleeting artistic creation that uses an instrument we all have: the human body. The dancing body communicates a unique sense of being human as it speaks to us through its bones, its muscles, its skin, its cells.</p>
<p>But have you ever been to a dance performance and wondered what it was all about? Or wanted to go see some dance, but been unsure of where to start?</p>
<p>For the uninitiated, dance can be difficult because, like music, it uses a non-verbal language. These basics can open the door to enjoying the beauty and complexity of this physical art.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/im-going-to-a-classical-music-concert-for-the-first-time-what-should-i-know-195290">I'm going to a classical music concert for the first time. What should I know?</a>
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<h2>1. Know the code</h2>
<p>There are so many kinds of dance, and all have different ways of communicating – different codes. </p>
<p>For example, in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGT4g7FHSvA">ballet</a> the body is vertical and straight and the legs and arms move around that erect centre. The emphasis is on lightness. </p>
<p>In contrast, in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IasPpe1BZ2o">contemporary dance</a>, the body contracts and bends and the movement is grounded and close to the floor.</p>
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<p>And these are only two of the Western forms of dance. Every culture has their own dance form, and these all have their own codes. </p>
<p>Some performances are a blend of codes. For example, Bangarra Dance Theatre has created a style which blends traditional Indigenous Australian dance with Western contemporary dance and ballet.</p>
<p>Knowing the code means you know the building blocks, the rules, the frame for the performance. You have a benchmark for what to expect.</p>
<h2>2. Do your research</h2>
<p>If you’re going to see a ballet, there might be a story and you’ll be expected to know the story before you see the ballet – unlike plays where the excitement is the story being revealed on stage. Ballet companies will often publish this story on their website, or you can look up the work on Wikipedia.</p>
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<p>But much like conceptual art (imagine a painting with a small red splodge in the corner of a green background – what does it mean?), the ideas behind a lot of dance performances are not immediately obvious. They may be quite abstract. </p>
<p>In this case, reading what the choreographer says about the work before you see it, and knowing a bit about their other works, gives you a context and a way to make meaning of what you see. You can find interviews with choreographers in various online publications, on company websites, or look them up on YouTube.</p>
<h2>3. It’s all about the movement</h2>
<p>Story or no story, dance is ultimately about a body moving through space. The pleasure in watching dance comes in engaging with the patterns, the movement vocabulary and phrasing, and the energetic quality of the dancers.</p>
<p>You can appreciate the pattern a body makes moving high or low, traversing the whole stage or staying in one place. With more than one body on stage, you notice the patterns the group make much like noticing the changing configurations of a flock of birds.</p>
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<p>Movement vocabulary is the collection of “body words”, or steps, that are repeated and form dance phrases. These can be unique to a performance or a choreographer. The way the vocabulary is arranged in terms of structure, space and timing creates the dance.</p>
<p>The energetic quality of the dancers – think soft, light and flowing versus powerful, attacking and weighty – can change the emotion of the dance and your interpretation.</p>
<h2>4. There are no right and wrong answers</h2>
<p>A dance performance is not a murder mystery. In watching dance, you are not trying to unlock a singular meaning. </p>
<p>Instead, you are engaging with and appreciating all the factors listed here as well as the other arts on display including the sound, the designs, the lighting and the costumes. You may find a different meaning or different elements to appreciate to other people. </p>
<p>The performance in this video from Chunky Move clearly has characters suggesting a narrative, but it is left up to the audience to interpret the action for themselves. The main meaning comes through the concept being explored which is depth of field.</p>
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<h2>5. Know the etiquette</h2>
<p>Like most shows and exhibitions these days, what you wear is up to you. Even in state theatres and opera houses, some will wear ball gowns, others jeans.</p>
<p>In a traditional theatre setting, once seated, you are expected to watch the whole performance. Some dance performances might be in galleries and for these you can wander around and leave when you’re ready.</p>
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<p>Applause is a bit tricky. Sometimes you can applaud during the performance, and sometimes not. Even seasoned dance watchers sometimes get it wrong. So, until you get the hang of it, just follow along. At the end of the performance, there may be multiple curtain calls or bows, especially if there is a large cast, and the audience is expected to continue applauding as long as the bowing continues. You can leave once the lights come up.</p>
<p>If you feel very enthusiastic about the performance, you may stand and applaud. If most of the audience does this, it’s called a standing ovation. But it also doesn’t matter if you are the only one standing.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/lets-dance-how-dance-classes-can-lift-your-mood-and-help-boost-your-social-life-197692">Let's dance! How dance classes can lift your mood and help boost your social life</a>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yvette Grant does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Have you ever wanted to go see some dance, but been unsure of where to start? These basics can open the door to enjoying the beauty and complexity of this physical art.Yvette Grant, PhD (Dance) Candidate and Dance History Tutor, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2209292024-01-17T13:06:05Z2024-01-17T13:06:05ZWhy dancers are better workers, according to research<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568720/original/file-20240110-21-6g5qal.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3840%2C2144&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/happy-team-engineers-dancing-factory-1647660442">WitthayaP/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Breakdancing in the break room might not seem like the best way to get ahead at work, but research shows recreational dance can actually improve productivity performance in the workplace.</p>
<p>It is well known that engaging in physical activity has many health benefits – from reducing the risk of diabetes, to lowering the risk of developing coronary heart diseases and dementia. The <a href="https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789241599979">World Health Organization (WHO)</a> has even linked the increasing incidence of noncommunicable diseases (those characterised by slow progression and long duration) to unhealthy lifestyles. </p>
<p>If you still need motivation to move, there is evidence that a lack of physical exercise can result in <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0927537115000445?casa_token=2tRKjiPws6QAAAAA:yJNYdY0kMq-WfMYGiGhLjdKw1K_kIevdhxMIcH5w-ymejJPqyvslwZ9hKuBYTE4xyZqu2HSBVg">lower earnings</a>, and lower probability of <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1053535711000990?casa_token=hnhqFYfxQcoAAAAA:hhnfDeDE_NWOdUeGQKlgdvUryV_uOxlgnfmRX3wIZazfQZU10egnckITAGjjDM9zECWYXadkVQ">finding employment</a> or even being <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927537110001272?casa_token=9VatwazLHWUAAAAA:R42McSUoFvP6mWzELLTyj0FFpKRJouUOimph-w6CZ6qogVItB2KQczinPS_bLYHDcqfs1h8q9Q">invited to interview</a>.</p>
<p>So, moving is good for you. But when it comes to work, <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1069031X221079609">our research shows</a> that dance, in particular, could help you – and your company – get ahead. </p>
<h2>Let’s dance</h2>
<p>Dance is special. Neuroscience and psychology researchers have not only recognised the positive health effects of dance but have also discovered that dancing has <a href="https://myacare.com/blog/is-dance-the-best-form-of-exercise-health-benefits-of-dance-explained">additional benefits</a> compared to other forms of physical exercise. Cognitive psychologist – and dancer – <a href="https://www.dance-masterclass.com/dance-psychology-with-dr-peter-lovatt">Peter Lovatt</a> explains that dance is a cognitive activity that engages the brain through learning dance routines, processing music and thinking about rhythm and coordination. </p>
<p>Several studies have focused on the benefits of dancing for the ageing brain and its effectiveness in improving quality of life among those affected by degenerative conditions such as <a href="https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/dancing-to-music-may-halt-progression-of-parkinsons-disease">Parkinson’s disease</a>. And while there have been no specific studies on the economics of dance, <a href="https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jel.46.3.607">research tends to relate</a> cognitive skills to higher wages and productivity. </p>
<p>And so, because it improves cognitive abilities, we believe dance can also improve productivity in the workplace.</p>
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<span class="caption">Companies should consider a workplace dance intervention.</span>
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<h2>The workplace benefits of dance</h2>
<p>To show this, we used a survey-based approach to collect data from a sample of dancers located in Italy, the UK and Brazil. We also collected data from a control group from the same three countries – these participants actively exercise but do not dance. </p>
<p>To measure performance in the workplace, we used a selection of questions on absenteeism (not turning up to work) and presenteeism (not working as hard as usual when at work). </p>
<p>We picked five questions from the WHO’s <a href="https://www.hcp.med.harvard.edu/hpq/">Health and Work Performance questionnaire</a> to measure presenteeism: how often respondents have not worked when they were supposed to, how often they have not worked carefully, how often their work has been of poor quality, how often they have not been concentrating while working, and how they self-rate their job performance. </p>
<p>To evaluate absenteeism, we used respondents’ reports about how many times they had missed a whole day of work (or part of a day) for health reasons and for non-health related reasons over the week prior to the survey.</p>
<p>For a more meaningful comparison of productivity performance, we matched each dancer with a non-dancer with similar personal and job characteristics. This way, the only observable difference between the matched participants is how they exercise. So, any differences in productivity could be due to dance.</p>
<p>We found that presenteeism is lower among dancers compared to non-dancers. We also found that dancers are more productive compared to non-dancers because they exhibit less absenteeism.</p>
<h2>Dance or wellbeing – or both?</h2>
<p>So, the research indicates that dance could improve productivity directly through enhanced cognitive abilities. But there are other potential ways that doing a few pirouettes could benefit you at work. </p>
<p>Several studies have found <a href="https://bradscholars.brad.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/10454/18268/pp-wellbeing-report.pdf?sequence=2">a positive relationship</a> between wellbeing and performance in the workplace. This makes sense. If you feel happy and satisfied with your life, you’re more likely to concentrate on your work tasks and perform them more effectively, possibly because you’re less <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/681096?casa_token=hV5IwdM78xkAAAAA%3A1aRwS9Kk4XbpocnUcSjXSQ6x2Ui1tZ5nhMZtmlcBXKC9soy-xcyA3OZSD_ifaoiQpKxQhcHs03g">distracted</a>. </p>
<p>Equally, scholars have identified <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=q28sDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=dance+and+wellbeing&ots=SAHIkGHg1b&sig=C5H9pr3U8SIufFCYrpTfFms_IcY#v=onepage&q=dance%20and%20wellbeing&f=false">a positive relationship</a> between dance and wellbeing. We also found that the dancers in our sample enjoy higher levels of wellbeing compared to the non-dancers. So, our results could simply indicate that dance improves wellbeing, and wellbeing leads to higher productivity, rather than dance improving productivity directly.</p>
<p>To probe this issue further, we compared dancers and non-dancers who match in terms of other personal and job characteristics, but who also have similar levels of wellbeing. After controlling for wellbeing like this, we found dancers still perform better in terms of presenteeism and absenteeism. This suggests that the positive correlation between dance and productivity goes beyond the well-known wellbeing effects. Dance has a direct effect on worker productivity, it’s not just making dancers feel happier.</p>
<h2>Who benefits from dancing at work?</h2>
<p>The productivity difference between dancers and non-dancers is most concentrated in respondents with jobs involving below average levels of cognitive tasks and above average levels of routine tasks, such as packaging, package delivery or payment processing. It’s reasonable to assume that this group is not cognitively stimulated at work, so dancing seems to provide a way of improving cognitive skills which, in turn, affects their performance. </p>
<p>The productivity-enhancing effect of dance is also stronger in activities involving high levels of teamwork. Also, although the matched male sample is rather small, our results suggest that men who practice recreational dance benefit more than women in terms of presenteeism and absenteeism.</p>
<p>The relationship between dance and presenteeism or absenteeism is very important economically. The annual cost of poor mental health for UK employers could be as much as £45 billion, <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/uk/en/pages/consulting/articles/mental-health-and-employers-refreshing-the-case-for-investment.html">according to research</a> by Deloitte. A large part of this cost arises from presenteeism and absenteeism. So, a workplace dance intervention could help reduce such costs, as well as being beneficial for workers. </p>
<p>Dancing is a universal activity, it’s part of the cultural heritage of most countries. It could be used worldwide to promote health and performance in the workplace as well.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220929/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michela Vecchi received funding from Middlesex University for the initial data collection used for the study.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ian Marsh does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Dancing boosts wellbeing and reduces absenteeism and presenteeism.Michela Vecchi, Professor of Economics, Kingston UniversityIan Marsh, Professor of Finance, City, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2148832023-10-05T15:03:00Z2023-10-05T15:03:00ZBlack Sabbath – The Ballet: a heavy metal expert reviews this ‘spectacle of entertainment’<p>Ballets are typically performed to the enchanting and distinctive melodies of classical music, not the emphatic beats and supersonic volume of heavy metal. But it’s the music of heavy metal pioneers Black Sabbath that scores Birmingham Royal Ballet’s new show, <a href="https://www.brb.org.uk/shows/black-sabbath">Black Sabbath – The Ballet</a>, which is currently showing at the Theatre Royal Plymouth before moving to London’s Sadler’s Wells. </p>
<p>Ballet, and the classical music that usually accompanies it, symbolises elegance and sophistication – the epitome of high culture. Heavy metal music is <a href="https://eprints.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/id/eprint/164/6/The%20Construction%20of%20Heavy%20Metal%20Identity%20through%20Heritage%20Narratives%20A%20Case%20Study%20of%20Extreme%20Metal%20Bands%20in%20the%20North%20of%20England.pdf">often regarded as the exact opposite</a>, and its fans have been treated in a similar fashion: viewed as unsophisticated. </p>
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<p>When I was doing research on identity expression in heavy metal music for my PhD, I was often met with apathy from people who did not care about the music or the culture. They’d ask: “Why bother doing research on this?” </p>
<p>I must admit that going into Black Sabbath – The Ballet, I had my own doubts. My knowledge and experience of ballet was nonexistent, and I was expecting little more than some dancing around to Black Sabbath’s music. But I was very pleasantly surprised that it was more than that – it was a spectacle of entertainment.</p>
<h2>Performing the ballet</h2>
<p>A short piano introduction to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TJkO9VNxwk">Iron Man</a> (1972) opens the show, as dancers dressed entirely in black enter the stage. Then, a guitarist – dubbed the Guitar Spirit – plays the chords to Iron Man, now accompanied by the orchestra. The dancers cavort around him, picking him up and carrying him around the stage as he plays. </p>
<p>As the song finishes and fades, an orchestral cover of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lejk2BmBbvk">Solitude</a> (1971) accompanies two dancers sharing a kiss that lasts throughout the song. Their bond is only broken by the return of the Guitar Spirit, now playing the riffs of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOTIIw76qiE">Paranoid</a> (1970). </p>
<p>The second act features voiceovers from members of Black Sabbath, including an account of guitarist <a href="https://www.thaliacapos.com/blogs/blog/black-sabbath-s-tony-iommi-and-the-accident-that-created-heavy-metal">Tony Iommi’s factory accident</a> which affected his guitar playing – and how he persevered through this struggle. There’s also commentary about the band <a href="https://loudwire.com/ozzy-osbourne-fired-from-black-sabbath-anniversary/">parting ways with lead singer Ozzy Osbourne</a>, their rise to fame, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/jun/06/black-sabbath-cocaine-private-plane">struggles with drugs and alcohol</a> and the subsequent difficulties of stardom. </p>
<p>This act, telling the story of four young men from Aston in Birmingham becoming musical icons, concludes with a powerful orchestral arrangement of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYZE4vKDqzs">Sabbath Bloody Sabbath</a> (1973). The story is told clearly, underpinned by sombre and melancholic orchestral music that successfully adds a sense of nostalgia. </p>
<p>The final act focuses on the legacy of Black Sabbath, their influence on heavy metal music, how music brings people together, and how the band is celebrated all over the world. It includes a nice flute piece inspired by the connection the band shares with its fans, accompanied by some occasional light, rhythmic drum beats to perhaps emulate the conditions the band experienced working in a factory before their rise to fame. </p>
<p>Then, the Guitar Spirit returns and the mood of the music changes. Playing <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAEqXqTTRVc">Laguna Sunrise</a> (1971), the Guitar Spirit and a dancer take turns to command the audience’s attention. The music builds up in a grandiose interplay with the orchestra – everyone plays their part to lead the audience to the climax of the ballet. </p>
<p>As Paranoid begins to be played for the last time, Iommi himself takes to the stage in a surprise appearance (he only appears in a handful of performances of the ballet) and rocks out with the Guitar Spirit. </p>
<h2>A fitting celebration</h2>
<p>Black Sabbath – The Ballet beautifully coalesces the elegance of classical music and ballet with the gritty and aggressive nature of heavy metal music.</p>
<p>Ballet may look fluid and effortless, but it demands years of hard physical and mental work. In this way, it mirrors the experience of being in a band: hard work which eventually results in success, despite strain and downsides. The fusing of the classical orchestra with the music of Black Sabbath makes this ballet a phenomenal experience. </p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Douglas Schulz does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The elegance of classical ballet beautifully coalesces with the gritty, aggressive nature of heavy metal music.Douglas Schulz, Lecturer in Sociology and Criminology, University of BradfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2128192023-09-14T16:15:16Z2023-09-14T16:15:16ZThe cross-Africa dance company bringing new life to Pina Bausch’s Rite of Spring<p>At its premiere in 1913, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Igor-Stravinsky">Igor Stravinsky</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Vaslav-Nijinsky">Vaslav Nijinsky</a>’s <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Rite-of-Spring">Rite of Spring</a> shocked audiences and divided critics. The ballet centred around a straightforward yet brutal narrative – a community selects a sacrificial victim, a virgin who will be martyred to their fertility god to secure a good harvest. The plot, however, was not what scandalised Parisian theatregoers. </p>
<p>Every aspect of the performance transgressed western classical traditions. <a href="https://www.npr.org/2007/03/24/9041627/the-primitive-pulse-of-stravinskys-rite-of-spring">Stravinsky’s score</a> re-imagined Russian folk music through a complex web of harmonies and constantly changing tempo. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jo4sf2wT0wU&t=1393s">Nijinsky’s choreography</a> abandoned ballet technique – his dancers had turned-in feet, curved spines and performed percussive stomps. And <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Nicholas-Roerich">Nikolai Roerich</a>’s set and costume designs were influenced by the <a href="https://avant.edu.pl/wp-content/uploads/Lucy-Weir-Primitive-Rituals.pdf">folk art of Central Asia</a>. </p>
<p>The ballet became a symbol of modernity, a bold vision of the future that was steeped in a global heritage.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Trailer for Dancing at Dusk - A moment with Pina Bausch’s The Rite of Spring.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Sixty years later, in the German city of Wuppertal, <a href="https://www.pinabausch.org/work/sacr">Pina Bausch’s version</a> had a similar <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2023/feb/12/enduring-power-dance-classic-the-rite-of-spring-dada-masilo-the-sacrifice-seeta-patel-ballet-russes">cultural impact</a>, influencing generations of dancers to follow. Bausch’s remarkable staging covered the floor in a thick layer of soil, creating the impression of a devastated wasteland. Her intricate and relentless choreography required intense effort from the cast who, by the end, transformed the earth into a sweaty mud bath. The result was a visceral power play between men and women, a timeless morality tale about the consequences of misogynistic violence.</p>
<p>Bausch’s Rite was a great success and it became one of her best-known works. Throughout the four decades that she directed her radical independent company, <a href="https://www.pina-bausch.de/en">Tanztheater Wuppertal</a>, Bausch devised a new language of dance that departed from previous techniques and styles. The company diversified as it grew, taking in members from six continents, different generations and a much broader range of body types than is usually seen in the dance world.</p>
<p>After Bausch’s death in 2009, a <a href="https://www.pinabausch.org/">foundation</a> was established in her name, dedicated not only to preserving her legacy, but also expanding its reach. The Pina Bausch Foundation has authorised various dance companies to perform her work, including <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfebd6Yan10">English National Ballet</a> and <a href="https://www.staatsoper-berlin.de/de/veranstaltungen/strawinsky.11209/">Staatsballett Berlin</a>. However, its collaboration with Senegalese choreographer <a href="https://sacreblue.org/shape-the-future/germaine-acogny-the-mother-of-contemporary-african-dance/">Germaine Acogny</a> offers a much more innovative approach. </p>
<p>For the first time, an <a href="https://www.pinabausch.org/post/ensemble-the-rite-of-spring">ensemble</a> has been created specifically for the purposes of dancing Bausch’s Rite of Spring. This staging, <a href="https://www.sadlerswells.com/on-tour/current-productions/pina-bausch-germaine-acogny-malou-airaudo-the-rite-of-spring-common-grounds/">currently touring internationally</a>, is performed by an all-African cast. Thirty-eight dancers from 14 countries breathe new life into now canonical choreography. Crucially, they also highlight the ongoing lack of African representation on theatrical stages.</p>
<h2>Modern dance is global</h2>
<p>From its very beginnings, modern dance has drawn inspiration from – and, too frequently, appropriated – cultures across the globe. American pioneer of modern contemporary dance, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/dance-research-journal/article/abs/dancing-greek-antiquity-in-private-and-public-isadora-duncans-early-patronage-in-paris/9E8A91DD0379E1C33AF7008D759BB303">Isadora Duncan</a> (1877-1927) referenced the philosophy and aesthetics of ancient Greece. The German pioneer of expressionist dance and dance therapy, <a href="http://www.scottishjournalofperformance.org/Tsitsou_Weir_hexentanz_SJoP0101_DOI_10.14439sjop.2013.0101.04.pdf">Mary Wigman</a> (1886-1973), was fascinated by the theatre and dance traditions of Asia. And American choreographer <a href="https://journals.openedition.org/erea/8339?lang=en">Martha Graham</a> (1894-1991) incorporated Native American rituals into her works. </p>
<p>Yet there is a more complex history exemplified by artists such as <a href="https://www.michioito.org/about">Michio Ito</a> (1892-1961), a Japanese dancer whose performances garnered the appreciation of audiences across Europe and the US, <a href="https://www5.open.ac.uk/research-projects/making-britain/content/uday-shankar">Uday Shankar</a> (1900-1977), an innovator of Indian modern dance and <a href="https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/2021/02/katherine-dunham-in-the-caribbean/">Katherine Dunham</a> (1906-2006), who researched traditional dances of the Caribbean.</p>
<p>Modern dance has always been global. Yet a problem with representation persists – and African dancers remain <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/african-theatre-contemporary-dance/introduction/0031B07A2A914E8DB14EB3C797F97E11">especially marginalised</a> both on stage and in dance writing. The erroneous belief that modern dance has simply failed to take hold in the African continent erases a rich creative legacy.</p>
<h2>A unique collaboration</h2>
<p>Germaine Acogny and Pina Bausch’s careers ran in parallel. Both women studied abroad before bringing their expertise back to their home countries. <a href="https://www.uarts.edu/germaine-acogny">Acogny</a> caught the attention of Senegalese president, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Leopold-Senghor">Léopold Sédar Senghor</a>, who sent her to work with the acclaimed choreographer <a href="https://www.bejart.ch/en/company/maurice-bejart/">Maurice Béjart</a> in Belgium. </p>
<p>Senghor and Béjart helped her to establish <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1980/02/21/ballet-mudra-afrique/a7904aef-5b89-4d9c-a23c-bc9caad5d998/">Mudra Afrique</a>, the first school of contemporary dance in Senegal’s capital city, Dakar. However, Acogny became increasingly frustrated by the curriculum’s focus on western techniques and her desire to create a home for African modern dance led her to open <a href="https://ecoledessables.org/">École des Sables</a> in 2004.</p>
<p>This seaside dance school was the locus for the Rite of Spring ensemble, who rehearsed with members of Bausch’s company for months to get under the skin of her choreography. Original touring plans were put on hold due to the pandemic. Thankfully, a visiting documentary filmmaker captured a <a href="https://www.pinabausch.org/post/dancing-at-dusk">final rehearsal</a> on the beach at Toubab Dialaw, immediately before the country went into lockdown. </p>
<p>The resulting film reached global audiences at a time when live theatre seemed a distant prospect and, for many, was an important introduction to the culture of modern dance in Africa.</p>
<p>The company’s performances have brought rave reviews, including a sold-out run at the 2023 Edinburgh International Festival. Nonetheless, this raises a complex question. After a century of cross-cultural exchange and the global expansion of the art form, should it take a western “classic” to raise the profile of African modern dance? <a href="https://www.goethe.de/prj/zei/en/art/22355154.html">Sincere reflection</a> is required on the power structures that govern dance as a global enterprise and determine whose work ends up being seen.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lucy Weir receives funding from The Leverhulme Trust. </span></em></p>The 38 dancers highlight the ongoing lack of African representation on theatrical stages.Lucy Weir, Chancellor's Fellow in History of Art, The University of EdinburghLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2077192023-06-22T01:55:18Z2023-06-22T01:55:18ZRising has yet to establish its voice – but this year’s festival gave us significant and thrilling work by First Nations artists<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533077/original/file-20230621-17-y2w73m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=56%2C22%2C7426%2C4969&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tracker, from Australian Dance Theatre and Ilbijerri Theatre.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Pedro Greig/Rising</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Rising has just completed its second run across Melbourne. The newest addition to the city’s festival scene, Rising replaced the much-loved White Night festival and the much-celebrated Melbourne International Arts Festival.</p>
<p>As a new major arts event for a city that has a year-long calendar of significant festival activity, Rising has yet to establish what kind of intervention it is making in our cultural conversation – although its slick marketing line, “Music, Food, Art and Culture under Moonlight”, speaks to the notion of Melbourne as a wintry ethereal nighttime stage. </p>
<p>Led by artistic directors Hannah Fox and Gideon Obarzanek, Rising 2023 was an eclectic mix of local and international work. Some offered spectacle and thrill (Tanz and Euphoria) and some offered participation and community (The Rink and 1000 Kazoos). </p>
<p>But I found the highlight of Rising to be the significant and thrilling work created by First Nations artists across dance, visual art, theatre and music. </p>
<p>A key part of the journey of seeing work at Rising was the act of embodied witnessing. </p>
<p>My top three works situated witnessing as a political act. Witnessing is an act of deep listening, designed to change and shift your perspective. These works invite you to revisit what you thought you knew. </p>
<p>Each functioned to rethink questions of history and philosophy, to reshape notions of culture and memory, and troubled legacies of colonial violence.</p>
<h2>Jacky</h2>
<p>Jacky, a new play by Arrernte playwright Declan Furber Gillick, is a beautifully nuanced and performed investigation of the weight of white expectation and capitalism and its potentially dangerous impact on First Nations people. </p>
<p>Jacky (Guy Simon) is a young man who has moved from his community to the city with aspirations of securing a white-collar permanent job and owning an apartment. Jacky’s younger brother, Keith (Ngali Shaw), is sent by family to join him and soon upturns the ordered trajectory of Jacky’s life. </p>
<p>What quickly emerges is a profoundly uncomfortable look at what constitutes palatable Aboriginal behaviour by white people. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533091/original/file-20230621-27-2b41j9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533091/original/file-20230621-27-2b41j9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533091/original/file-20230621-27-2b41j9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533091/original/file-20230621-27-2b41j9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533091/original/file-20230621-27-2b41j9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533091/original/file-20230621-27-2b41j9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533091/original/file-20230621-27-2b41j9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533091/original/file-20230621-27-2b41j9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Jacky is a profoundly uncomfortable look at what constitutes palatable Aboriginal behaviour by white people.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Pia Johnson/Melbourne Theatre Company</span></span>
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<p>Jacky’s well-intentioned white boss (Alison Whyte) engages in culturally incompetent behaviour when she requests Jacky pretend he is from a local family group. Jacky’s sex work client, Glen (Greg Stone), requests that Jacky participate in an act of racist role-play. </p>
<p>Keith challenges the social expectations of “good Aboriginal” Jacky has been relying on. He plays witness to the bind Jacky finds himself in: whether he succumbs to the demands of white expectation, or forfeits the social and material gains that are part of playing the role of “sexy Black poster boy”. </p>
<p>Jacky is part of the Melbourne Theatre Company’s season, playing at Arts Centre Melbourne. For me as a white audience member, the performance lays bare an act of political witnessing as Furber Gillick’s writing demands you pay attention and not look away. </p>
<p>Titled in reference to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackey_Jackey">Jacky Jacky</a>, an Aboriginal guide who was awarded medals for his service to NSW, the play troubles ideas of subservience and collaboration within white and First Nations relationships. </p>
<p>It reveals the racist and white supremacist underpinnings of ideas of Aboriginal inclusion premised upon white understandings of success in a capitalist system. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/joyous-comic-and-grim-the-best-new-indigenous-playwrights-72369">Joyous, comic and grim: the best new Indigenous playwrights</a>
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<h2>Shadow Spirit</h2>
<p>The exhibition Shadow Spirit brings together 30 contemporary First Peoples artists and collectives from across the country into an immersive exhibition, including 14 specially commissioned works. </p>
<p>Curated by Kimberley Moulton, Shadow Spirit weaves throughout the decaying and compelling site of the rooms above Flinders Street Station. Works incorporate a range of forms including light, sound, sculpture, screen and projection. </p>
<p>Ambitious and stunning, as you wander through the exhibition works pay tribute to AC/DC; speak to contemporary hero narratives; and feature First Nations Jedi Knight figures blinking back at you on full-size screens under expansive celestial skies. </p>
<p>There is a giant sculptural bandicoot spirit animal; works that map the spirits and energies of Country, waterways and skies and speak to how ancient knowledges protect land and children; and works that directly address the space between what is known and tangible, and what is felt and intuited. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533068/original/file-20230621-8426-7fd8m4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A sculpture with a doll's head and petrol pump." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533068/original/file-20230621-8426-7fd8m4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533068/original/file-20230621-8426-7fd8m4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533068/original/file-20230621-8426-7fd8m4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533068/original/file-20230621-8426-7fd8m4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533068/original/file-20230621-8426-7fd8m4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533068/original/file-20230621-8426-7fd8m4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533068/original/file-20230621-8426-7fd8m4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Deeply Rooted is a monstrous and confronting homage to colonial violence and destruction. Deeply Rooted, 2023, Karla Dickens – Wiradjuri.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Eugene Hyland/Rising</span></span>
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<p>One stand-out moment is Wiradjuri artist Karla Dickens’ sculptural works Deeply Rooted. </p>
<p>These spiky works fuse together native hardwood from the artist’s Country with found objects like witches hats, steel caps, broken pieces of rabbit trap, petrol nozzles with the sculptural doll-like head of an Aboriginal child. </p>
<p>Together, these objects create a monstrous and confronting homage to colonial violence and destruction, and a comment on the failure of successive governments to implement meaningful policy change. </p>
<p>Another stunning moment is Rarrirarri in the large ballroom. </p>
<p>Artistic collective The Mulka Project and Mulkuṉ Wirrpanda (Yolŋu) have collaborated on an installation. A stone monolith (part Uluru and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kata_Tjuta">Kata Tjutu</a> and part termite mound) rises from the centre of the room. Across this screens stunning graphic projections of floral and animal landscapes.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533070/original/file-20230621-20-h7xwhz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A sculpture with projected flowers in a dark ballroom." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533070/original/file-20230621-20-h7xwhz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533070/original/file-20230621-20-h7xwhz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533070/original/file-20230621-20-h7xwhz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533070/original/file-20230621-20-h7xwhz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533070/original/file-20230621-20-h7xwhz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533070/original/file-20230621-20-h7xwhz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533070/original/file-20230621-20-h7xwhz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Rarrirarri requires you to sit and watch it for some time. Rarrirarri, 2023, The Mulka Project and Mulkuṉ Wirrpanda (NT) – Yolŋu.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Eugene Hyland/Rising</span></span>
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<p>Rarrirarri speaks clearly to desert landscapes and ceremonial and spiritual Country. It requires you to sit and watch it for some time, as the experience of passing time and a landscape of seasonal change reveals itself in the stunning moving graphics of the art work.</p>
<p>The exhibition’s location at the Flinders Street ballroom brings these stories of creation, ancestral knowledge, spirituality and the legacies of colonial violence into conversation with the city’s civic centre. This site is full of cultural memory as a meeting place for railway workers for over 100 years, and its deeper history as a Wurundjeri and Boon Wurrung gathering place across thousands of generations. </p>
<p>Shadow Spirit invites you to linger, to witness and absorb the breadth and depth of knowledge and culture and story threaded through each room in the space.</p>
<p>You are asked to consider your own position and history in relation to these stories, and how you connect and belong within the ancient and contemporary narratives running through the exhibition. </p>
<p>It is a gift to Naarm: a physical and spiritual centre for reflection and communion and gathering, a showcase of the excellence of our First Nations artists and a demonstration of art itself as a political witness. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/bark-ladies-how-womens-yolnu-bark-paintings-break-with-convention-and-embrace-artists-strong-personalities-174340">Bark Ladies: how women's Yolŋu bark paintings break with convention and embrace artists' strong personalities</a>
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<h2>Tracker</h2>
<p>A co-production between Australian Dance Theatre and Ilbijerri Theatre, Tracker is a remarkable piece of storytelling about Wiradjuri elder <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-01-31/aboriginal-police-sergeant-tracker-alec-riley-life-on-stage/101899924">Alec “Tracker” Riley</a>.</p>
<p>Riley worked with the NSW police for over 40 years solving crimes to great acclaim. He was the great, great uncle of director-choreographer Daniel Riley.</p>
<p>Blending contemporary dance, text, live music and a simple but effective 270-degree rotating set design of scenic painted curtains and greenery rigged around a circular ring, Tracker takes us deep into ancestral Country in the middle of the night.</p>
<p>Our protagonist (Ella Ferris) has travelled to reconnect with the spirit of her great great uncle prior to giving birth to her own child. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533067/original/file-20230621-5458-i8boip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two dancers in blue light and denim clothes." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533067/original/file-20230621-5458-i8boip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533067/original/file-20230621-5458-i8boip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533067/original/file-20230621-5458-i8boip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533067/original/file-20230621-5458-i8boip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533067/original/file-20230621-5458-i8boip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533067/original/file-20230621-5458-i8boip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533067/original/file-20230621-5458-i8boip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Tracker takes us deep into ancestral Country in the middle of the night.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Pedro Greig/Rising</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>She seeks to understand and uncover this piece of her past in order to keep her son safe. In doing so, she reveals how our access to the truths of these stories of cultural resilience are obscured and hidden by layers of history and colonialism. </p>
<p>As the remarkable stories of Tracker Riley’s success in finding missing children and bringing criminals to justice are revealed, three spirit guides appear (Tyrel Dulvarie, Rika Hamaguchi and Kaine Sultan-Babij). Their poetic and synergistic movements echo, enhance and articulate the searching nature of the story. </p>
<p>As the audience, we bear witness to this uncovering of a piece of our nation’s past. Throughout the work, we seek to understand how this extraordinary man successfully forged a path between ancient wisdom and colonial structures – yet received no pension at the time of his retirement. </p>
<p>This is a powerful and ambitious story, asking us to look more closely at history and what the past can reveal about today. </p>
<p><em>Jacky is at Arts Centre Melbourne until June 24. Shadow Spirit is at Flinders Street Station until July 30.</em></p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/60-years-of-the-australian-ballet-and-90-years-of-australian-ballet-identity-asks-us-to-reflect-on-australian-dance-today-203931">60 years of The Australian Ballet and 90 years of 'Australian' ballet: Identity asks us to reflect on Australian dance today</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207719/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Austin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>My top three works situated witnessing as a political act. These works invite you to revisit what you thought you knew.Sarah Austin, Lecturer in Theatre, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2061332023-06-08T11:44:41Z2023-06-08T11:44:41ZThe Windrush dance revolution that transformed Britain – from Birmingham’s basements to Notting Hill carnival<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530405/original/file-20230606-7937-utigwl.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=14%2C17%2C1982%2C1467&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Reggae, dancehall, and identity: how Jamaican music transformed British society.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Holly Squire/Canva</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Growing up in Birmingham in the early 1960s, I am part of the African Caribbean generation that <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/windrush-52562">migrated to Britain</a> between the 1940s and 1980s. Commonly known as the “<a href="https://digpodcast.org/2022/03/06/windrush-generation/">Windrush generation</a>”, our arrival in the UK marked a significant turning point in the country’s social, artistic and economic landscape.</p>
<p>Back in those days, nights out in Birmingham revolved around paid entry into <a href="https://writersmosaic.org.uk/content/dancing-identity-in-a-strange-land-h-patten/">“blues” or “shubeens”</a> (house parties). They were often held in unconventional venues, from basements and abandoned buildings to church and school halls. These events took place up and down the country – black bodies dancing and expressing themselves through music and “riddim” (rhythm).</p>
<p>These venues became the birthplace of black clubs, stage shows and major international events such as the Notting Hill carnival and the Mobo Awards ceremony. In these spaces, we challenged the <a href="https://theconversation.com/black-history-is-still-largely-ignored-70-years-after-empire-windrush-reached-britain-98431">exclusion that African and Caribbean people</a> faced relating to established white-owned social venues.</p>
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<p><em>This article is part of our <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/windrush-75-139220?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=Windrush75&utm_content=InArticleTop">Windrush 75 series</a>, which marks the 75th anniversary of the HMT Empire Windrush arriving in Britain. The stories in this series explore the history and impact of the hundreds of passengers who disembarked to help rebuild after the second world war.</em></p>
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<p>Reflecting back on my childhood, I vividly remember attending Jamaican dance sessions where black bodies performed seemingly unconscious and spiritually symbolic dance rituals. This represented a form of resistance. But it was also about identity affirmation and survival. </p>
<p>Dance sessions involved setting up massive speakers, amplifiers, turntables and other sonic components that produced the pulsating music of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aASQlbktGkc">sound systems</a>. Operated by talented <a href="https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/22858/1/502410.pdf">deejays (DJs), selectors and MCs</a>, these musical artists transformed ordinary British locations into dynamic dance spaces.</p>
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<p>Through dance, we resisted <a href="https://repository.canterbury.ac.uk/item/8910q/the-spirituality-of-reggae-dancehall-dance-vocabulary-a-spiritual-corporeal-practice-in-jamaican-dance">cultural marginalisation and asserted our presence</a> in the face of oppression. I recall witnessing people performing the ska dance, characterised by energetic arm movements and knee-raising, to the popular song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7lCJg3WoSc">My Boy Lollipop</a> by Millie Small, which topped the UK charts in 1964. </p>
<p>In darkened rooms, bodies would sensuously move together, intertwining their pelvises in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyJwZwkqg8U">figure-eight, half or full circles</a>. Side-stepping, bending and straightening their knees, they performed the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_EybfMcRt4">reggae bounce</a>. </p>
<p>These dance movements were performed to songs like Janet Kay’s 1979 anthem <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCVR5XR04Mo">Silly Games</a>, which propelled the <a href="https://theconversation.com/small-axe-what-steve-mcqueen-got-right-and-wrong-about-lovers-rock-151068">lover’s rock</a> reggae genre beyond its African Caribbean audience base to global markets including China and Japan. </p>
<p>Dance and music were integral to our cultural celebrations marking the major lifecycle milestones, from christenings and weddings to birthdays and funerals.</p>
<h2>Contributing far and wide</h2>
<p>The influence of African Caribbean popular culture extended beyond our communities and made significant contributions to British society as a whole. For instance, Lord Kitchener’s calypso <a href="https://www.facebook.com/museumoflondon/videos/2446657958966637/">London is the Place for Me</a>, played on the decks of the SS Empire Windrush upon its arrival in 1948, expressed the dreams and aspirations of many who migrated to Britain. </p>
<p>Invited by the British government, African Caribbean people settled in the “Mother country”. We became an <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-windrush-generation-how-a-resilient-caribbean-community-made-a-lasting-contribution-to-british-society-204571">indispensable part of the workforce</a>, contributing to various sectors such as the NHS, transportation, business and infrastructural developments.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/notting-hill-carnival-why-partying-is-the-perfect-antidote-to-austerity-43509">The Notting Hill carnival</a>, born out of our resistance to oppression and violence following the murder of <a href="https://www.ourmigrationstory.org.uk/oms/murder-in-notting-hill">Kelso Cochrane</a> in 1959, became one of the greatest African Caribbean cultural contributions to British society.</p>
<p>Cochrane, an innocent black man walking home, was killed at the hands of white youths in Notting Hill. This ignited the UK’s first race riots, which directly influenced Trinidad and Tobago-born journalist and activist <a href="https://www.bristol.ac.uk/history/public-engagement/blackhistory/snapshots/claudiajones/">Claudia Jones</a> to set up the London Caribbean Carnival – a precursor to the Notting Hill carnival that was established in 1966.</p>
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<p>Today, “Carnival” is not only a vibrant celebration of our heritage but a significant contributor to the <a href="https://www.visitlondon.com/things-to-do/event/9023471-notting-hill-carnival">British economy and tourism industry</a>. Reggae’s sound-system culture was incorporated into this annual event, amplifying its reach beyond calypso, soca (an offshoot of calypso) and steel pan culture to encompass many forms of artistry.</p>
<p>Dance movements within reggae and dancehall music have become powerful expressions of cultural identity and personhood. The signature “whining” or “wining” movement, characterised by circling or rotating the pelvis while rocking it back and forth in a tumbling action, exemplifies Jamaican pride and self-worth.</p>
<p>Similarly, the iconic <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIXdI9mfDas">Bogle dance</a>, created by master dancer Gerald “Bogle” Levy in Jamaica and adopted within British dance spaces in the 1990s, features undulating arms and bodies across the dancehall space to the hit song Bogle, by Buju Banton. </p>
<p>Through reggae and dancehall, black bodies in Britain confidently occupied central positions within popular culture. We challenged gender stereotypes, body stigmatisation and the limitations imposed on African Caribbean bodies due to race.</p>
<h2>Freedom and empowerment</h2>
<p>The freedom and empowerment found in reggae and dancehall culture has also influenced the <a href="https://theconversation.com/black-artists-dont-just-make-hip-hop-why-recognition-of-metal-punk-rock-and-emo-by-mobo-is-long-overdue-195583">growth of other marginalised communities</a> in Britain. It played a crucial role in the development of genres such as hip-hop, punk rock, jungle, garage, drum ‘n’ bass, Afrobeat, reggaeton (South America), kwaito or di gong (South Africa), and hip-life (West Africa). </p>
<p>The wider influence of reggae, dancehall and African Caribbean culture can be seen throughout British culture: in television programmes, radio shows and advertisements that incorporate Jamaican slang, iconic songs and dance moves.</p>
<p>Examples include the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4kOj5MZlg8">Vitalite advert</a>, featuring Desmond Dekker’s The Israelites, Fairy Liquid’s use of Bob Marley’s <a href="https://vimeo.com/489047177">Don’t Worry</a> in their ads, and the BBC’s original Test match cricket theme, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67xXbTaQlKI">Soul Limbo</a>. Alongside the everyday use of Jamaican and African Caribbean slang terms and phrases such as “big up”, “shout out to” (acknowledging individuals), “bouyaka!” (signifying gunshots), “blood” or “fam” (meaning family), are actions including fist pumps, wining and twerking.</p>
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<p>Of course, life in the UK has not been without its challenges. The Windrush scandal of 2017 exposed that many from the Windrush generation had been excluded from British society, due to the UK government’s “<a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/hostile-environment-44885">hostile environment</a>” legislation. This intended to cut off undocumented migrants from access to any public services, including healthcare. </p>
<p>But despite such oppression, our cultural and economic contributions remain intertwined with British history. And we continue to shape the UK’s cultural landscape, today and into the future.</p>
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<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533175/original/file-20230621-18-hw1fuf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533175/original/file-20230621-18-hw1fuf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=144&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533175/original/file-20230621-18-hw1fuf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=144&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533175/original/file-20230621-18-hw1fuf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=144&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533175/original/file-20230621-18-hw1fuf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=181&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533175/original/file-20230621-18-hw1fuf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=181&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533175/original/file-20230621-18-hw1fuf.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=181&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>You can <em><a href="https://bit.ly/3DdOERY">download the e-book here</a></em>. Thank you for your interest.</p>
<hr><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/206133/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>'H' Patten receives funding from the ISRF. </span></em></p>Nights out dancing! How African and Caribbean music and dance have shaped British culture.'H' Patten, Associate Lecturer in African Caribbean Dance, Goldsmiths, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1997792023-04-04T04:10:00Z2023-04-04T04:10:00ZChoreographic legacies, human connectivity, and a psychedelic rainbow celebration: FRAME is a joyous festival of dance<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518927/original/file-20230403-2571-gvrfgl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=16%2C16%2C5542%2C3684&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Exposed by Restless Dance Theatre.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Roy Vandervegt/Arts House</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Staying true to its objectives of representing dance artists from across practices and lineages, the inaugural FRAME Dance Festival offered a diversity of performance styles and forms in locations around Melbourne and beyond. </p>
<p>The program included shows, films and workshops in venues ranging from courtyards to galleries to dance studios. </p>
<p>Some offerings were political and academic, some were celebratory. Some told us personal or cultural stories; some had 100 dancers, some had one. </p>
<p>FRAME felt like a community coming together after three very difficult pandemic years for dance and dancers in Melbourne. Here are my highlights of the festival.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/5-australian-women-choreographers-you-should-know-and-where-to-see-them-in-2023-193213">5 Australian women choreographers you should know (and where to see them in 2023)</a>
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</em>
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<h2>Mohini</h2>
<p>In a mesmerising queer retelling of Lord Vishnu’s transformation into the enchantress <a href="https://vedicfeed.com/mohini-female-avatar-of-lord-vishnu/">Mohini</a>, Raina Peterson – a Fiji-Indian and English dancer/choreographer – draws us into their sensual, visceral world where they shift from transgender storyteller to demon to Hindu goddess. </p>
<p>True to the classical Indian idiom, their wide-open unblinking eyes, bouncing brows and long articulate fingers lead the narrative, which begins on a dimly lit stage covered in low billowing clouds. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518928/original/file-20230403-4321-dyp05b.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman dances in a sari, one nipple is exposed." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518928/original/file-20230403-4321-dyp05b.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518928/original/file-20230403-4321-dyp05b.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518928/original/file-20230403-4321-dyp05b.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518928/original/file-20230403-4321-dyp05b.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518928/original/file-20230403-4321-dyp05b.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518928/original/file-20230403-4321-dyp05b.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518928/original/file-20230403-4321-dyp05b.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This is a mesmerising queer retelling of Lord Vishnu’s transformation into the enchantress Mohini.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Anne Moffat/Arts House</span></span>
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<p>Peterson is joined by Marco Cher-Gibard, who hits long, loud notes on electric guitar to a background of tinkling chimes. </p>
<p>As the story climaxes with Mohini’s recovery of the elixir of life, there is a visual metamorphosis on stage from quiet monochrome intimacy to explosive psychedelic rainbow celebration with the projection of a spinning vortex around Peterson’s ecstatic silhouetted form. </p>
<p>It is an intense and captivating experience.</p>
<h2>Slip</h2>
<p>In Slip, dancer Rebecca Jensen, dressed as the enigmatic <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girl_with_a_Pearl_Earring">Girl with a Pearl Earring</a>, exposes the illusions created by technology in our everyday lives. </p>
<p>The bare stage appears like a workspace with only a sound desk and a scattering of quotidian objects. The performance begins with a demonstration of the sound-effect technique <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foley_(filmmaking)">Foley</a> from Jensen’s collaborator Aviva Endean.</p>
<p>Upon entering, Jensen sits centre stage and eats, drinks and reads a newspaper while Endean creates sounds to match her actions. When Jensen eats chips, live and synchronised Endean amusingly crunches on a celery stalk. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518965/original/file-20230403-28-ryky79.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman lies on the ground." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518965/original/file-20230403-28-ryky79.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518965/original/file-20230403-28-ryky79.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518965/original/file-20230403-28-ryky79.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518965/original/file-20230403-28-ryky79.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518965/original/file-20230403-28-ryky79.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518965/original/file-20230403-28-ryky79.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518965/original/file-20230403-28-ryky79.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Slip is an energetic and intellectual work.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sarah Walker/Darebin Arts Speakeasy</span></span>
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<p>This measured synchronicity creates a comforting rhythm – until it gradually begins to slip. </p>
<p>The sound and action become out of sync. The crunching accompanies walking. The walking sounds like water being poured. The artificiality of the sound’s relationship to the action is disturbingly laid bare. </p>
<p>The pace picks up as Jensen and Endean interact with the objects, each other and as animated dancers projected on the back screen.</p>
<p>An energetic and intellectual work, Slip keeps the audience holding on by a thread, never letting up or settling in.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ballet-dancers-in-sensor-suits-new-research-explores-how-dance-is-used-as-a-form-of-communication-200870">Ballet dancers in sensor suits: new research explores how dance is used as a form of communication</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Us and All of This</h2>
<p>In our era of social dysfunction, environmental disasters, pandemics and war, Us and All of This is choreographer Liesel Zink’s meditation on human connectivity. </p>
<p>The sound of loud humming white noise accompanies the 100 very slow-moving quiet bodies as one by one they fill the Arts Centre Melbourne forecourt. </p>
<p>They stand separate, motionless, facing different directions and gazing to the distance. They represent the breadth of our society: all ages, races, genders and abilities. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519164/original/file-20230404-26-16rzvc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A crowd of people stand with their hands outstretched." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519164/original/file-20230404-26-16rzvc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519164/original/file-20230404-26-16rzvc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519164/original/file-20230404-26-16rzvc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519164/original/file-20230404-26-16rzvc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519164/original/file-20230404-26-16rzvc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519164/original/file-20230404-26-16rzvc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519164/original/file-20230404-26-16rzvc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">These dancers represent the breadth of our society: all ages, races, genders and abilities.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark Gambino/Arts Centre Melbourne</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A few begin to breathe their arms gently and slowly up and down like wings. They are joined by a few more until everyone is breathing together. Changes to the movement starts with a few and gradually ripples through the whole 100 dancers. </p>
<p>As momentum builds, the synchronicity breaks down. </p>
<p>Different intense movements are now distributed randomly through the crowd: a highly energetic arm winding, a desperate curling in, a spinning with arms fully stretched and a pushing down hard towards the ground. The dancers are engrossed.</p>
<p>Sometimes they move closer to each other, sometimes further apart. And while they do not acknowledge each other until the very end, in this immersive experience we as the audience are drawn in from the start with a sense we are all in this together. </p>
<h2>Exposed</h2>
<p>Directed by Michelle Ryan, Restless Dance Theatre’s diverse dancers take us on an exploration of the physical, mental and emotional vulnerability exposed in the face of global upheaval. </p>
<p>A huge screen becomes translucent and we make out the seven dancers beyond it scattered across the stage slowly getting dressed. </p>
<p>They begin to look up as if there is something there they cannot see but are afraid of; something invisible but menacing. They start slowly turning. The screen transforms into a lung breathing over their heads. Only now do they start seeing each other. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518930/original/file-20230403-3178-uf3nlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Six bodies look up at a blue sheet above their heads." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518930/original/file-20230403-3178-uf3nlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518930/original/file-20230403-3178-uf3nlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518930/original/file-20230403-3178-uf3nlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518930/original/file-20230403-3178-uf3nlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518930/original/file-20230403-3178-uf3nlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518930/original/file-20230403-3178-uf3nlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518930/original/file-20230403-3178-uf3nlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">We see the vulnerability exposed in the face of global upheaval.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Roy Vandervegt/Arts House</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>They are jumpy, afraid of each other and of other things we cannot see. This fear develops into an emotional desperation in some. Others become violent. Still others show signs of physical suffering. </p>
<p>They begin to attempt to help each other. </p>
<p>The screen moves once more to become a backdrop. The dancers now move with each other, connecting, smiling, learning to give and accept care. The motifs of the breath and physical turning and rolling throughout the work, together with a serene and repetitive score, create a sense of continuation and inevitability, of a human condition that insists on struggling on, that has no choice. </p>
<p>This tender work closes as it began, the dancers separate and turn inward once more as they slowly and quietly undress.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/guttered-a-joyful-immersion-and-subversion-of-expectations-between-the-bowling-lanes-156204">Guttered: a joyful immersion and subversion of expectations between the bowling lanes</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Somewhere at the Beginning</h2>
<p>Known as the mother of modern African dance, Senegalese French dancer Germaine Acogny moves us through the continual returns of inescapable pasts in a haunting post-colonial epic. </p>
<p>With direction by Mikael Serre, this multimedia bricolage shifts from the intimate corporeality of the weight of a stone on a foot to the museum-like objective formality of 20th century film footage and documentary voice over. </p>
<p>A beaded curtain which divides the stage into back and front is traversed throughout, representing the movement between different worlds, past and present, African and European. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518931/original/file-20230403-3782-y1wzv3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A Black woman dances surrounded by feathers." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518931/original/file-20230403-3782-y1wzv3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518931/original/file-20230403-3782-y1wzv3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518931/original/file-20230403-3782-y1wzv3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518931/original/file-20230403-3782-y1wzv3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518931/original/file-20230403-3782-y1wzv3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518931/original/file-20230403-3782-y1wzv3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518931/original/file-20230403-3782-y1wzv3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Germaine Acogny is the mother of modern African dance.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Thomas Dorn/Arts House</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In a long, grey dress, Acogny moves deliberately and heavily with only a book, a stone, a pillow and a chair to accompany her. We are confronted with a variety of stories: some deeply personal, some culturally shared and some highly academic. </p>
<p>Themes around identity relentlessly recur throughout the work imitating the insistence of the colonial legacy they illustrate. The same story of powder used to whiten faces manifests at different times in projection, voice and in its sprinkling around the stage. </p>
<p>Without lightness or relief, Somewhere at the Beginning demands we bear witness to its account of the tragedy and persistence of cultural and colonial trauma.</p>
<h2>NEWRETRO</h2>
<p>Lucy Guerin’s three-hour marathon 21st-birthday celebration is a director’s cut of 21 works reenacted by 21 dancers who, along with their audience, move in and out of all four galleries of the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art. </p>
<p>In this shift from blacked-out theatre to white cube, Guerin shows us a version of her works we have not seen before. We encounter the dancers on and off stage: close-up, sweaty and raw. As the audience we not only see, but are also seen. </p>
<p>The larger main gallery exhibits a built-up remix of vocabularies with different groups of dancers simultaneously performing excerpts clearly drawn from different Guerin works. The movement is at times hyper-energetic, pounding with unexpected grunts and screams, and at other times minimal, quiet and pedestrian. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518967/original/file-20230403-16-bhn2vb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A white room, an audience around the edge, a mass of dancers in black." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518967/original/file-20230403-16-bhn2vb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518967/original/file-20230403-16-bhn2vb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518967/original/file-20230403-16-bhn2vb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518967/original/file-20230403-16-bhn2vb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518967/original/file-20230403-16-bhn2vb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518967/original/file-20230403-16-bhn2vb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518967/original/file-20230403-16-bhn2vb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Close-up, sweaty and raw where we encounter the dancers on and off stage and as audience.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gregory Lorenzutti/ACCA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The more intimate and darker corner gallery has a schedule of five duets, while the other two galleries show original footage of all 21 works and a demonstration of the process undertaken by the dancers working with footage to learn the choreography. </p>
<p>With a cast of some of Melbourne’s most beloved dancers including Lilian Steiner, Deanne Butterworth and Melanie Lane, NEWRETRO is a landmark event in its memorialisation of a local woman choreographer who has not only produced 21 works in 21 years but has also supported and mentored many others as both dancers and choreographers. </p>
<p>It felt like a very satisfying way to end my FRAME journey.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/in-motion-picture-dancers-drive-a-cinematic-story-onstage-39105">In Motion Picture, dancers drive a cinematic story onstage</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199779/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yvette Grant works as a lecturer in Dance at The Victorian College of the Arts and as a graduate researcher and receives some funding from The University of Melbourne and a Commonwealth government scholarship.</span></em></p>Some offerings were political and academic, some were celebratory. Some told us personal or cultural stories, some had 100 dancers, some had one.Yvette Grant, PhD (Dance) Candidate and dance history tutor, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2008702023-03-20T16:17:56Z2023-03-20T16:17:56ZBallet dancers in sensor suits: new research explores how dance is used as a form of communication<p>Audio guides, maps, traditional and interactive texts help people attending art exhibitions to understand the works in front of them. With dance, however, the audience’s understanding is usually taken for granted.</p>
<p>It’s assumed they will make sense of a performance thanks to the synopsis included in programmes, or reviews published in newspapers and magazines. These supporting materials are optional and do not work during performance. However, the English National Ballet (ENB), for example, has produced <a href="https://www.ballet.org.uk/production/my-first-ballet-sleeping-beauty/">versions of classical ballets for young audiences</a> where dancers perform a shortened version of a well-known classical ballet while a narrator recites the story.</p>
<p>But words cannot translate everything dance expresses. Verbal and movement-based communication can convey similar meanings, but they do so in very different ways. Whereas verbal language is immediately understood, the language of dance can be lost to a general audience.</p>
<p>So how can dance performances become a more accessible source of cultural and social information for people who are not specialists?</p>
<h2>Detecting communication</h2>
<p>Our research group focuses on <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Kinesemiotics-Modelling-How-Choreographed-Movement-Means-in-Space/Maiorani/p/book/9780367641009">Kinesemiotics</a>, the study of meaning made by movement, an area we are developing. Our project, called <a href="https://www.uni-bremen.de/en/fb-10/forschung/institute/bitt/forschung-und-lehre/multimodalitaetsforschung-in-bremen/projekte/kinesemiotic-body">The Knesemiotic Body</a>, is carried out at Loughborough University in collaboration with researchers at the University of Bremen and the ENB.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315621180-9/making-meaning-movement-functional-grammar-dance-movement-arianna-maiorani">The Functional Grammar of Dance</a> (FGD) explains how body parts create meaning by interacting with the space and the people surrounding dancers in a performance. We used it to annotate and interpret data collected from live dance rehearsals.</p>
<p>The FGD draws on linguistics and semiotic theories (how people communicate through signs) and is based on “projections”. Projections are the trajectories designed by dancers when extending their body parts towards meaningful portions of the performance space.</p>
<p>Projections connect extended body parts to surrounding people or objects, creating a meaningful visual interaction. Imagine a dancer moving towards a lake, painted on the backdrop of a stage. They extend an arm forward towards the lake and a leg backwards towards a stage prop representing a shed. That extended arm will mean “going to lake” while the leg will mean “coming from shed”.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Junor Souza and Rebecca Blenkinsop wear the black strappy sensors while dancing." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514195/original/file-20230308-22-8lce0x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514195/original/file-20230308-22-8lce0x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514195/original/file-20230308-22-8lce0x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514195/original/file-20230308-22-8lce0x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514195/original/file-20230308-22-8lce0x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514195/original/file-20230308-22-8lce0x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/514195/original/file-20230308-22-8lce0x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">English National Ballet’s Junor Souza and Rebecca Blenkinsop wearing special movement sensors.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">M Zecca / Kinesemiotic Body website</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Projections can also be directed to the audience creating an “involving” effect. This is achieved, for example, when a dancer extends their arms towards the audience while facing them with their face and torso. This looks as if they are addressing them directly, acknowledging their presence and breaking the invisible wall between them.</p>
<p>Projections are like speech bubbles made by movement. Our research captured them through sensor suits that dancers wear during our data collection and we decoded them using the FGD. When we annotate the data produced by the suits, we basically fill those speech bubbles with meaning that people can understand without having background knowledge of dance. Our recordings and annotations capture not only movements, but also the intended meaning behind them.</p>
<p>During our sessions, we worked with two pairs of fantastic dancers: Junor Souza and Rebecca Blenkinsop from the ENB, and school graduates Elizabeth Riley and Jamie Constance.</p>
<p>We have achieved interesting results. By annotating choreography with our system, it is possible to discover patterns of movement-based communication. These patterns may not be immediately visible to the naked eye, but clearly inform the message the audience perceives.</p>
<p>We also found out that it is possible to study how movement patterns work in relation to costumes, which is especially interesting when choreographers experiment with innovative clothing and props. </p>
<p>For example, we worked on the effects of movement combined with elastic cloth that covered a dancer’s body almost entirely. This highlighted how a particular type of costume choice would impact on the expressive potential of movement.</p>
<p>Our data also highlighted how dancers playing the same role can create different versions of the same character according to variations they make in performing projections. For example, one dancer might decide to engage more with the audience than another by performing more projections that directly address the viewers.</p>
<p>We can also check how a dancer manages physical balance during a performance in relation to these projections, which is particularly clear in their legwork and footwork. This type of information can be particularly helpful for physical rehabilitation. </p>
<p>An injury can deeply affect a dancer’s or an athlete’s ability to manage body balance and our annotation highlighted the specific choices a dancer makes when managing it. The information provided by our data annotation can therefore provide valuable information on how a dancer works towards recovery. </p>
<p>In future our work will look at whether specific projections can help audiences with different degrees of familiarity with dance to engage with a dance performance more easily.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200870/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Arianna Maiorani receives funding from AHRC. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chun Liu does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The language of dance is often lost on a general audience. Now new research has used sensor suits to discover patterns of movement-based communication in ballet performance.Arianna Maiorani, Reader in Linguistics and Multimodality, Loughborough UniversityChun Liu, Research Associate, Loughborough UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2020292023-03-17T03:12:39Z2023-03-17T03:12:39ZBjörk was the big-ticket name – but Perth Festival’s heart was found in Bikutsi 3000’s afrofuturist musing on African resistance<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515965/original/file-20230316-18-20pk39.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C0%2C2038%2C1361&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jess Wyld/Perth Festival</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For the culturally curious, February and March in Perth can be a rich maelstrom, with Perth Fringe and Perth Festival. We have apparently the world’s “<a href="https://fringeworld.com.au/news/7-facts-about-fringe-world-that-ll-make-you-go-hmmmm/">third largest</a>” fringe festival (after Edinburgh and Adelaide), but I’m not sure why this is good. </p>
<p>Whatever the case, audiences must plan and be focused in navigating such a cornucopia of competing works in two simultaneous festivals. </p>
<p>My Perth Festival was complicated by a jaunt to Adelaide (in the middle of that city’s festival and fringe) but I was delighted to be able to follow links between works, including <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/a/afrofuturism">afrofuturism</a>, <a href="https://www.classical-music.com/features/articles/what-post-classical-music/">post-classical music</a> and arts offering haunting examples of <a href="https://ethics.org.au/ethics-explainer-post-humanism/">post-humanism</a>: that which exceeds, replaces or accompanies the human. </p>
<h2>Deep listening</h2>
<p>Artistic director Iain Grandage’s previous Perth Festivals tended towards light musical programming, both in quantity and emphasis on accessibility – consider the festival obtaining the world record for <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-02/acdc-tribute-highway-to-hell-rocks-perth/12015120">biggest air guitar ensemble</a> in 2020.</p>
<p>This year, however, had many post-classical music highlights which demanded <a href="https://artreview.com/whats-the-point-of-deep-listening-pauline-oliveros/">deep listening</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515956/original/file-20230316-28-7ttkfe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Musicians on a deep blue stage." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515956/original/file-20230316-28-7ttkfe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515956/original/file-20230316-28-7ttkfe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515956/original/file-20230316-28-7ttkfe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515956/original/file-20230316-28-7ttkfe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515956/original/file-20230316-28-7ttkfe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515956/original/file-20230316-28-7ttkfe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515956/original/file-20230316-28-7ttkfe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Dread Of Voids was an uncompromising night of rich sonic assaults.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Cam Campbell/Perth Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Anthony Pateras’ compositions piano, amplified vocals, clarinet, contrabass and flute with <a href="https://www.anthonypateras.com/bandsprojects/adreadofvoids-2021">A Dread of Voids</a> was an uncompromising night of rich sonic assaults and drone, often with cyclic developmental structures. </p>
<p>Pateras offered a masterful performance, framing the piano with electronics and off kilter pianistic effects such that, for me, it recalled to some degree his other works on prepared piano (where bolts, screws, paper and other materials render strings percussive). </p>
<p>This was followed by Cédric Tiberghien’s performance of <a href="https://matildamarseillaise.com/the-cage-project-en/">John Cage’s suite for prepared piano</a>. Matthias Schack-Arnott crafted a sounding mobile that rotated over Tiberghien. Spun by fans and motors, it gave the performance an air of the inhuman. Tambours and slates were struck above Tiberghien, adding density and counterpoint.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515958/original/file-20230316-28-bwsw9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man at a piano." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515958/original/file-20230316-28-bwsw9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515958/original/file-20230316-28-bwsw9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515958/original/file-20230316-28-bwsw9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515958/original/file-20230316-28-bwsw9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=444&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515958/original/file-20230316-28-bwsw9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515958/original/file-20230316-28-bwsw9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515958/original/file-20230316-28-bwsw9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Cédric Tiberghien’s performance had an air of the inhuman.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tony McDonough/Perth Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Schack-Arnott also performed in his <a href="http://matthiasschackarnott.com/everywhen/">Everywhen</a>, intimately offered in the Perth Institute of Contemporary Art. </p>
<p>Schack-Arnott circled within a lighter, jewel-like mobile, sometimes dragging along the ground ringing metal tubes, bells, seed-pods and more. </p>
<p>Schack-Arnott animated or removed items, before crouching ritualistically to play stones and other items, again accompanied by mechanically driven devices above.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515959/original/file-20230316-28-n6qzuy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515959/original/file-20230316-28-n6qzuy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515959/original/file-20230316-28-n6qzuy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515959/original/file-20230316-28-n6qzuy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515959/original/file-20230316-28-n6qzuy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515959/original/file-20230316-28-n6qzuy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515959/original/file-20230316-28-n6qzuy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515959/original/file-20230316-28-n6qzuy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Everywhen was intimately offered in the Perth Institute of Contemporary Art.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Perth Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The music program closed with Gradient from composer/photographer Olivia Davies, performed by Callum G’Froerer on double-bell trumpet. They offered a sort of aggressive chillout room, where G’Froerer’s looped, breathy, clattery and sometimes rhythmic sounds were accompanied by abstract distortions of images taken at the dilapidated Liberty Theatre.</p>
<h2>Deconstructing cinema and theatre</h2>
<p>Grandage has put First Nations art at the heart of his festivals, together with dance and theatre. </p>
<p>Stephanie Lake’s dance and drumming <a href="https://theconversation.com/innovative-and-thrilling-stephanie-lakes-manifesto-is-a-joy-175332">Manifesto</a> toured from the east. Sadly, it was too wide for Heath Ledger Theatre, with some spectators unable to see the drummers in the wings. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/innovative-and-thrilling-stephanie-lakes-manifesto-is-a-joy-175332">'Innovative and thrilling': Stephanie Lake's Manifesto is a joy</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>I missed Australian Dance Theatre’s <a href="https://limelightmagazine.com.au/reviews/tracker-australian-dance-theatre-and-ilbijerri-theatre-company/">The Tracker</a> and Maatakitj (Clint Bracknell) performing with Kronos Quartet. </p>
<p>Local versions of what Bracknell calls “Noongar-futurism” – inspired by afrofuturism and drawing on electronic dance culture – featured in 2023, with the outdoor opening event of Djoondal offering a <a href="https://www.artshub.com.au/news/reviews/review-djoondal-and-perth-moves-perth-festival-2614249/">fleet of synchronised drones</a> evoking celestial Dreamings.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515960/original/file-20230316-28-trxhws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Drones light up the sky" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515960/original/file-20230316-28-trxhws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515960/original/file-20230316-28-trxhws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515960/original/file-20230316-28-trxhws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515960/original/file-20230316-28-trxhws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=316&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515960/original/file-20230316-28-trxhws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515960/original/file-20230316-28-trxhws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515960/original/file-20230316-28-trxhws.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Djoondal evoked celestial Dreamings.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jarrad Russell/Perth Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Choreographer/director Laura Boynes’ <a href="https://limelightmagazine.com.au/reviews/equations-of-a-falling-body-perth-festival/">Equations of a Falling Body</a> offered a beautiful disorder of objects, bodies and things piled and moved about stage in what has become something of a WA tradition, following Emma Fiswick’s 2021 Festival production of <a href="https://www.seesawmag.com.au/2021/03/dance-to-savour/">Slow Burn, Together</a>.</p>
<p>Aside from Equations of a Falling Body, this year’s theatre and dance highlights were tours of works from the eastern states. </p>
<p>Cyrano, from the Melbourne Theatre Company in association with Black Swan, was an enormously fun vehicle for writer/performer Virginia Gay. The other characters were thespians, so the performance was a cross between Pirandello’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Characters_in_Search_of_an_Author#">Six Characters in Search of an Author</a> and romantic melodrama, a celebratory post-COVID work, if perhaps ultimately forgettable.</p>
<p>The mobile screens above the stage for <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-production-to-satisfy-sydneys-darkest-imaginings-sydney-theatre-companys-strange-case-of-dr-jekyll-and-mr-hyde-185596">The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde</a>, from Sydney Theatre Company, produced not so much director Kip Williams’ professed “cine-theatre”, as a deconstructing of the inhuman cinematic machine itself. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515961/original/file-20230316-1658-i50sjb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515961/original/file-20230316-1658-i50sjb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515961/original/file-20230316-1658-i50sjb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515961/original/file-20230316-1658-i50sjb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515961/original/file-20230316-1658-i50sjb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515961/original/file-20230316-1658-i50sjb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515961/original/file-20230316-1658-i50sjb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515961/original/file-20230316-1658-i50sjb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde was a deconstructing the inhuman cinematic machine itself.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daniel Boud/Perth Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This suited Williams’ exploration of distorting mirrors and mediated character doubles, which was so polished as to be all but seamless. In this production, however, Williams lacks any improvisatory fun and sense of exploration in his use of screens. I preferred the take on screen-enhanced theatre from local company The Last Great Hunt, whose exceptional <a href="https://www.outinperth.com/review-the-last-great-hunt-bottle-brilliance-with-le-nor-the-rain/">Lé Nør [the rain]</a> in the 2019 festival pointed to the inconsistency between screen image and ludicrous on-stage setups, celebrating cine-theatrical playfulness.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-production-to-satisfy-sydneys-darkest-imaginings-sydney-theatre-companys-strange-case-of-dr-jekyll-and-mr-hyde-185596">A production to satisfy Sydney's darkest imaginings: Sydney Theatre Company's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A transcultural museological performance</h2>
<p>Black Futurist music was another feature of the 2023 festival. </p>
<p>Franco-Cameroonian <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gncpiNV5sIQ">Bikutsi 3000</a> presented an afrofuturist musing on African resistance to Western culture through dance-as-peaceful-combat. </p>
<p>With an African-European cast led by Blick Bassy, Bikutsi 3000 featured selections from the <a href="https://www.quaibranly.fr/en/">musée du quai Branly</a>’s film archives, framed as a faux lecture combined with projected displays of fantastist African couture. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515962/original/file-20230316-2270-vqytnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Women dancing." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515962/original/file-20230316-2270-vqytnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515962/original/file-20230316-2270-vqytnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515962/original/file-20230316-2270-vqytnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515962/original/file-20230316-2270-vqytnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515962/original/file-20230316-2270-vqytnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515962/original/file-20230316-2270-vqytnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515962/original/file-20230316-2270-vqytnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bikutsi 3000 presented an afrofuturist musing on African resistance to Western culture.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jess Wyld/Perth Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Voiceover text was paired with monumental living portraits of fictional matriarchs representing Cameroon, Namibia, Togo, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi. </p>
<p>Accompanied by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOKEwtggKvw">throbbing house and hip hop</a>, it was punctuated by forceful Afro-fusion dance, mostly performed singly or in pairs, which combined regional forms of voguing, shade, hip hop, krumping and dancehall, alongside <a href="http://www.chinafrica.cn/Homepage/202108/t20210830_800256928.html">Indigenous African dance</a>. </p>
<p>Forceful energies rolled across the dancers’ chests while their limbs dropped and weaved. Legs and arms pumped or flew and circled. Bodies close to the ground flowed like liquid or shook vigorously. </p>
<p>Choreographer/dancers Nadeeya Gabrieli Kalati, Audrey Carlita, Martine Mbock and Mwendwa Marchand were exceptional, while Bassy’s inventive combination of blaring digital tones and bullhorns with African drumming and vocals recalled the best of South Africa’s electronic dance music scene.</p>
<p>As a transcultural museological performance, Bikutsi 3000 was nearly unique. Presented at the Studio Underground in the State Theatre Centre, it is unfortunate it wasn’t hosted at a museum. Presenting Bikutsi 3000 in the quai Branly was an implicit rebuke to the Anglo-European institutions still in charge of colonial heritage.</p>
<h2>The Romantic sublime</h2>
<p>The festival showstopper was Björk’s Cornucopia. Björk’s recordings are complex, multi-tracked works, and, like Bikutsi 3000, her stadium performance supplemented prerecorded material.</p>
<p>This produced hiccups, as when the on-stage use of bailers in a water tank to make music was inaudible and out of synchronisation. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515963/original/file-20230316-20-qp2b77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Björk in a ring of flutes." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515963/original/file-20230316-20-qp2b77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/515963/original/file-20230316-20-qp2b77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515963/original/file-20230316-20-qp2b77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515963/original/file-20230316-20-qp2b77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515963/original/file-20230316-20-qp2b77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515963/original/file-20230316-20-qp2b77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/515963/original/file-20230316-20-qp2b77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">When Björk’s production gelled, it was magic.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Santiago Felipe/Perth Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On the night I saw the performance, Björk was dressed in an unglamorous blue satin blob, which suited her <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/mar/04/bjork-cornucopia-review-an-electrifying-pop-concert-art-installation-and-opening-ceremony-rolled-into-one">retiring performance persona</a>.</p>
<p>Without a charismatic megastar around which to anchor, Cornucopia became an agglutinated, operatic audiovisual spectacle. It was Björk’s flute septet Viibra who bopped away, not Björk. </p>
<p>But when it gelled, it was magic, as when Björk sat inside a giant “circle flute” played by four women, the singer’s angst-ridden vocals soaring.</p>
<p>Björk describes the show as representing a futuristic human/nature utopia, but it’s a utopia that has little space for humans. Projections for Body Memory <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaQfixl2Ss4">showed</a> twisting headless bodies with spines and ridges deforming them, while <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cthulhu">Cthulhu</a>-like figures ascended as flayed skins. </p>
<p>In Björk’s fantasy, something descended from us will survive, but it won’t be any more human than Schack-Arnott’s mobiles.</p>
<p>Unlike the Black Futurist music theatre of the festival which offers an exuberant critical socio-cultural alternative way of viewing the past and the present, Björk’s alt-classicism and Jekyll echo older European models of the <a href="https://scalar.usc.edu/works/the-bengal-annual/sublime">Romantic sublime</a>: something appealing or beautiful because it will soon destroy us.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/sexual-exhibitionism-riot-grrrl-and-climate-change-activism-30-years-of-raging-by-peaches-bikini-kill-and-bjork-still-going-strong-201388">Sexual exhibitionism, Riot Grrrl and climate change activism: 30 years of raging by Peaches, Bikini Kill and Björk, still going strong</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Correction: Anthony Pateras’ compositions were not for a prepared piano. This has been corrected.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202029/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan W. Marshall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Iain Grandage’s fourth Perth Festival continued his focus on First Nations performance, together with an exhilarating dose of Black Futurism as well as demanding post-classical music.Jonathan W. Marshall, Associate Professor & Postgraduate Research Coordinator, Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, Edith Cowan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1976922023-01-26T23:58:46Z2023-01-26T23:58:46ZLet’s dance! How dance classes can lift your mood and help boost your social life<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505522/original/file-20230120-19742-69xyap.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=5%2C0%2C992%2C666&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/sporty-women-enjoying-each-others-company-692108224">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>If your new year’s resolutions include getting healthier, exercising more and lifting your mood, dance might be for you. </p>
<p>By dance, we don’t mean watching other people dance on TikTok, as much fun as this can be. We mean taking a dance class, or even better, a few.</p>
<p>A growing body of <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17482631.2020.1732526">research shows</a> the benefits of dance, regardless of the type (for example, classes or social dancing) or the style (hip hop, ballroom, ballet). Dance boosts our wellbeing as it improves our emotional and physical health, makes us feel less stressed and more socially connected.</p>
<p>Here’s what to consider if you think dance might be for you.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/rhythm-on-the-brain-and-why-we-cant-stop-dancing-56354">Rhythm on the brain, and why we can't stop dancing</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The benefits of dance</h2>
<p>Dance is <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1077800417745919">an engaging and fun</a> way of exercising, learning and meeting people. A review of the evidence <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17482631.2020.1732526">shows</a> taking part in dance classes or dancing socially improves your health and wellbeing regardless of your age, gender or fitness.</p>
<p>Another review focuses more specifically on benefits of dance across the lifespan. It <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17482631.2021.1950891">shows</a> dance classes and dancing socially at any age improves participants’ sense of self, confidence and creativity.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505521/original/file-20230120-21894-rguh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Older woman in group dance class" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505521/original/file-20230120-21894-rguh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505521/original/file-20230120-21894-rguh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505521/original/file-20230120-21894-rguh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505521/original/file-20230120-21894-rguh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505521/original/file-20230120-21894-rguh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505521/original/file-20230120-21894-rguh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505521/original/file-20230120-21894-rguh5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">It’s never too late to start a dance class.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/elderly-woman-dancing-12086689/">Wellness Gallery Catalyst Foundation/Pexels</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Researchers have also looked at specific dance programs.</p>
<p>One UK-based dance program for young people aged 14 <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14647893.2011.561306">shows</a> one class a week for three months increased students’ fitness level and self-esteem. This was due to a combination of factors including physical exercise, a stimulating learning environment, positive engagement with peers, and creativity. </p>
<p>Another community-based program for adults in hospital <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17533015.2020.1725072">shows</a> weekly dance sessions led to positive feelings, enriches social engagement and reduced stress related to being in hospital.</p>
<p>If you want to know how much dance is needed to develop some of these positive effects, we have good news for you. </p>
<p>A useful hint comes from a <a href="https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-015-2672-7">study</a> that looked exactly at how much creative or arts engagement is needed for good mental health – 100 or more hours a year, or two or more hours a week, in most cases.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/kick-up-your-heels-ballroom-dancing-offers-benefits-to-the-aging-brain-and-could-help-stave-off-dementia-194969">Kick up your heels – ballroom dancing offers benefits to the aging brain and could help stave off dementia</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Dance is social</h2>
<p>But dance is more than physical activity. It is also a community ritual. Humans have <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/223398">always danced</a>. We still do so to mark and celebrate transitory periods in life. Think of how weddings prompt non-dancers to move rhythmically to music. Some cultures dance to celebrate childbirth. Many dance to celebrate religious and cultural holidays.</p>
<p>This is what inspired French sociologist <a href="https://iep.utm.edu/emile-durkheim/">Emile Durkheim</a> (1858-1917) to explore how dance affects societies and cultures.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FyTqEl1yKbQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Durkheim described how dancing with others cultivated ‘collective effervescence’ – dynamism, vitality and community. (Aeon Video)</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Durkheim <a href="https://archive.org/search?query=external-identifier%3A%22urn%3Aoclc%3Arecord%3A689172179%22">saw</a> collective dance as a societal glue – a social practice that cultivates what he called “collective effervescence”, a feeling of dynamism, vitality and community.</p>
<p>He observed how dance held cultures together by creating communal feelings that were difficult to cultivate otherwise, for example a feeling of uplifting togetherness or powerful unity. </p>
<p>It’s that uplifting feeling you might experience when dancing at a concert and even for a brief moment forgetting yourself while moving in synchrony with the rest of the crowd.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505519/original/file-20230120-11113-w9y9jg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="People dancing with arms in air at club" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505519/original/file-20230120-11113-w9y9jg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505519/original/file-20230120-11113-w9y9jg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505519/original/file-20230120-11113-w9y9jg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505519/original/file-20230120-11113-w9y9jg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505519/original/file-20230120-11113-w9y9jg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505519/original/file-20230120-11113-w9y9jg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505519/original/file-20230120-11113-w9y9jg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">That uplifting feeling: when dancing together helps you forget yourself as you move in synchrony with the rest of the crowd.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/young-happy-people-dancing-club-nightlife-460028722">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Synchronous <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/529447">collective activities</a>, such as dance, provide a pleasurable way to foster social bonding. This is due to feelings Durkheim noticed that we now know as transcendental emotions – such as joy, awe and temporary dissolution of a sense of self (“losing yourself”). These can lead to feeling a part of something bigger than ourselves and help us experience social connectedness. </p>
<p>For those of us still experiencing social anxiety or feelings of loneliness due to the COVID pandemic, dance can be a way of (re)building social connections and belonging. </p>
<p>Whether you join an online dance program and invite a few friends, go to an in-person dance class, or go to a concert or dance club, dance can give temporary respite from the everyday and help lift your mood.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/are-you-part-of-a-social-group-making-sure-you-are-will-improve-your-health-81996">Are you part of a social group? Making sure you are will improve your health</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Keen to try out dance?</h2>
<p>Here’s what to consider:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>if you have not exercised for a while, start with a program tailored to beginners or the specific fitness level that suits you</p></li>
<li><p>if you have physical injuries, check in with your GP first</p></li>
<li><p>if public dance classes are unappealing, consider joining an online dance program, or going to a dance-friendly venue or concert</p></li>
<li><p>to make the most of social aspect of dance, invite your friends and family to join you</p></li>
<li><p>social dance classes are a better choice for meeting new people</p></li>
<li><p>beginner performance dance classes will improve your physical health, dance skills and self-esteem</p></li>
<li><p>most importantly, remember, it is not so much about how good your dancing is, dance is more about joy, fun and social connectedness.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>In the words of one participant in our (yet-to-be published) research on dance and wellbeing, dance for adults is a rare gateway into fun:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There’s so much joy, there’s so much play in dancing. And play isn’t always that easy to access as an adult; and yet, it’s just such a joyful experience. I feel so happy to be able to dance.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197692/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tamara Borovica receives funding from VicHealth - Victorian Health Promotion Organisation.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Renata Kokanovic receives funding from Australian Research Council (ARC), National Health &Medical Research Council (NHMRC) and Vic Health.</span></em></p>Dancing in a group – in a class, in a club, at a wedding – is social. So it could be just the thing for 2023, if the gym isn’t for you.Tamara Borovica, Research assistant and early career researcher, Critical Mental Health research group, RMIT UniversityRenata Kokanovic, Professor and Lead of Critical Mental Health, Social and Global Studies Centre, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1932132022-12-29T20:56:05Z2022-12-29T20:56:05Z5 Australian women choreographers you should know (and where to see them in 2023)<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496021/original/file-20221117-24-9jbs8z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=15%2C7%2C1263%2C1909&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Stephanie Lake Company's Manifesto.</span> </figcaption></figure><p>“<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/01/26/balanchine-said">Ballet is woman</a>” claimed the legendary New York choreographer George Balanchine. But “where are all the women ballet choreographers?” <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/41723021">asked researchers</a> Oellen A. Meglin and Lynn Matluck Brooks in 2012. They found only 23 articles on women ballet choreographers in the New York Times’ 171-year history. </p>
<p>In Australia, even the keenest ballet fan will struggle to recall a dozen ballets by women in The Australian Ballet company’s 60-year history.</p>
<p>While men make up a very small proportion of those dancing in this country, the 2018 <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5955e5cf46c3c4c62dccc8db/t/5b0e5d66aa4a99acd259ce8b/1527668141486/Turning-Pointe-+Gender+Equality+in+Australian+Dance.pdf">Turning Pointe</a> report found that in Australia’s major dance companies from 2011 to 2017 only 25% of choreographic commissions were women.</p>
<p>Choreographers are dance’s cultural leaders and storytellers. They are dance’s voice. </p>
<p>Supporting and celebrating today’s women choreographers is vital to encouraging a new generation of women to follow, giving women in dance a voice into the future. </p>
<p>So where are the Australian women choreographers of today? Here are five to get you started. </p>
<h2>1. Frances Rings</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496012/original/file-20221117-21-y2kfh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496012/original/file-20221117-21-y2kfh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496012/original/file-20221117-21-y2kfh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496012/original/file-20221117-21-y2kfh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496012/original/file-20221117-21-y2kfh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496012/original/file-20221117-21-y2kfh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496012/original/file-20221117-21-y2kfh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496012/original/file-20221117-21-y2kfh4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Frances Rings will become artistic director of Bangarra in 2023.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daniel Boud/Bangarra</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In 2023, <a href="https://www.bangarra.com.au/about/people/frances-rings/">Frances Rings</a> will step into the role of artistic director of Bangarra Dance Theatre.</p>
<p>A descendant of the Wirangu and Mirning peoples from the west coast of South Australia, Rings made her choreographic debut with Bangarra in 2002 with the work Rations. </p>
<p>She has since created and co-created another seven works for the company.</p>
<p>Rings fuses contemporary movement with ancient Indigenous heritage to produce organic works deeply rooted in the natural world. Her works reflect critically on the past, celebrate survival in the present and offer hope for the future.</p>
<p>Her works share with the audience the feeling of connecting with the sacred on Country and are a First Nation’s ode to the power, beauty and spirit of the earth.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rgqmNs-NfPs?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p><em>In 2023, <a href="https://www.bangarra.com.au/productions/yuldea/">Yuldea</a> opens in Sydney before touring; and <a href="https://www.bangarra.com.au/productions/terrain/">Terrain</a> will be in Adelaide.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/sinuous-sinewy-and-transcendent-sandsong-proves-bangarra-is-one-of-australias-best-dance-companies-161887">Sinuous, sinewy and transcendent: SandSong proves Bangarra is one of Australia's best dance companies</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>2. Alice Topp</h2>
<p>A former dancer with the Australian Ballet, Alice Topp’s works are known for their humanity. </p>
<p>She creates contemporary ballets that evoke both vulnerability and strength. Topp is celebrated for her fluid, acrobatic duets, and she often takes on themes about damage and repair, durability and fragility, falling and recovering. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496018/original/file-20221117-15-arpf6r.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496018/original/file-20221117-15-arpf6r.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496018/original/file-20221117-15-arpf6r.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496018/original/file-20221117-15-arpf6r.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496018/original/file-20221117-15-arpf6r.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496018/original/file-20221117-15-arpf6r.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496018/original/file-20221117-15-arpf6r.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496018/original/file-20221117-15-arpf6r.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Topp was a dancer with the Australian Ballet before becoming a choreographer.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Supplied.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But she is anything but predictable. Her recent work Annealing saw a mass of noisy bright metallic gold bodies contrasted with a quiet, dimly-lit duet. She is also passionate about homegrown and inter-generational collaborations promoting local dancers, composers and designers. </p>
<p>Her first mainstage work, Aurum, won her the Helpmann Award for best ballet in 2019 and she has since created four other major works. She is currently resident choreographer with The Australian Ballet and creative director of independent collective <a href="https://www.projectanimo.com.au/">Project Animo</a>.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mPW9hLUDNYg?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p><em>In 2023, you can see the work of Alice Topp at <a href="https://australianballet.com.au/performances/identity">the Australian Ballet</a>, the <a href="https://waballet.com.au/incognito-quarry">West Australian Ballet</a>, Singapore Ballet and the Royal New Zealand Ballet.</em></p>
<h2>3. Stephanie Lake</h2>
<p>Stephanie Lake <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-05/australian-choreographers-women-in-dance-at-melbourne-festival/11575486">describes</a> her work as “obsessed with groups and communal action […] that sense of shared experience”.</p>
<p>This obsession results in large celebratory works, like the 60-dancer Colossus and 200-plus cast Multiply. These works see masses of individual moving bodies imperfectly colliding and uniting, forming patterns reminiscent of flocks of birds or opening flowers.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496013/original/file-20221117-21-qiqec6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496013/original/file-20221117-21-qiqec6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496013/original/file-20221117-21-qiqec6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496013/original/file-20221117-21-qiqec6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496013/original/file-20221117-21-qiqec6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496013/original/file-20221117-21-qiqec6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496013/original/file-20221117-21-qiqec6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496013/original/file-20221117-21-qiqec6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lake in rehearsal for The Universe is Here commissioned by Sydney Dance Company.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Pedro Greig</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Lake is not afraid to take on darker themes. Her work has looked at death, personal demons, underground monsters and pandemic lockdowns. </p>
<p>Performed on bare stages in simple attire with minimal lighting, Lake’s works draw us into the intimacy and vulnerability of the interacting bodies. </p>
<p>Her breakthrough work was Mix Tape in 2010. Since then, she has had works commissioned by Sydney Dance Company, Dancenorth and Tasdance, among many others, and she is currently artistic director of her own company, The Stephanie Lake Company.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Qdn4LELnzpQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p><em>In 2023, you can see the work of Stephanie Lake at <a href="https://www.perthfestival.com.au/events/manifesto/">Perth Festival</a>, <a href="https://www.sydneyfestival.org.au/events/manifesto">Sydney Festival</a> and touring internationally.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/innovative-and-thrilling-stephanie-lakes-manifesto-is-a-joy-175332">'Innovative and thrilling': Stephanie Lake's Manifesto is a joy</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>4. Claire Marshall</h2>
<p>Claire Marshall began her professional career in Brisbane as a contemporary dance choreographer. In 2013, she shifted to dance film and choreographing with the camera with her work Pulse, followed by the award-winning Ward of State in 2014. </p>
<p>Since then, she has created seven other film works, won multiple awards and has been part of film festivals across the world. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496014/original/file-20221117-23017-53xlp9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496014/original/file-20221117-23017-53xlp9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496014/original/file-20221117-23017-53xlp9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=696&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496014/original/file-20221117-23017-53xlp9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=696&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496014/original/file-20221117-23017-53xlp9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=696&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496014/original/file-20221117-23017-53xlp9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=875&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496014/original/file-20221117-23017-53xlp9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=875&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496014/original/file-20221117-23017-53xlp9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=875&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Claire Marshall works primarily on screen.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Supplied.</span></span>
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<p>In her choreographic process, Marshall allows objects and surfaces in the location to dictate movement choice. Using different lenses and angles, she creates often surreal worlds for her dancers to occupy. </p>
<p>Many of her works are psychological thrillers and have a distinctive 20th century flavour with vibrant vintage costumes and mid-century interiors.</p>
<p>Marshall leaves the meaning of her works open to interpretation. They are often interactive in a choose-your-own-adventure style, using split or multiple screens, giving each viewer a different experience.</p>
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<p><em>In 2023, you can see Claire Marshall’s adapted version of Permutations <a href="https://vimeo.com/731979698">online</a> in April.</em></p>
<h2>5. Annette Carmichael</h2>
<p>Annette Carmichael is an award-winning contemporary choreographer based in Denmark, Western Australia, who creates works with professional dancers, artists and community members. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496015/original/file-20221117-19-madsvi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496015/original/file-20221117-19-madsvi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496015/original/file-20221117-19-madsvi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496015/original/file-20221117-19-madsvi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496015/original/file-20221117-19-madsvi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496015/original/file-20221117-19-madsvi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496015/original/file-20221117-19-madsvi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496015/original/file-20221117-19-madsvi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Annette Carmichael in rehearsal for The Beauty Index Moora.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Nic Duncan</span></span>
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<p>Most recently, Carmichael has been creating large-scale regional pieces co-created with community dancers. The works combine natural movement with a gestural language developed by the performers. They are multi-art productions exploring themes such as war, domestic violence and global terror. </p>
<p>Whether in theatres, huge outdoor arenas or on Zoom, Carmichael’s works take us on both personal and collective journeys sharing honest and often raw emotion.</p>
<p>In 2023, <a href="https://distributed15.com.au/five-locations/">The Stars Descend</a> will be the culmination of a three-year program which explored ways of connecting people with the natural world. It will unfold in five chapters along an area of rich biodiversity currently undergoing restoration. You can watch single performances or join the 15-day odyssey along the trail and see them unfold one by one.</p>
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<p><em>See Annette Carmichael’s work in 2023 <a href="https://distributed15.com.au/five-locations/">across Western Australia</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/193213/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yvette Grant receives funding from a Commonwealth Government Scholarship and Grants and an Assistantship from The Faculty of Fine Arts and Music at The University of Melbourne. </span></em></p>Supporting and celebrating today’s women choreographers is vital to encouraging a new generation of women to follow, giving women in dance a voice into the future.Yvette Grant, PhD (Dance) Candidate and dance history tutor, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1956592022-12-23T10:50:05Z2022-12-23T10:50:05ZNot sure how to keep your kids busy and happy these holidays? Here are five tips.<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498712/original/file-20221202-12-5nm5kk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/students-practice-a-pirouette-during-rehearsals-at-the-leap-news-photo/1224917739?phrase=children%20playing%20in%20nigeria&adppopup=true">Benson Ibeabuchi/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When holidays roll around, many parents begin to appreciate just how tenacious teachers have to be to keep children engaged for weeks at a time. Some, faced with children they describe as “too playful”, “restless” or even “destructive”, may turn to home tutors, holiday lessons at schools or unregulated television viewing.</p>
<p>But holidays should be a time for children to relax both their bodies and their brains. They spend long stretches of the year focused on cognitive-based activities and they, like adults, deserve a break.</p>
<p>Here are some ideas for keeping your kids entertained and engaged during the holidays, without pushing them so hard they don’t get some rest. Some parents or caregivers may not be able to take time off work but it would be great to coincide their leave with their children’s holidays. This would help them spend time together. </p>
<h2>1. See the sights</h2>
<p>Children don’t just learn in the classroom. The environments they visit and spend time in are sometimes referred to as a <a href="https://www.acecqa.gov.au/sites/default/files/2018-04/QA3_TheEnvironmentAsTheThirdTeacher.pdf">“third teacher”</a>, alongside parents and teachers, who are the first and second teachers.</p>
<p>Why not visit culturally significant places or beautiful spaces in your own city? In Nigeria, where I live, there are plenty of child-friendly spots: <a href="https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g1760497-d4282420-Reviews-Olumo_Rock-Abeokuta_Ogun_State.html">Olumo Rock in Ogun State</a>, <a href="https://cityseeker.com/lagos-ng/250879-the-bar-beach">Bar Beach in Lagos</a>, <a href="https://erin-ijesa.com/tourism/">Erin Ijesha Waterfall in Osun State</a>, <a href="https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attraction_Review-g317071-d9792396-Reviews-Ado_Awaye_Mountains_and_Suspended_Lakes-Ibadan_Oyo_State.html">Suspended Lake in Ado Awaye, Oyo State</a> and <a href="https://www.obudumountainresort.com/">Obudu Ranch in Calabar, Cross River State</a>. </p>
<p>Being exposed to historically significant places or just visiting new environments gives your children a holistic learning experience. They can ask questions and express how the site makes them feel. They can also move around, exercising their bodies, socialise with others and in the process learn to regulate their emotions one way or the other. All of this is invaluable in your child’s development.</p>
<p>Museums and zoos are great, too. Children can look at artefacts, learning the stories behind them. Some countries even have <a href="https://whereverfamily.com/5-toy-museums-around-the-world/">toy museums</a> which lend out toys. </p>
<h2>2. Encourage reading</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324262600_Effects_of_Literature_Circles_Dialogic_Reading_and_Vocabulary_Self-Selection_Strategies_on_the_Reading_Comprehension_Skill_of_Lower_Primary_School_in_Osun_State_Nigeria">Research</a> shows that many children in Nigeria read at frustration level. Reading at frustration level means that the reader will need extensive assistance from teachers on texts that are of the reader’s level or age grade. </p>
<p>So, away from the demands of school, find ways to show your kids how worthwhile books are. Let them travel the journey of imagination and creativity through reading clubs or the library. As they read, their interest is aroused: they travel around the world through books, get creative and grow their vocabulary. This also helps their writing skills.</p>
<p>Parents should also create time to read storybooks to their children, either during the day, if possible, or at bedtime. Allow the child to pick a book of interest and read with them. Allow them to ask questions, and answer them honestly. </p>
<p>This experience will strengthen your relationship, a great boost for your <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2212868922000368">child’s emotional stability</a>.</p>
<h2>3. Make music, and dance</h2>
<p>Music isn’t just entertainment. It also <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/7467/the-impact-of-music-on-human-development-and-well-being">strongly influences</a> all aspects of our development. It is <a href="https://www.verywellmind.com/how-and-why-music-therapy-is-effective-3145190">therapeutic</a>: crying babies get succour from music and drift off to sleep. It <a href="https://theconversation.com/music-training-speeds-up-brain-development-in-children-61491">accelerates brain development</a>, driving the acquisition of language and boosting reading skills. It even has <a href="https://www.brainbalancecenters.com/blog/correlation-between-math-and-music-ability#:%7E:text=Performing%20Music%20Teaches%20Valuable%20Lessons%20to%20Students&text=Learning%20music%20improves%20math%20skills,brain%20used%20when%20doing%20math.">mathematical benefits</a> – learning to play the piano has been proven to improve children’s classroom performance in mathematics, spatial awareness and logical reasoning tasks.</p>
<p>Your child can also enrol in a dance class. Dance is said to <a href="https://www.superprof.ng/blog/dance-classes-for-kids/">aid self- transformation and actualisation</a>. Through dance, a person is able to express their innermost feelings without any restriction.</p>
<h2>4. Let’s get physical</h2>
<p>Some parents are unnecessarily anxious when it comes to allowing their children to engage in sports. They fear their children might get injured. </p>
<p>But games and sports create mental alertness in children and are a great avenue to socialise with peers. Studies have <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/06/220601142809.htm">established</a> that children who engage in team sport have fewer mental difficulties. Children involved in team sports were less likely to have signs of anxiety, depression, withdrawal, social problems, and attention problems than those who did not.</p>
<p>Why not enrol your child in swimming, soccer or basketball during their holidays? To allay your fears, ensure that they are properly supervised by responsible adults.</p>
<p>Some games aren’t physical: Scrabble, Monopoly, chess and other board games are intellectually, socially and emotionally beneficial for children, too.</p>
<h2>5. Get crafty and get cooking</h2>
<p>Allow your child to get involved in arts and crafts either at home or through a nearby art gallery. </p>
<p>Children naturally engage in drawing, colouring, cutting, moulding or modelling but may get rebuked by their parents or other adults for “defacing or destroying things”. If their natural instincts are not nurtured and properly channelled, they tend to go negative or the potentials become dormant for life.</p>
<p>Get cardboard, art paper, newspapers, gum, glue, crayons, water colours, child’s size scissors, pencils and lots more for your child and allow your child to get creative. Or try crafts like tie dyeing and bead making.</p>
<p>Cooking is another wonderful activity. This should be age-appropriate: your toddler can help in picking one thing or the other when you are cooking. Ensure that you keep the conversation going, explaining what you’re doing. In the process, the child’s vocabulary is being expanded; they’ll also learn to describe a process and to identify objects by name.</p>
<p>Importantly, if your child is old enough, allow them to try new things. With supervision, your child can try baking cakes or cooking rice, for instance. Adults must, however, be available to guide such cooking attempts. </p>
<p>Here’s to a wonderful, fun-filled holiday – for you and your children.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195659/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hannah Olubunmi Ajayi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Holidays should be a time for children to relax both their bodies and their brains.Hannah Olubunmi Ajayi, Professor of Early Childhood Education, Obafemi Awolowo UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1967182022-12-18T13:16:44Z2022-12-18T13:16:44ZStephen ‘tWitch’ Boss’s death should spark real conversations about the cost of Black celebrity<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501412/original/file-20221215-11363-xdwxlj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3300%2C2183&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">There has been a public outpouring of love for the dancer and producer Stephen 'tWitch' Boss who died this week at the age of 40. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Donald Traill/JetBlue's Soar with Reading Program via AP Images)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Last week, dancer and DJ <a href="https://people.com/tag/stephen-twitch-boss/">Stephen ‘tWitch’ Boss</a> died from suicide at age 40. Like many, I was incredibly shocked and saddened by the news. </p>
<p>As a scholar of Black entertainment history, I also reflected on the longer history of Black male entertainers dancing or telling jokes to their deaths despite cultivating a public image as “<a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CmKDwRNJYrV/">pure love and light</a>,” which is how tWitch’s former co-producer, Ellen DeGeneres described him on her Instagram upon hearing of his death.</p>
<p>There have been so many tragic and unexpected deaths of young Black men in the entertainment industry that websites, such as <a href="http://www.bestofdate.com/">BestOfDate</a>, and <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/rappers-who-passed-young/celebrity-lists">Ranker</a> have formed to document them. </p>
<p>While these sites are primarily documenting the deaths of rappers, they are also creating a narrative around Black men that values their personas more than the lives they actually lived. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501625/original/file-20221216-11243-ityp8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="man smiles for the camera" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501625/original/file-20221216-11243-ityp8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501625/original/file-20221216-11243-ityp8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501625/original/file-20221216-11243-ityp8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501625/original/file-20221216-11243-ityp8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501625/original/file-20221216-11243-ityp8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501625/original/file-20221216-11243-ityp8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501625/original/file-20221216-11243-ityp8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Actor Chadwick Boseman, star of the film ‘Black Panther,’ in Los Angeles, 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)</span></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>If there is a common thread running through the seemingly unexpected deaths of Black male celebrities, it’s that few around them were made aware of their struggles. When singer-songwriter Prince died in 2016 at 57 from an accidental overdose of fentanyl, even his <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/columns/dahleen-glanton/ct-met-prince-friends-dahleen-glanton-20180420-story.html">closest friends</a> did little to address his drug addiction. Similarly when Chadwick Boseman, actor and star of <em>Black Panther</em> died of Stage 4 colon cancer in 2020 at age 43, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/28/movies/chadwick-boseman-dead.html">no one in the industry knew</a> that he had been battling the disease. While these deaths were given a medical cause, I believe the larger issue of Black male celebrities not talking about their struggles plays an undeniable role.</p>
<p>When a celebrity’s image matters more to the public than their real-life challenges, it is often referred to as the <a href="https://www.findapsychologist.org/parasocial-relationships-the-nature-of-celebrity-fascinations/#:%7E:text=Parasocial%20relationships%20are%20one%2Dsided,sports%20teams">parasocial relationship</a>.</p>
<h2>How parasocial relationships have changed</h2>
<p>First coined in 1956 by sociologists Donald Horton and R. Richard Wohl, the “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00332747.1956.11023049">para-social interaction</a>,” was a kind of psychological relationship experienced by how television audiences related to performers. Today, parasocial interactions apply to social media platforms. As audiences are repeatedly exposed to media personas, we develop illusions of intimacy, friendship and identification. </p>
<p>They’re at our fingertips and in front of our eyes every second of every day. Clinical psychologist <a href="https://doctorbethanycook.com/">Bethany Cook</a> told <a href="https://stylecaster.com/parasocial-relationships-meaning/">Stylecaster</a> that “social media allows the untouchable to become touchable.” </p>
<p>And the lines between reality and fiction are increasingly more blurred than when Horton and Wohl conducted their study. </p>
<p>In reality, the networks of intimacy that we develop with celebrities are based on impersonal forms of communication. </p>
<p>For example, two days before tWitch died, he posted a dance video to <a href="https://www.instagram.com/sir_twitch_alot/">his Instagram</a> with his wife, Allison. While dancing Instagram posts come off as pure fun, they are mostly a <a href="https://www.morethandancers.com/posts/how-to-grow-your-dance-instagram">marketing strategy</a> to increase brand awareness, not an innocent glimpse into a dancer’s “off-time.” </p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/CmNVqhwKPv0","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>Today’s celebrity and performer are involved in the curation of webs of intimacy and presumed friendships which makes it difficult to see reality. For example, when a celebrity we follow is struggling with a mental health issue. </p>
<p>Significantly, there is a long history of Black male performers burying mental health issues until they tragically and unexpectedly die.</p>
<h2>Black men have been dying on-and-off stages for centuries</h2>
<p><a href="https://masterjuba.com/">William Henry Lane</a> (1825–1852), also known as Master Juba, was the first Black dancer to reach international acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic. Born in Providence, R.I., he is remembered not only as the originator of African American tap dance but has been hailed as <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Blackface-Minstrelsy-in-Britain/Pickering/p/book/9781138265363">“the Jackie Robinson of the American stage.”</a> </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="an engraving of a man dancing with onlookers" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501565/original/file-20221216-27-ojy8uy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501565/original/file-20221216-27-ojy8uy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501565/original/file-20221216-27-ojy8uy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501565/original/file-20221216-27-ojy8uy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501565/original/file-20221216-27-ojy8uy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501565/original/file-20221216-27-ojy8uy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501565/original/file-20221216-27-ojy8uy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=531&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">William Henry Lane (‘Master Juba’) dances in New York’s Five Points District as Charles Dickens and a companion watch in the background.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Master_Juba_from_American_Notes.jpg">(Engraving from American Notes by Charles Dickens, 1842: The Penumbral Frontier: Landscape, Modernity, and the Subterranean Imagination in New York City Literature and Culture)</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>By the 1840s, Lane was billed as one of the greatest dancers of his time, no small feat if you consider that throughout the 19th century (and most of the 20th), Black performers did not get regular work unless they fit themselves into the mold cast for them by white casting directors. </p>
<p>However, because it was the 19th century, Lane was often forced to wear the burnt-cork mask of blackface minstrelsy, as he danced. As the sole Black performer on white stages, Lane worked day and night for 11 years in Britain until he died at only 27 years old. </p>
<p>As cultural sociologist Michael Pickering observes in <em>Blackface Minstrelsy in Britain</em>, by most accounts, Lane “had quite literally danced himself to death.” </p>
<p>tWitch was one of the first Black dancers on <em>So You Think You Can Dance</em> to catapult into the mainstream. His unique combination of personality and hip hop moves made him one of the most memorable and beloved members of the show. </p>
<p>While the reasons tWitch took his life are still unknown, the legacy of Lane’s death, which was the result of physical and mental exhaustion lingers eerily in his passing.</p>
<h2>It’s time to listen to the whisper</h2>
<p>At the end of my book, <a href="https://chbooks.com/Books/U/Uncle"><em>Uncle: Race, Nostalgia, and the Politics of Loyalty</em></a>, I write that “Uncle Tom is our collective whisper.” Meaning that when Black men are always smiling, happy, loyal and constantly performing, that state of “on-ness” comes at a cost. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A portrait of Redd Foxx" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501567/original/file-20221216-11243-ou8soy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501567/original/file-20221216-11243-ou8soy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=827&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501567/original/file-20221216-11243-ou8soy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=827&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501567/original/file-20221216-11243-ou8soy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=827&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501567/original/file-20221216-11243-ou8soy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1039&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501567/original/file-20221216-11243-ou8soy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1039&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501567/original/file-20221216-11243-ou8soy.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1039&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Redd Foxx in 1966.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(John E. Reed/Coast Artist Management0</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In centuries past, working oneself to death meant that performers died suddenly like Lane or the legendary comedian <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1991-10-12-me-105-story.html">Redd Foxx</a>, who suffered a heart attack on set in 1991 after working in the industry for 56 years. The trailblazing dancer, actor and choreographer <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/11/arts/gregory-hines-versatile-dancer-and-actor-dies-at-57.html">Gregory Hines</a>, who revitalized tap dance in the 1980s, also died young at age 57 after a short battle with cancer. </p>
<p>Today, it is more likely that Black celebrities — especially those who make a career of entertaining primarily white audiences — suffer in silence until they die suddenly, take their own lives and/or have violent public outbursts. </p>
<p>The “<a href="https://theconversation.com/will-smiths-oscar-slap-reveals-fault-lines-as-he-defends-jada-pinkett-smith-against-chris-rock-podcast-180280">slap heard around the world</a>,” for instance, at the 2022 Oscars was not just about two Black male entertainers having an inappropriate altercation; it was a glimpse into Black mental health where the cost of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/apr/19/whats-the-real-reason-why-black-celebs-are-still-so-angry-with-will-smith">playing the “nice guy,”</a> as Tayo Bero argued in a piece for the <em>Guardian</em>, takes an often-invisible toll.</p>
<hr>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/will-smiths-oscar-slap-reveals-fault-lines-as-he-defends-jada-pinkett-smith-against-chris-rock-podcast-180280">Will Smith's Oscar slap reveals fault lines as he defends Jada Pinkett Smith against Chris Rock: Podcast</a>
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<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="TWitch dances with Hillary Clinton in a blue suit." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501621/original/file-20221216-19-c5mhv7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501621/original/file-20221216-19-c5mhv7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501621/original/file-20221216-19-c5mhv7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501621/original/file-20221216-19-c5mhv7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501621/original/file-20221216-19-c5mhv7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501621/original/file-20221216-19-c5mhv7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501621/original/file-20221216-19-c5mhv7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton, right, practices her dance moves with DJ Stephen ‘tWitch’ Boss during a break in the taping of ‘The Ellen DeGeneres Show’ in 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A 2015 report by the U.S. <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26079520/">National Center for Health Statistics</a> found that only 26.4 per cent of Black and Hispanic men ages 18 to 44 who experienced daily feelings of anxiety or depression were likely to have used mental health services, compared with 45.4 per cent of non-Hispanic white men with the same feelings. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.mentalhealthcommission.ca/wp-content/uploads/drupal/2021-02/covid_19_tip_sheet%20_health_in_black_communities_eng.pdf">Mental Health Commission of Canada</a> reports similar disparities noting that between 2001 and 2014, 38.3 per cent of Black Canadians with “poor or fair self-reported” mental health used mental health services compared with 50.8 per cent of white Canadians.</p>
<p>Black male celebrities who are chasing white approval are self-destructing in front of our very eyes. The whispers have become non-stop noise. It’s time for celebrities with power to do more than post condolences on social media. They need to be part of the process to create sustainable structures and supports for Black men in the industry. When that happens, the parasocial relationship might be key to changing lived realities.</p>
<p>My hope is that Stephen ‘tWitch’ Boss’s death does not overshadow the life he lived. And that the entertainment industry finally breaks down the wall of shame that keeps too many in the closet about their mental health struggles.</p>
<p><em>If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts or mental health matters, you can get help here: Talk Suicide Canada: 1-833-456-4566 (phone) | 45645 (text between 4 p.m. and midnight ET)</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196718/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cheryl Thompson receives funding from the Ontario Early Researcher Award program. </span></em></p>A scholar of Black entertainment history reflects on the death of producer Stephen ‘tWitch’ Boss and reflects on the history of Black male entertainers dancing or telling jokes to their deaths.Cheryl Thompson, Assistant Professor, Performance, Toronto Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1950032022-11-22T03:27:18Z2022-11-22T03:27:18ZThe West Australian Ballet’s Swan Lake brings the story to Perth – but the Noongar elements never feel completely integrated<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496348/original/file-20221121-17525-tigpzo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C5%2C3362%2C2230&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">West Australian Ballet/Bradbury Photography</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: Swan Lake, West Australian Ballet</em></p>
<p>Opening this production of Swan Lake is the traditional Noongar black swan dance and the song that accompanies it. </p>
<p>Led by Noongar Leader Barry McGuire, the Noongar swan dance from Gya Ngoop Keeninyarra (One Blood Dancers) is a gentle, measured piece.</p>
<p>The five dancers come across in a line, raise their legs into a sharp angle just below the hips and push the leg down precisely – but not with the force of many Indigenous dances. </p>
<p>In this scene, and when they reappear throughout the ballet, each has a flexible bower or rod before their chest which is shaken gently. The nature of this object varies: at one point white feathers fan over the wounded Odette (Kiki Saito); later it is black feathers.</p>
<p>The placing of the Noongar dancers into a snaking line resonates with the later straight lines of ballerinas, such as the ballet’s famous cygnet dance, integrating the Noongar dancers into the choreography.</p>
<p>But the Noongar materials are small dramatic interjections into what is otherwise a typical late Romantic ballet. Choreographer Krzysztof Pastor reproduces something familiar with a dash of local flavour. </p>
<p>The European aristocratic Romantic ballet – complete with period costumes, choreographic highlights and most of Tchaikovsky’s original score – is lifted out of its original context and into a Western Australian setting. The success or otherwise depends on whether one feels this is desirable or even possible.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496349/original/file-20221121-18-hnyp88.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A ballet stage." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496349/original/file-20221121-18-hnyp88.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496349/original/file-20221121-18-hnyp88.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=298&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496349/original/file-20221121-18-hnyp88.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=298&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496349/original/file-20221121-18-hnyp88.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=298&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496349/original/file-20221121-18-hnyp88.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496349/original/file-20221121-18-hnyp88.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496349/original/file-20221121-18-hnyp88.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=374&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">This is a familiar ballet, with a dash of local flavour.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">West Australian Ballet/Bradbury Photography</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A West Australian story</h2>
<p>It is 19th century Perth, rather than Russia. The character of Prince Siegfried becomes Sebastian Hampshire (Oscar Valdés), son of wealthy developer John Hampshire (Christian Luck), and his close friend is now Mowadji (Noongar actor Kyle Morrison).</p>
<p>Changes in story-line come unstuck with the character of Baron von Rothbart, originally a shapeshifting sorcerer, who becomes William Greenwood (Matthew Lehmann). </p>
<p>Although identified of settler descent, he is able to transform into the totemic animal of the <em>waalitj</em>, or wedge tailed eagle, which Noongar scholar Len Collard identifies as the most powerful bird on this Country, a “<a href="https://www.westerlymag.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/WesterlyVol.54Leonard-M.Collard.pdf">guardian of both the earth and the sun</a>.”</p>
<p>Greenwood uses his evil avian magic to keep Odette under his spell as a white swan (such as one finds in Europe) until a man declares his love for her. </p>
<p>Greenwood also deploys Odile (sometimes played as Odette’s other self, but here a distinct character, peerlessly danced by Chihiro Nomura) the task of wooing Sebastian so Greenwood might join his dynasty with Sebastian’s.</p>
<p>Although she is a lone white swan on Noongar Country, Odette is protected by both the Noongar dancers and the <em>corps de ballet</em> of local magical black swans. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496350/original/file-20221121-13-lm81ff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Noongar dancers carry Odette." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496350/original/file-20221121-13-lm81ff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496350/original/file-20221121-13-lm81ff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496350/original/file-20221121-13-lm81ff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496350/original/file-20221121-13-lm81ff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496350/original/file-20221121-13-lm81ff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496350/original/file-20221121-13-lm81ff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496350/original/file-20221121-13-lm81ff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Odette is protected by the Noongar dancers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">West Australian Ballet/Bradbury Photography</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Dressed in black, the <em>corps’</em> dance by the lake is nevertheless in the traditional mode. Rows of ballerinas crossing in complex patterns are rightly a highlight. Pastor packs an impressive troupe of over 20 ballerinas on stage without it feeling cluttered.</p>
<p>Lehmann as the eagle comes out less well, his beautiful but heavy costume featuring a chainmail vest making it hard to elevate his leaps. He is nevertheless an impressive, weighty presence.</p>
<h2>A confusing marriage</h2>
<p>Indigenous Dreaming stories <a href="https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/114726">often</a> feature battles between supra-natural human-animal hybrids, some of whom are vicious and immoral, even if there are generally important lessons to be learned from dances and songs. Here, the program promotes the West Australian Ballet’s version as offering a lesson in environmentalism and Noongar wisdom. </p>
<p>Greenwood and John Hampshire join alliances to build their power by enslaving swans and manipulating the lovers. This leads to Sebastian trying to save Odette as she is forced into the lake. He follows her into the water and both drown. Mowadji and his friends, the dancers of Gya Ngoop Keeninyarra, bear Sebastian’s body aloft to the grave.</p>
<p>This is however a confusing marriage of motifs. Was Russian magic blended with that of Australia, or are Greenwood’s acts a metaphor for Russian ballet’s history in Australia? It certainly ends badly.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496351/original/file-20221121-13513-ktnoni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A grande jete." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496351/original/file-20221121-13513-ktnoni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496351/original/file-20221121-13513-ktnoni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496351/original/file-20221121-13513-ktnoni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496351/original/file-20221121-13513-ktnoni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496351/original/file-20221121-13513-ktnoni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496351/original/file-20221121-13513-ktnoni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496351/original/file-20221121-13513-ktnoni.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Polly Hilton is superb as a Spanish dancer.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">West Australian Ballet/Bradbury Photography</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the end, these conundrums are irrelevant. In such a classic model, the story is an excuse for dancing, not a tight narrative vehicle. The retention of ethnic dance interludes – where groups of dancers perform the traditional styles of the Hungarian czardas, a Spanish flamenco, a Neapolitan sequence and a Polish mazurka – demonstrates this. These colourful interjections (and Polly Hilton is indeed superb as the Spanish dancer) contribute nothing to the plot.</p>
<p>In light of this, it is hard not to see the Noongar dance as another dab of ethnic detailing in a multicoloured palette of native tropes. Placing the Noongar swan dance at the beginning does prioritise it. Played as a non-dancing part, Mowadji’s role here is that of a sidekick, gazing in admiration as Sebastian dances centre stage, even if Morrison’s magnetic presence gives his gestures considerable power.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496352/original/file-20221121-62835-dpop34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A grande jete." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496352/original/file-20221121-62835-dpop34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496352/original/file-20221121-62835-dpop34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496352/original/file-20221121-62835-dpop34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496352/original/file-20221121-62835-dpop34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496352/original/file-20221121-62835-dpop34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496352/original/file-20221121-62835-dpop34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/496352/original/file-20221121-62835-dpop34.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The setting is West Australia – but the ballet is largely unchanged.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">West Australian Ballet/Bradbury Photography</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the end, both the strength and the weakness of the production is that Romantic ballet as a cultural and aesthetic concept remains unchanged by the addition of Noongar and Western Australian elements. </p>
<p>Noongar and the ballet company’s artists do not dance together. While the Noongar dancers briefly pose to Tchaikovsky’s score, the settler-descent artists do not dance to McGuire’s singing. Choreographic motifs particular to the races confront each other from across an abyss.</p>
<p>The West Australian Ballet’s Swan Lake is a thought-provoking, beautifully danced piece – but it does not resolve the challenges the artists set themselves.</p>
<p><em>The Swan Lake plays at His Majesty’s Theatre, Perth, until December 11.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195003/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jonathan W. Marshall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Choreographer Krzysztof Pastor reproduces something familiar with a dash of local flavour.Jonathan W. Marshall, Associate Professor & Postgraduate Research Coordinator, Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, Edith Cowan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1923572022-10-21T15:03:27Z2022-10-21T15:03:27ZHow Strictly is challenging the way people think about dance<p>At the beginning of every British autumn we mark the turning season with three immutable certainties: bright chilly mornings, the start of a new academic year and the launch of <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006m8dq">Strictly Come Dancing</a>. This year sees the 20th series, with a line-up that has sparked nationwide conversations about gender, sexuality and disability.</p>
<p>Last year’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/dec/18/a-groundbreaking-strictly-final-in-step-with-modern-britain">ground-breaking final</a> was praised for its inclusive representation with deaf actress Rose Ayling-Ellis and John Whaite, the first male contestant to dance in a same-sex pairing.</p>
<p>This year’s series demonstrates the BBC’s commitment to continuing its work in challenging norms about who can or should dance – and who they should dance with. As a researcher in the field, my work looks at inclusive dance practice, leading me to working with colleagues on a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/historyofthebbc/ahrc/wood-foellmer-meehan-stamp/">project with the BBC</a> looking at how Strictly embraces diversity.</p>
<p>This year’s line-up includes paralympian Ellie Simmonds and comedian Jayde Adams, who are still in the competition, as well as presenter Richie Anderson, who was eliminated in week three.</p>
<p>Simmonds, who was born with <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0016503/ellie-simmonds-a-world-without-dwarfism">Achondroplasia dwarfism</a>, is part of a growing group of disabled celebrities showcasing their abilities in Strictly Come Dancing, (including last year’s champion, Ayling-Ellis, who won people’s hearts with her “<a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/strictly-come-dancing-rose-ailing-ellis-couples-choice-performance-deaf-community_uk_61901c4ae4b0c621c5cdbfb6">silent dance</a>”).</p>
<p>Anderson and Adams are the two contestants in same-sex pairings this year. These partnerships were <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/strictly-come-dancing-nicola-adams-same-sex-pairing-bbc-b933634.html">first introduced</a> in 2020 when boxer Nicola Adams was partnered with Katya Jones, and continued last year with finalists and fan favourites John Whaite and professional dancer Johannes Radebe. </p>
<p>With this year being hailed as <a href="https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/entertainment/anton-du-beke-diversity-strictly-come-dancing-newsupdate/">the most diverse series ever</a>, Strictly is attempting to better reflect the diversity that exists across the British population by challenging the dominant norms in dance traditions and styles that feature on the show.</p>
<p>The drive towards more inclusivity and representation has been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/27/ellie-simmonds-on-strictly-dancer">praised by many</a>, not least by communities that have long been underrepresented on television generally, and more specifically, on primetime shows.</p>
<p>As a co-investigator on the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/historyofthebbc/ahrc/wood-foellmer-meehan-stamp/">Strictly Inclusive</a> project to celebrate the BBC’s centenary, I have been talking to the public about the show. The project collaborated with Coventry Pride, the Deaf Cultural Centre and Deaf Explorer in Birmingham. We also spoke to local artists, analysed archival clips of the series, hosted discussions and reflected on inclusion and representation as whole on the show – past, present and future.</p>
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<h2>Gender pairings and disability</h2>
<p>This push for greater inclusivity on Strictly does not always find support. Developing the format away from the original show <a href="https://www.bbc.com/historyofthebbc/anniversaries/september/come-dancing/">Come Dancing</a> (which launched in 1950) has been met with some negative criticism.</p>
<p>Recently labelled as a “<a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2022/09/27/strictly-come-dancing-has-become-bbcs-latest-woke-box-ticking/">woke box-ticking exercise</a>”, Strictly seems to be disrupting ideas of what dance should be and what dancers should look like, as well as expanding what we have come to expect from Saturday night entertainment shows. </p>
<p>Interestingly, Strictly’s first disabled contestant was not on the main show, but a 2015 Comic Relief version. <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02glql8">The People’s Strictly</a> welcomed specially chosen members of the public to participate in a one-off series. War veteran Cassidy Little took part and won.</p>
<p>Since then, many paralympians and veterans have embarked on their “Strictly journeys”, working with dance partners and choreographers to adapt movement to best suit their bodies, while attempting to adhere to the rules and expectations of ballroom and Latin dance styles.</p>
<p>Queer culture has long been a part of Strictly’s identity, from its popular judges to its celebration of queer celebrities through costuming and song choice – see Russell Grant’s 2011 <a href="https://blog.dancevision.com/what-is-american-smooth-dance-style">American smooth</a> to LGBTQ+ anthem I am what I am.</p>
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<p>It seems same-sex pairings were <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/05/strictly-queer-culture-same-sex-couple-nicola-adams">requested and denied</a> for many years. The BBC introduced the idea with the first celebrity same-sex partnership in 2020, ten years after it happened on <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-dance-idUSTRE6A155G20101102">Israel’s Dancing with the Stars</a>. In spite of accusations of superficial tokenism, Strictly now appears to be committed to genuine sexual representation, ensuring there is a choice in dance partners. </p>
<h2>How things change</h2>
<p>Diversifying those who participate in reality TV shows can bring pressing issues to a larger audience. On last year’s series, deaf actress Ayling-Ellis spotlighted British Sign Language (BSL) so prominently that there was a <a href="https://www.itv.com/news/2021-11-01/rose-ayling-ellis-strictly-appearance-leads-to-surge-in-demand-for-bsl-courses">surge in searches for BSL courses</a>.</p>
<p>Since being crowned 2021 Strictly champion, she has led a campaign to make BSL a <a href="https://www.bigissue.com/news/social-justice/it-will-be-so-emotional-rose-ayling-ellis-on-bsl-becoming-an-official-language/">recognised language in public life</a>, championing a bill that was passed by MPs in early 2022. </p>
<p>The actress has spoken of how the fight to get BSL recognised as an official language has been long and hard-won, suggesting that the publicity and reach of Strictly contributed to the success of the campaign. This highlights how the show can effect change and engage new audiences, champion difference and help inform public policy. Televised dance has the potential to change views on sexuality, gender and disability, as well as who can dance.</p>
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<h2>What’s next for Strictly?</h2>
<p>For all the developments and changes, Strictly’s work on inclusion is not done. To avoid claims of “box-ticking”, the show should continue exploring what dance is, who can dance and how it is shared with diverse audiences.</p>
<p>Although Ayling-Ellis’ stint on the programme made a considerable impression, there is still no permanent BSL interpretation provided for the live show, for example. Also, the styles or genres presented on Strictly showcase particular dance traditions while other styles practised across the UK are rendered somewhat invisible to big public audiences due to their exclusion.</p>
<p>By engaging with audiences and the public more through research projects such as <a href="https://www.coventry.ac.uk/research/research-directories/current-projects/2022/strictly-inclusive-co-creating-the-past-present-and-future/">Strictly Inclusive</a>, we can understand the impact televised dance can have on communities and wider society. There is more to be done, but this is certainly a step, a twirl and a shimmy towards a more progressive show and audience.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/192357/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kathryn Stamp has received funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the BBC. </span></em></p>Strictly continues its work in busting norms in who can or should dance – and who they can dance with.Kathryn Stamp, Assistant Professor in Dance Studies, Coventry UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1836422022-06-23T01:32:30Z2022-06-23T01:32:30ZHow Rising festival brought us dance in times of plague<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469128/original/file-20220616-16-u9v490.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1546%2C834&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Abby Murray/Rising</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Three years in the making, Rising’s much-anticipated first edition brought to Melbourne’s festival-deprived audiences a rich program featuring 225 events. </p>
<p>With former Chunky Move founder and choreographer Gideon Obarzanek as co-director, it was only natural to expect a dance-heavy presence with eight local and international productions.</p>
<p>The works ranged from incredible local performer Jo Lloyd and her dancers in dialogue with drummer Jim White and guitarist Emmett Kelly, to the exquisite Indonesian dancer and choreographer Rianto’s ritualistic Hijra'h, but there were three works which I felt particularly captured something of this post-pandemic age.</p>
<h2>Jurrungu Ngan-ga/Straight Talk</h2>
<p>Marrugeku’s productions have often been straight talk – powerful invitations to reflect on the devastating effects of ongoing colonialism as experienced daily by Indigenous people and other marginalised communities. </p>
<p>Their works are almost always the result of intercultural collaborations, expressed through complex choreography expanding into spoken text, multimedia installations and diverse styles of dance. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469131/original/file-20220616-15-u8ydxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Production image" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469131/original/file-20220616-15-u8ydxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469131/original/file-20220616-15-u8ydxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469131/original/file-20220616-15-u8ydxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469131/original/file-20220616-15-u8ydxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469131/original/file-20220616-15-u8ydxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469131/original/file-20220616-15-u8ydxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469131/original/file-20220616-15-u8ydxr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Jurrungu Ngan Marrugeku is complex choreography expanding into spoken text, multimedia installations and diverse styles of dance.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Prudence Upton/ Rising</span></span>
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<p>This production is no different, inspired by ideas and experience contributed as material by choreographer Dalisa Pigram’s own grandfather Yawuru leader and senator Patrick Dodson, Kurdish Iranian writer and former Manus Island detainee Behrouz Boochani and Iranian-Australian scholar-activist Omid Tofighian. </p>
<p>Jurrungu Ngan-ga tackles the devastating consequences of Australia’s entrenched, government-sanctioned fixation with punishment through detention and incarceration.</p>
<p>The show brings together a cast of nine dancers of multiple backgrounds (from First Peoples, refugee, transgender and settler communities) who also contribute their embodied stories and histories to the piece.</p>
<p>It starts with a subtly exquisite solo, the dancer embracing the space with ample movement flowing freely. As it unfolds, movement becomes cagier, as if restrained, constrained by invisible barriers. It prefaces the next solo, a man pacing in a cell of light watched by a camera. He is in turn surveying by us watching the camera footage. </p>
<p>This is a man caged in a prison, caged in a body, and the movement – no longer ample – pulsates with repressed anger. </p>
<p>From here, the choreography grows into dizzying ensemble moments, including a surreal moment when the dancers navigate their way through a stage occupied by glowing crystal chandeliers lowered to the ground. </p>
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<span class="caption">The choreography grows into dizzying ensemble moments.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Abby Murray/Rising</span></span>
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<p>There is everything in this piece, from police abuse to spit-hoods to video surveillance, to naked bodies dumped on the floor with a muffled thump, to names of those who have perished in police custody or in detention. There is abuse and humiliation and moments of protest, of fury, and joy, wild and unapologetic.</p>
<p>The choreography is a breathtaking tour de force delivered by fierce bodies telling their dire stories. Although nothing is accusatory here, there is no breathing space for the audiences but to take it all in. As the final solo arrives, soothing and somewhat majestic, ears still resonate with the powerful rapping “this is Australia”. </p>
<p>This is Australia at its ugliest, in its fear of everything not from here, of everyone “not like us”, a mirror talking back at us. </p>
<p>Jurrungu Ngan-ga is truly a piece of its plagued times, viscerally sharp and brutally raw, so raw that it cuts to the bone, and the call to action at the end may well be the only way to catch the breath. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/comic-anticlimax-in-nat-randall-and-anna-breckons-set-piece-183624">Comic anticlimax in Nat Randall and Anna Breckon’s Set Piece</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The Dancing Public</h2>
<p>Danish choreographer Mette Ingvartsen’s The Dancing Public is also a piece about plagued times and as visceral as Marrugeku’s, yet very different. </p>
<p>We step into the dimly lit space. The music is raving and Ingvartsen, mingling with the audience, is inviting everyone to spread around. Some are starting to move with the music as they inspect the space. Then Ingvartsen gets up on one of the three platforms placed here and there, and starts to dance.</p>
<p>Furiously, relentlessly, her body pulses, throbs, possessed by the beats, convulsing in trance-like gestures. </p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Furiously, relentlessly, her body pulses, throbs, possessed by the beats, convulsing in trance-like gestures.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michael Pham/Rising</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>As she dances, she chants about the unexplained hysterical mass dancing episodes that started in the 1300 in south of France and continued over time. People danced till they dropped, their feet covered in blood and their minds covered in fog. It was the time of mediaeval plaques and poverty. </p>
<p>She joins the crowds again and dances with anyone as she swirls her way to the other platform to tell us some more. She keeps dancing. There is no sweat dripping off her body, no heavy breathing. She is fury unleashed and it is mesmerising to watch. We forget about dancing. </p>
<p>Suddenly, she hurls her body over the platform railing and leaves it hanging there, in a rare moment of stillness, no sweat dripping, and we, with her, suspend our breath. And the dancing kicks off again, and goes on and on and at the end, she leaves us alone, to dance… or not.</p>
<p>If Dancing Public is about the public dancing it fails. The contagion from one body to the other does not take. Participatory dance shows are always tricky – they really depend on the audience mood and the dramaturgical tricks giving the cues. They also depend on who is in the room, and in Melbourne, given the ticket price, it wasn’t exactly the crowd most inclined to dance. </p>
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<span class="caption">She is fury unleashed and it is mesmerising to watch. We forget about dancing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michael Pham/Rising</span></span>
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<p>Dancing Public is indeed an experiment that needs to be experienced with the body, through the body. It is all that we have missed during these last two years. And here lies the merit of this show, in it turning a story from the past into some important questions for today: would we have all taken to the streets dancing if confinement had continued? </p>
<p>Could this be a new form of protest in our heavily policed socially-distanced post pandemic reality? Dancing manias were considered a threat to public order as crowds could be neither controlled nor explained. </p>
<p>In this sense, this show is more an invitation to consider our relationship to social norms, to being together, to acting collectively. How we respond to this invitation will depend on who is ready to let go. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-creepy-clowns-to-the-dancing-plague-when-phobias-are-contagious-67805">From creepy clowns to the dancing plague – when phobias are contagious</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Multitud</h2>
<p>At the start of Multitud, from the Uruguayan choreographer Tamara Cubas, the 72 volunteer performers are part of the audience – then, they step onto the stage, one by one, facing us. Bodies standing tall, lit by discreet fluoro lights. </p>
<p>Suddenly one bends, like a broken puppet, then another. Some fall to the ground, some crouch. Some rise back up, some don’t. </p>
<p>Later, they start running in circles. The circles grow into a spinning whirlwind. </p>
<p>They all coalesce into a vortex of piled, panting bodies, pulsing like magma, until they breathe as one: one single breath. A pause, and they erupt into a thunderous laughter. It is hilarious. It is hysterical, too, as they come together again into a crowd, frenzied and threatening this time, out of control, taking aim and tugging ferociously at a teenager in a green jumper. </p>
<p>They are vile.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469635/original/file-20220620-20-64rfuc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469635/original/file-20220620-20-64rfuc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469635/original/file-20220620-20-64rfuc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469635/original/file-20220620-20-64rfuc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469635/original/file-20220620-20-64rfuc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469635/original/file-20220620-20-64rfuc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469635/original/file-20220620-20-64rfuc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469635/original/file-20220620-20-64rfuc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">They step onto the stage, one by one, facing us. Bodies standing tall.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michelle Li/Rising</span></span>
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<p>The teenager stares at us as we witness what may turn into a public lynching. But the crowd calms down and there is silence and stillness again as they all watch us, the teenager and the attackers. In this suspended moment, one piercing cry is made of everyone’s cry. There is fury and anger and tears, real tears. </p>
<p>One wonders if we have caused them, placid witnesses of someone’s misery. Appeased, the crowd slowly disintegrates and retreats in the shadows backstage. In their final coming together, somehow they have lost their clothes. No, they have exchanged their clothes, nonchalantly at first, with sharper precision as they take or give, some are naked, some wear the wrong shoes, clothes fly everywhere, scattered now on the floor, some keep searching, some let go.</p>
<p>Multitud places the directions and the power of the actual choreography in the hands of the group – they decide where to start, what to do, how to end. They can opt out too. Every night is different. Every time is different. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469134/original/file-20220616-13059-frc1g0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469134/original/file-20220616-13059-frc1g0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469134/original/file-20220616-13059-frc1g0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469134/original/file-20220616-13059-frc1g0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469134/original/file-20220616-13059-frc1g0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469134/original/file-20220616-13059-frc1g0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469134/original/file-20220616-13059-frc1g0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469134/original/file-20220616-13059-frc1g0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Multitud RISING.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michelle Li/ RISING</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Multitud succeeds where The Dancing Public fails. This, too, is an exquisite reflection on being together and acting collectively, yet this is about what holds us together as a collective. </p>
<p>This is not choreography for the masses, rather it is a multitude of relations between individual bodies, each affecting or being affected by the other. It is about being in communion; attentive, alert, attuned to the other. Then we become responsible for what we do collectively. </p>
<p>Multitud is fiercely political and delicately poetic, a tribute to what dance can (still) do in times of plague.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/writing-movement-why-dance-criticism-matters-58417">Writing movement: why dance criticism matters</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183642/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Angela Conquet does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>With former Chunky Move founder and choreographer Gideon Obarzanek as co-director, dance had a heavy presence at this year’s Rising festival.Angela Conquet, PhD Candidate, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1849252022-06-15T19:48:33Z2022-06-15T19:48:33ZHow mindfulness and dance can stimulate a part of the brain that can improve mental health<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468854/original/file-20220614-2481-nqq3dd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=350%2C35%2C5335%2C3898&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Activating the somatosensory cortex may help us connect to our bodies, develop our sensitivity, sensuality and capacity to feel pleasure.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Like a thick velvety headband, the <a href="https://www.simplypsychology.org/somatosensory-cortex.html">somatosensory cortex</a> arcs across the top of brain from just above one ear to the other. </p>
<p>I fell in love with the brain as an undergraduate student and pursued a career in neuroscience, but for years I had largely ignored this structure, since it appeared to be involved “only” in processing of bodily sensations. In my mind, that meant it was not as fascinating as areas implicated in emotion or higher cognitive function. </p>
<p>However, over the past decade, during my training in mindfulness-based interventions and dance movement therapy, I’ve come to realize that a well-functioning and developed somatosensory cortex may help us experience the world and ourselves more deeply and completely. It may enrich our emotional experience and improve our mental health.</p>
<p>For decades, the somatosensory cortex was considered to only be responsible for processing sensory information from various body parts. However, recently it became apparent that this structure is also involved in various stages of emotion processing, including <a href="https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.20-07-02683.2000">recognizing</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/79871">generating and regulating emotions</a>.</p>
<p>Moreover, structural and functional changes in the somatosensory cortex have been found in individuals diagnosed with depression, anxiety and psychotic disorders. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1590/1516-4446-2018-0183">These studies suggest that the somatosensory cortex may be a treatment target</a> for certain mental health problems, as well as for preventive measures. Some researchers have even suggested neuromodulation of the somatosensory cortex with <a href="https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/psychiatry/specialty_areas/brain_stimulation/tms/">transcranial magnetic stimulation</a> or <a href="https://www.aans.org/en/Patients/Neurosurgical-Conditions-and-Treatments/Deep-Brain-Stimulation">deep brain stimulation</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="While training in mindfulness-based interventions and dance movement therapy, it became clear that a well-functioning and developed somatosensory cortex may help people experience the world and themselves more deeply." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468855/original/file-20220614-26-ml3or2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468855/original/file-20220614-26-ml3or2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468855/original/file-20220614-26-ml3or2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468855/original/file-20220614-26-ml3or2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468855/original/file-20220614-26-ml3or2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468855/original/file-20220614-26-ml3or2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468855/original/file-20220614-26-ml3or2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=537&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">While training in mindfulness-based interventions and dance movement therapy, it became clear that a well-functioning and developed somatosensory cortex may help people experience the world and themselves more deeply.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, before we decide to use an invasive technology, we may want to consider mindfulness-based interventions, dance movement therapy or other body-centred approaches to psychotherapy. These methods use the entire body to enhance sensory, breath and movement awareness. <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00103">Those factors can enhance overall self-awareness, which contributes to improvement of mental health</a> through potential reorganization of the somatosensory cortex.</p>
<h2>Functional significance of the somatosensory cortex</h2>
<p>One of the amazing qualities of the somatosensory cortex is its <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/jnc.14012">pronounced plasticity</a> — the ability to reorganize and enlarge with practice (or atrophy without practice). This plasticity is critical when we consider mindfulness-based interventions and dance movement therapy because, as mentioned above, through working directly with the body sensations and movement, we can modify the somatosensory cortex.</p>
<p>Another important aspect is its numerous connections with other areas of the brain. In other words, the somatosensory cortex has a power to affect other brain regions, which in turn affect other regions, and so on. The brain is heavily interconnected and none of its parts acts in isolation. </p>
<p>The somatosensory cortex receives information from the entire body, such that the left part of the cortex processes information from the right side of the body and vice versa. However, the proportion of the cortex devoted to a particular part of the body depends on its functional importance rather than its physical size. </p>
<p>For example, a large proportion of the somatosensory cortex is devoted to our hands, and so just moving and feeling our hands might be an interesting option for dance therapy for those with restricted mobility.</p>
<p>The somatosensory cortex mediates exteroception (touch, pressure, temperature, pain, etc.), proprioception (postural and movement information) and interoception (sensations inside the body, often related to the physiological body states, such as hunger and thirst), although its role in the interoceptive awareness is only partial. </p>
<h2>The somatosensory cortex and emotion</h2>
<p>A scent, a song or an image can suddenly bring a deeply buried and forgotten event to mind. Similarly, feeling a texture — like cashmere — against our skin, or moving our body in a certain way (such as doing a backbend, or rocking back and forth) can do the same and more. It can bring repressed memories to the surface, <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.579518">provoke emotional reactions, and create state shifts</a>. This is one of the superpowers of mindfulness-based interventions and dance movement therapy. </p>
<p>This response is <a href="https://sensoryhealth.org/basic/your-8-senses">mediated via the somatosensory cortex</a>, just like emotional and cognitive reactions to a song are mediated via the auditory cortex, and reactions to scents are mediated via the olfactory cortex. Nevertheless, if the information stopped flowing at a purely sensory level (what we feel, hear, see, taste and smell), then a significant portion of the emotional and cognitive consequences would be lost.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A man in a chair in white shirt, in a white room, with his eyes closed." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468856/original/file-20220614-12-4h4mw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468856/original/file-20220614-12-4h4mw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468856/original/file-20220614-12-4h4mw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468856/original/file-20220614-12-4h4mw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468856/original/file-20220614-12-4h4mw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468856/original/file-20220614-12-4h4mw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/468856/original/file-20220614-12-4h4mw2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Some evidence comes from studies of meditation and mindfulness-based interventions, which often involve the practice of body scans and/or returning to bodily sensations as anchors in meditation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Dance/movement therapists and body-centered practitioners have known about this connection between posture/movement and emotion/cognition since the inception of the field. Neuroscientists have now delineated — still roughly — the implicated neural networks. For example, research shows <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bpsc.2017.12.004">a relationship between developing our sensory sensitivity and emotion regulation</a>.</p>
<p>Some evidence comes from studies of meditation and mindfulness-based interventions, which often involve the practice of body scans (paying attention to parts of the body and bodily sensations in a gradual sequence, for example from feet to head) and/or returning to bodily sensations as anchors in meditation. </p>
<p>Overall, the studies show that people who train in body scans and/or develop sensory awareness of the breath (feeling the breath travelling through the nostrils, throat, etc.) are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F070674371205700203">less reactive and more resilient</a>. <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00220">This effect is mediated, at least partly, through the somatosensory cortex</a>. </p>
<h2>Clinical implications</h2>
<p>Given the emerging role of the somatosensory cortex in emotion and cognitive processing, it is not surprising that alterations in the structure and function of this brain region have been found in several mental health problems, including depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. </p>
<p>For example, reductions in the cortical thickness and the gray matter volume of the somatosensory cortex have been observed in individuals with major depressive disorder (<a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/mp.2016.60">especially those with early onset</a>) and in the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0004867417746001">bipolar disorder</a>. In schizophrenia, lower levels of activity in the somatosensory cortex have been observed, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/0006-3223(87)90170-3">especially in unmedicated patients</a>. </p>
<p>Activating the somatosensory cortex may help us connect to our bodies, develop our sensitivity, sensuality and capacity to feel pleasure. That is how moving mindfully, dancing consciously and meditating with the whole body may help people regulate their emotions and connect with themselves and the world more deeply and meaningfully.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184925/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adrianna Mendrek does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The brain’s somatosensory cortex may help enrich our emotional experiences and improve our mental health. Mindfulness and dance movement therapy may be effective ways to activate it.Adrianna Mendrek, Professor, Psychology Department, Bishop's UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1783992022-05-20T12:55:16Z2022-05-20T12:55:16ZThe Martinican bèlè dance – a celebration of land, spirit and liberation<p>On May 22 each year, when the eastern Caribbean island of Martinique observes <a href="https://www.martinique.org/22-mai-1848-histoire-culture-et-memoire">Emancipation Day</a>, drums beat from sunrise until the break of dawn the next day.</p>
<p>Participants at open-air, starlit gatherings dance, sing, play drums and feast for ancestors who fought to break the chains of bondage. The uprising that eventually led to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316181669.005">the abolition of slavery</a> on the island in 1848 was sparked by the arrest of Romain, an enslaved man who refused to comply with his master’s ban on beating drums.</p>
<p>Today, drums are still a symbol of rebellion and freedom. The traditional dances that span the island each May 22, at performances called “swaré bèlè,” are filled with an electrifying aura of reverence and honor.</p>
<p>But the bèlè is not only a genre of ancestral Afro-Caribbean drum-dance practices. Rather, it is “an mannyè viv:” a lifestyle and worldview through which many people <a href="https://doi.org/10.2979/meridians.16.2.10">find healing and empowerment</a> for themselves and their communities.</p>
<p>My first encounter with bèlè occurred when I was a graduate student <a href="https://facultydiversity.umbc.edu/camee-maddox-wingfield/">in anthropology</a>, conducting fieldwork in Martinique. As a former dancer, I was drawn to how bèlè drummers, dancers and singers experience spiritual and cultural freedom. Performers tell me their participation feels transformative, sacred and otherworldly.</p>
<h2>Bèlè linò</h2>
<p>Martinique is <a href="https://quod.lib.umich.edu/w/wsfh/0642292.0034.018/--citizenship-and-assimilation-in-postwar-martinique?rgn=main;view=fulltext">an overseas region of France</a> in the Lesser Antilles islands. Most of the 400,000 people living there are descended from Africans brought to the islands by the slave trade, whose traditions have left a deep imprint on Martinican culture.</p>
<p>Centuries of history have given bèlè a complex set of symbols, only understood by those deeply immersed in the practice.</p>
<p>Swaré bèlè gatherings typically begin with a few matches of “ladja/danmyé,” a martial art tradition between two combatants in the center of a circle, which warms up the energy of the space as guests are arriving.</p>
<p>The remainder of the event involves an improvised rotation of performers playing and dancing sets from the “bèlè linò” repertoire. These square dances use <a href="https://doi.org/10.5406/blacmusiresej.30.2.0215">the quadrille configuration</a>, with four pairs of female and male dancers. After the opening sequences, each pair takes turns dancing in a playful exchange in the center of the circle, then dances toward the drummers to salute them.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5406/j.ctt1xcfh4">Bèlè traditions</a> use the “tanbou,” a goat-skinned conical drum. There is also the “tibwa”: two wooden sticks beaten on the side of the drum with a steady tempo.</p>
<p>The ensemble of dancers, drummers and singers is normally encircled by a crowd of spectators who clap their hands, sway their bodies and join in the song’s refrain. </p>
<p>All dancers master the base repertoire. Yet the order and style of interactions between partners is improvised – making it remarkable that the drummers can match their rhythm to the dancers’ intricate footwork.</p>
<p>In the playful, flirtatious and at times competitive game of certain bèlè styles, the woman is the object of her male partner’s pursuit, and she ultimately decides if she will welcome his affections. This aspect of bèlè performance, whereby women are admired and praised for their sensual dance prowess, <a href="https://doi.org/10.2979/meridians.16.2.10">brings female performers a sense of affirmation</a>.</p>
<h2>Repressed, then embraced</h2>
<p>Martinique has been under French control since 1635. Even during the post-colonial era, many Black Martinican folk traditions <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/can.1997.12.1.3">faced repression</a>, as leaders imposed mainland French culture on the population. For example, bèlè practices were often denigrated as “bagay vyé nèg,” “bagay djab” and “bagay ki ja pasé”: primitive, indecent and outdated, in the Martinican Creole language. To many in the church, traditional drumming and dance symbolized heathenism. In a country where the vast majority of people belong to the church, it was difficult for devout Catholics to support bèlè.</p>
<p>Many practitioners see bèlè as a dance of the earth that reinforces human connections with the land, divine spirits and ideals of freedom. Touted as a fertility ritual for both humans and the land, the dance reflects sensuality between partners. Other symbolism suggests <a href="https://doi.org/10.1515/9781478013112-010">sacred connections</a> with the soil, vegetation and water on which Martinicans’ enslaved ancestors labored and survived. Many dance movements represent agricultural labor.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A woman in a bright floral outfit does a traditional dance." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464414/original/file-20220520-13-ca8w6p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/464414/original/file-20220520-13-ca8w6p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464414/original/file-20220520-13-ca8w6p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464414/original/file-20220520-13-ca8w6p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464414/original/file-20220520-13-ca8w6p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1161&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464414/original/file-20220520-13-ca8w6p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1161&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/464414/original/file-20220520-13-ca8w6p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1161&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The history of folk dances in Martinique stretches back centuries.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/danse-folklorique-martinique-news-photo/945918434?adppopup=true">Sylvain Grandadam/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>During the 1980s, student activists and youth groups led initiatives to revive traditions that had nearly dissolved as a result of French pressure to assimilate. Today an ever-growing community <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780203493052-19/musical-revivals-social-movements-contemporary-martinique-ideology-identity-ambivalence">has embraced bèlè</a> as they challenge the legacy of colonialism and racism in Martinique.</p>
<p>Bèlè performance is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1515/9781478013112-010">increasingly visible</a> in the Catholic Church. “Bèlè légliz” or “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jo80O6pw0CY">church bèlè</a>” fuses the liturgy with references to Martinicans’ African and diasporic heritage.</p>
<p>Some bèlè activists weave in symbols of ancestor reverence and land stewardship, which are also found in Caribbean religious traditions such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-haitian-voodoo-119621">Haitian Vodou</a>, Cuban Santería, <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2013/09/16/216890587/brazilian-believers-of-hidden-religion-step-out-of-shadows">Brazilian Candomblé</a> and <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.18574/9780814728253-010/html?lang=en">Quimbois</a>, Martinique’s tradition of folk healing. </p>
<p>An increasing number of practitioners assert that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1515/9781478013112-010">bèlè is a “secular spirituality</a>,” viewing it as a form of social healing from subjugation. Many of the people I have interviewed speak about bèlè as an “otherworldly” experience with unique energy that helps them cope with their society’s shadows of colonialism and slavery, and the post-colonial transition.</p>
<h2>Solidarity and hope</h2>
<p>The bèlè drum and its associated dances have become the rallying cry around which many bèlè cultural activists organize daily life, such as by <a href="https://www.am4.fr/aprann-danmy%C3%A9-kalennda-b%C3%A8l%C3%A8/">teaching classes</a> and participating in mutual aid projects.</p>
<p>Swaré bèlè gatherings are often associated with community, and have become key opportunities for attendees to express cultural pride, political solidarity and hopes for change. These events often pay homage to historical figures who made contributions to struggles for Black liberation, such as poet and politician <a href="https://learnenglishteens.britishcouncil.org/blogs/books/remembering-life-legacy-aime-cesaire">Aimé Césaire</a> and philosopher <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/frantz-fanon/">Frantz Fanon</a>.</p>
<p>Over the last 13 years, my research has probed how traditional dance expresses resistance, emotions, spirituality and even feelings of transcendence. I have also explored how bèlè complicates black-and-white ideas about what is “sacred” versus what is “secular.”</p>
<p>Bèlè dances on the line between the two, reflecting the complex legacy of colonialism that continues to shape life in the Caribbean.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/178399/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>For this research, Camee Maddox-Wingfield received funding from the Institute of International Education (Mellon Foundation Graduate Fellowship for International Study), a grant from the Ruth Landes Memorial Research Fund (a Program of the Reed Foundation), and UMBC's Center for Social Science Scholarship Summer Faculty Fellowship.</span></em></p>After years of marginalization, the bèlè dance has been embraced by a growing community who see it as a form of social and spiritual healing.Camee Maddox-Wingfield, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Anthropology, and Public Health, University of Maryland, Baltimore CountyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1753322022-03-21T00:18:33Z2022-03-21T00:18:33Z‘Innovative and thrilling’: Stephanie Lake’s Manifesto is a joy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453167/original/file-20220320-23-1wmauj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5559%2C2984&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Roy Vandervegt/Adelaide Festival</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: Manifesto, choreographed by Stephanie Lake, Adelaide Festival</em></p>
<p>Nine drummers, nine dancers, what’s not to love? So ran my imaginary opening line for this review.</p>
<p>But Manifesto, choreographed by Melbourne-based Stephanie Lake is much more complex and satisfying than the mere pairing of dancers with drummers might suggest.</p>
<p>As the show opens, drummers are seated and equipped with a standard drum kit: bass, snare and tom drums and cymbals.</p>
<p>Charles Davis’s classy set is reminiscent of a 1930s <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Busby-Berkeley">Busby Berkeley movie</a>. Drummers occupy raised positions along the back of the stage. Lush, red hanging curtains fill the visual field, with a niche for each drummer.</p>
<p>The work starts with simple beats. Beats don’t necessarily create rhythm. Beats can simply be sounds that seem to come from nowhere and suddenly stop, as they do early in the work.</p>
<p>On the silent beat, dancers freeze in a dramatic tableau, enhanced by Bosco Shaw’s beautifully focused lighting. Single beats turn into a succession. Dancers seem to magically appear from nowhere. Freezing, they create unexpected focal points. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453166/original/file-20220320-25-xzzvub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=50%2C0%2C5568%2C3700&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453166/original/file-20220320-25-xzzvub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=50%2C0%2C5568%2C3700&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453166/original/file-20220320-25-xzzvub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453166/original/file-20220320-25-xzzvub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453166/original/file-20220320-25-xzzvub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453166/original/file-20220320-25-xzzvub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453166/original/file-20220320-25-xzzvub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453166/original/file-20220320-25-xzzvub.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Just when you think a pattern is being established, the work shifts.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Roy Vandervegt/Adelaide Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Gesture and composition direct the eye, often to an individual dancer. But just when you think a pattern is being established, a new sequence of beats and images sears into the retina.</p>
<p>Sounds become increasingly complex, with drum rolls, shallow beats and rolling trills on the snare drum. The clang of the cymbals suggests a storm moving in. Later, drummers make seemingly impossible sounds reminiscent of industrial noise.</p>
<h2>Continuously morphing</h2>
<p>Like the choreography of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Twyla-Tharp">Twyla Tharp</a>, the movements of Lake’s dancers are often recognisable from daily life, though enhanced and embellished. Each successive movement is utterly unpredictable, executed in a delightfully relaxed and fluid manner, with seemingly effortless falls, leaps and catches. </p>
<p>Movement is at times silly, as in a butt wiggle that makes the kids in the audience squeal with delight, but also sexy, with hips and asses drawing attention to the beauty of human form in motion. </p>
<p>When the dancers come together, we don’t see formations being set up as they’re unfolding so fluidly and rapidly. Everything shifts constantly, continuously morphing: a series of collective shapes and forms that can’t be predicted. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453168/original/file-20220320-17-1xmwhlg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453168/original/file-20220320-17-1xmwhlg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453168/original/file-20220320-17-1xmwhlg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453168/original/file-20220320-17-1xmwhlg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453168/original/file-20220320-17-1xmwhlg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453168/original/file-20220320-17-1xmwhlg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453168/original/file-20220320-17-1xmwhlg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453168/original/file-20220320-17-1xmwhlg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The dancers are sometimes silly, sometimes sexy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Roy Vandervegt/Adelaide Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Beats turn into longer rhythmic sequences as bodies are held aloft, on the floor, flying across and off the stage, constantly shifting. Moments of high drama increasingly come fast and furiously. </p>
<p>At times dancers appear to be fighting to regain control of bodies, as if the body has a mind of its own. </p>
<p>As the drumming builds and the energy heats up, the men doff their shirts. It’s as if a series of perpetual motion machines have been activated. </p>
<p>In another sequence, choreography focuses on the hands and arms manipulating the body in uncomfortable and disturbing ways. It is reminiscent of the choreography of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pina_Bausch">Pina Bausch</a>, but unlike Bausch’s work, Lake’s dancers are not being acted upon by others, but touch their own body as if it is not their own.</p>
<h2>Anything can happen</h2>
<p>As dancers roll, fly, and bounce off the floors individually and in pairs and small groups, it is clear how Lake’s choreography highlights the individual strengths of her cast. Similarly, composer Robin Fox has successfully marshalled a clearly differentiated set of drummers with diverse skill sets and sounds. </p>
<p>Racing toward the final coda, dancing becomes increasingly hyperkinetic. With jumping kicks, the work takes on an almost gladiatorial, confrontational quality. </p>
<p>Just as quickly, the movement switches into a kind of whirling dervish mode, enhanced by the swaying light fabric of Paula Levis’ costumes. These costumes drape, move, flow, and enhance movement, drawing attention to the diverse body styles of the dancers and turning dancers into characters we can track.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453171/original/file-20220320-154542-t7qjpe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453171/original/file-20220320-154542-t7qjpe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/453171/original/file-20220320-154542-t7qjpe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453171/original/file-20220320-154542-t7qjpe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453171/original/file-20220320-154542-t7qjpe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=387&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453171/original/file-20220320-154542-t7qjpe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453171/original/file-20220320-154542-t7qjpe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/453171/original/file-20220320-154542-t7qjpe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=486&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lake’s choreography highlights the strengths of her dancers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Roy Vandervegt/Adelaide Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the work’s penultimate moment, a heart beat brings all the dancers together, then apart, then together.</p>
<p>A rhythmic sequence is introduced and repeated, a kind of military tattoo the audience can discern and unconsciously anticipate. The dancing takes on an increasingly ecstatic quality and we’re with them on the beat.</p>
<p>There is a purposeful contrast between the precision and repetition of the martial, parade-like beat, and the free and playful – even sexy – spirit of the dancers, increasingly moving into a state of wild abandon. </p>
<p>Dancers move down to the lip of stage as total mayhem results. One streaks naked across the stage. The work ends at an absolute fever pitch. When I saw it, the audience leapt to their feet, compelled to rise and shout.</p>
<p>Manifesto is a beautifully and carefully crafted work, one that continually keeps the audience in a state of not knowing what will happen next. </p>
<p>Anything can happen in this tightly crafted, remarkably innovative and thrilling work. And it does.</p>
<p><em>Adelaide season closed. Manifesto will play at Rising: Melbourne in June.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175332/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>William Peterson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Choreographer Stephanie Lake brings together nine dancers and nine drummers in this thrillingly original work.William Peterson, Adjunct Associate Professor, Auckland University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1746642022-03-10T15:20:55Z2022-03-10T15:20:55ZHow LGBTQ2+ 1980s dance parties sparked collective joy and power — and can again<p>As we dream of the lives we might once live again when the COVID-19 pandemic wanes, I find myself most excited about potential experiences of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/10/opinion/sunday/covid-group-emotions-happiness.html">collective effervescence</a> — the hopeful feelings that arise from a shared sense of belonging with others.</p>
<p>Having kept our distance over the last two years to keep each other safe, these spontaneous moments of communal joy have been difficult to find. Virtual events (<a href="https://torontolife.com/life/we-still-had-djs-and-performers-but-everyone-was-at-home-how-a-queer-dance-party-found-a-venue-online/">including some hugely popular queer dance parties</a>) have emerged, born out of the desire to connect and move together. While these are meaningful ways to stay tethered to social communities, they fall short of the powerful feelings that require physical proximity. </p>
<p>Alongside a team of undergraduate and graduate students at <a href="https://yellowheadinstitute.org/2021/05/11/welcome-to-x-university-an-open-letter-to-the-community-from-indigenous-students/">X University in Toronto</a>, I’ve spent the last year exploring the work of the <a href="https://twitter.com/thearquives/status/1092549624857092098">Gay Community Dance Committee (GCDC)</a>, a volunteer organization that hosted dance parties in Toronto from 1981 to 1992.</p>
<p>This research has not only connected us with this community across time and space, but has also reminded us of the transformative possibilities of meeting strangers on the dance floor. As the research team imagines a future full of safe and meaningful experiences of public kinship, we have been inspired by LGBTQ2+ social organizing in the past. </p>
<h2>How dance parties funded liberation</h2>
<p>The GCDC formed in 1981. Its aim was to encourage and sustain collaborations between diverse community groups in the Greater Toronto Area, organize community-oriented dances and divide proceeds among participating organizations based on their volunteer hours and ticket sales. </p>
<p>An executive committee oversaw the logistics, provided administrative continuity between dances and supported participating organizations. Together, the committee hosted large-scale events for thousands of participants that would have been impossible for any one group to convene alone. </p>
<p>During its nearly 12-year tenure, the GCDC raised over $250,000 to support the work of the <a href="https://www.actoronto.org/">AIDS Committee of Toronto</a>, <a href="https://buddiesinbadtimes.com/">Buddies in Bad Times Theatre</a>, the Canadian Gay Archives (now The <a href="https://arquives.ca/">ArQuives</a>), Gays and Lesbians of the First Nations of Toronto (now <a href="http://www.2spirits.com/">2 Spirited People of the First Nations</a>), <a href="https://riseupfeministarchive.ca/activism/organizations/lesbian-mothers-defense-fund-lmdf/">Lesbian Mothers’ Defence Fund</a>, <a href="https://xtramagazine.com/power/what-was-the-body-politic-anyway-71206">The Body Politic</a> (a gay and lesbian magazine) <a href="https://twitter.com/heritagetoronto/status/1276556447833350146">and ZAMI</a> (one of the first organizations in Canada specifically for lesbian and gay people of colour). </p>
<h2>Solidarity in a lean and mean era</h2>
<p>Funding from these dances allowed groups to sustain their work during the 1980s. </p>
<p>This was a <a href="https://www.salon.com/2013/03/09/the_world_according_to_milton_friedman_partner/">decade of neoliberal reorganization</a> that emphasized <a href="https://onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca/outcaltl/individualism-neoliberalism/">individual responsibility</a>, saw the <a href="https://www.historymuseum.ca/cmc/exhibitions/hist/medicare/medic-7c03e.html">privatization of public goods and services</a> and valued <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-george-monbiot">competition over collective good</a>. Community organizers I interviewed remembered the 1980s as an unkind era that made community work not only difficult, but increasingly necessary. </p>
<p>However, the <a href="https://doi.org/10.3138/jcs-2019-0006">GCDC’s role in lesbian and gay liberation history</a> was greater than financial support. During a decade when lesbian and gay communities experienced substantial harm in the forms of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1986/11/23/us/violence-against-homosexuals-rising-groups-seeking-wider-protection-say.html">homophobic violence</a>, the <a href="https://www.catie.ca/a-history-of-hivaids">HIV/AIDS epidemic</a>, moralistic representations of gay life and government agencies that were <a href="https://history.com/news/aids-epidemic-ronald-reagan">dismissive</a> or <a href="http://gutsmagazine.ca/no-shit/">explicitly hostile</a>, the group allowed LGBTQ2+ people to recognize a shared belonging and power. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/aids-homophobic-and-moralistic-images-of-1980s-still-haunt-our-view-of-hiv-that-must-change-106580">AIDS: homophobic and moralistic images of 1980s still haunt our view of HIV – that must change</a>
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<p>The GCDC created opportunities for open, shifting and heterogeneous collectives of queer people to come together and experience bliss in a cultural moment when collective joy with strangers often seemed unlikely, or even impossible. </p>
<p>Beyond fundraising, GCDC’s dances enabled participants to feel a sense of belonging and political power in the face of devastation, isolation and illness.</p>
<h2>How dance transforms</h2>
<p>Collective dance has been <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Popular-Music-and-the-Politics-of-Hope-Queer-and-Feminist-Interventions/Fast-Jennex/p/book/9781138055896">a cornerstone of queer community building for generations</a>. Some of the clearest examples exist in <a href="https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20180403-why-disco-should-be-taken-seriously">disco cultures</a>, <a href="https://www.redbull.com/ca-en/guide-to-ballroom-vogue-scene">ballroom scenes</a> and <a href="https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/november-2020/soundtracks-of-sisterhood-historicizing-the-womens-music-movement">womyn’s music festivals</a>. </p>
<p>It’s no coincidence that the most famous riot in queer history took place at The Stonewall Inn, one of the few gay bars in New York City that <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/ae8dn4/why-dancing-was-so-important-at-the-stonewall-inn-new-yorks-newly-landmarked-gay-bar">allowed same-sex dancing</a> <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/chapter/327453">to soul and funk music</a> — genres that embody experiences of rhythm and groove and feelings of being in the moment, collectively, on the dance floor. </p>
<p>Similarly, the GCDC’s dance floor was an opportunity to experience, for a brief moment, a sense of freedom, belonging, safety and agency that was often difficult to find. </p>
<p>When I interviewed community archivist Alan Miller, he said “during the AIDS crisis, everything was falling apart around us. The dances offered relief. A chance to just enjoy yourself for a little while.” </p>
<p>Deb Parent, a lesbian activist and regular DJ at GCDC dances, explained that moments on the queer dance floor are important because they are “moments when we are safe and free. We can imagine: What if this was our life? What if we could live all of our lives from this place without having to think through the danger or the consequences without being told what we can or can’t do, how we should or shouldn’t dress, who we should or shouldn’t love.” </p>
<p>GCDC dances enabled people to perceive the sheer size and scope of the city’s lesbian and gay liberation projects — as well as their place within it. </p>
<p>While the vast majority of volunteers joined the GCDC because of their close association with a particular community organization, their allegiances within the GCDC structure were often “fleeting,” according to former GCDC volunteer Ron Merko. </p>
<p>Merko explained that many people who signed up as volunteers representing one organization regularly changed their affiliation and gave volunteer labour hours to different groups (like the AIDS Committee of Toronto) that were in particular need of funding.</p>
<p>In promoting joy between people and and mutual support among queer organizations, the GCDC promoted both coalition-building and liberation. It prioritized the dance floor as a site of collective belonging and communal care where queer people could imagine radically different worlds, and intervene in a troubling present to work toward a better future. </p>
<h2>How we return</h2>
<p>In our contemporary moment, when some well-funded LGBTQ2+ organizations <a href="https://xtramagazine.com/power/pride-toronto-grant-funding-misuse-217252">seemingly move further away from the communities they claim to represent</a> and society prepares to return to collective experiences with friends and strangers, those of us in queer communities should recall the grassroots, pleasurable and collaborative work of the GCDC — and the political possibilities that exist in its wake. </p>
<p>As I’ve learned through <a href="https://www.figure1publishing.com/book/out-north/">researching and writing on the queer past</a>, in particularly difficult present realities, there are often exciting and hopeful possibilities shining brightly in the past.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/174664/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Craig Jennex receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. He is a volunteer at The ArQuives: Canada's LGBTQ2+ Archives and co-author of Out North: An Archive of Queer Activism and Kinship in Canada.</span></em></p>Toronto’s Gay Community Dance Committee funded lesbian and gay liberation organizing in an unkind era that made community work not only difficult, but increasingly necessary.Craig Jennex, Assistant Professor, Department of English, Toronto Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1770452022-02-23T14:21:27Z2022-02-23T14:21:27ZThe award-winning play that touches hearts and nerves about Cape Town’s history of slavery<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446570/original/file-20220215-27-1bncu5w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Buhle Ngaba as The Student holds Shaun Oelf as The Dancer.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Yazeed Kamaldien/What Remains</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em><a href="https://witspress.co.za/catalogue/what-remains/">What Remains</a> is one of the most successful South African plays of recent years. Written by Nadia Davids and directed and choreographed by Jay Pather, both artists and academics from the University of Cape Town, it has won <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2018/03/20/what-remains-the-big-winner-at-this-years-fleur-du-cap-awards_a_23390505/">numerous awards</a>. Most recently Davids received the prestigious English Academy of Southern Africa Olive Schreiner <a href="https://johannesburgreviewofbooks.com/2022/02/02/the-jrb-daily-2022-english-academy-of-southern-africa-awards-winners-announced/">Prize</a> for Drama for the published text. We asked them about creating the work that shines a spotlight on South Africa’s history of enslaved people.</em></p>
<hr>
<h2>What is the play about?</h2>
<p><strong>Nadia Davids:</strong> <em>What Remains</em> is a fusion of text, dance and movement that tells a story about the unexpected uncovering of a slave burial ground in Cape Town, the archaeological dig that follows and a city haunted by the memory of <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/early-cape-slave-trade">slavery</a>. When the bones emerge from the ground, everyone in the city – slave <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2016/12/9/cape-town-slave-descendants-share-stories-of-strength">descendants</a>, archaeologists, citizens, property developers – is forced to reckon with a history sometimes remembered, sometimes forgotten. </p>
<p>So the play fictionalises the uncovering of a graveyard at <a href="http://www.apc.uct.ac.za/apc/projects/archival_platform/prestwich-place-memorial-human-remains-development-and-truth">Prestwich Place</a> where, in 2003, a corporate real estate development famously struck an eighteenth century burial ground – one of the largest ever to be unearthed in the southern hemisphere. Nearly 3,000 bodies were accounted for, from babies who were a just few weeks old – the children of enslaved washerwomen – to men in their late sixties. </p>
<p>Four figures – The Archaeologist, The Healer, The Dancer and The Student – move between bones and books, archives and madness, paintings and protest, as they struggle to reconcile the past with the now.</p>
<h2>What does it tell us about Cape Town’s history?</h2>
<p><strong>Nadia Davids:</strong> As I <a href="https://johannesburgreviewofbooks.com/2017/07/03/it-began-with-a-burial-site-nadia-davids-on-her-new-work-what-remains-a-play-about-slavery-and-the-haunted-city/">wrote</a> in 2017, “The response in Cape Town was immediate and polarised: the property developers wanted to continue building, heritage managers and archaeologists prioritised a scientific examination of the remains (important data could be drawn from the bones, the material traces held answers, frustrating gaps in archival research could be closed) while an alliance of community activists claiming descendancy from those buried insisted on the immediate reinterment of the bones.</p>
<p>They felt (understandably) that to examine the bones, to pick them over, would be to commit violence afresh on bodies that had in life been subjected to unforgivable cruelty. "Stop robbing the graves!” <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1469605307067842">cried someone</a> at one of the first community meetings, and another, “I went to school at Prestwich Street Primary School. We grew up with haunted places; we lived on haunted ground. We knew there were burial grounds there. My question to the City is, how did this happen?”</p>
<p>It struck me that this discovery – its evidence of terror and the complex response to it – was, in and of itself and a profound metaphor for our country. History, a deeply unresolved history, had literally emerged from the earth and demanded a present-day conversation – and the conversation (or the argument) that came of it was a struggle between capital, memory, hurt, history, the official, the neglected, how we remember and whom we cherish. It was both of its own time and, painfully, of ours.</p>
<h2>Why did you ask Jay Pather to collaborate?</h2>
<p><strong>Nadia Davids:</strong> Jay Pather is a brilliant artist – his choreography is exquisite and captivating but it is also political, deeply felt, impossibly precise, full of a profound understanding of our country and its brutal histories. And yet somehow, it’s always hopeful, dreaming about a different, better future. When I first started writing <em>What Remains</em> I thought I was writing a novella. At a certain point I realised that this was a story that needed liveness, embodiment – collectively, collaboration, immediacy. In other words, it was a play, not a novel. And I knew Jay was the person to direct it. </p>
<p>I approached him with the text and was thrilled that he was interested. Early in our discussions he suggested adding the character of The Dancer. He explained that he wanted to work with movement and dance as a means of understanding the text as “choreographic” in and of itself and that The Dancer’s movement’s would not just animate, but respond to the text and narrate the stories that were unspeakable. I thought this an absolutely electrifying idea. </p>
<h2>What did you hope to add with dance, Jay?</h2>
<p><strong>Jay Pather:</strong> Nadia’s text is pithy – restrained and poetic and yet grounded in major historical events and questions about our future. The dance derives from this, prompted by the text. So dance in the work is not present just as “interludes” and even though there is a designated “dancer” who gives form to all the hauntings, all the actors move. The text moves effortlessly, like seamless choreography, in and out of the ordinary and large scale epochs. Saturated with movement, the direction and choreography follow that cue. </p>
<h2>The text pushes the envelope?</h2>
<p><strong>Nadia Davids:</strong> In the published version, Jay and I were working with the idea of shifting how playtexts are usually created. We wanted to do something genre-bending by including ideas around the staging and evocative descriptions (not steps) of the dance and movement.</p>
<h2>What responses have you had from audiences?</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446572/original/file-20220215-17-k1gm2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The cover of a book with the words 'What Remains, a play in one act' and a photograph of a human form lying on a white floor, covered by a white sheet and a person kneeling and examining their feet that's stick out from beneath the sheet." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446572/original/file-20220215-17-k1gm2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446572/original/file-20220215-17-k1gm2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446572/original/file-20220215-17-k1gm2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446572/original/file-20220215-17-k1gm2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446572/original/file-20220215-17-k1gm2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1194&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446572/original/file-20220215-17-k1gm2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1194&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446572/original/file-20220215-17-k1gm2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1194&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wits University Press</span></span>
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<p><strong>Nadia Davids:</strong> Audiences have been deeply invested in the work – people stayed behind to speak to us, they were moved, enraged, disturbed, comforted … In its first iteration in 2016 the play was staged at the University of Cape Town. In 2017 it was invited to the South African National Arts Festival in Grahamstown. Another run in Cape Town followed and then stagings at the 2017 Afrovibes Festival in the Netherlands. Almost all performances were sold out. </p>
<p>Sometimes a work strikes an unexpected chord, is able to articulate a moment or a feeling held by many. In this instance, a simultaneous need for historical reckoning around enslavement, long disenfranchisement and access to the city centre, coupled with a sense – both locally and globally – that we are in a very dangerous moment politically.</p>
<p><em>The published play is available at <a href="https://witspress.co.za/catalogue/what-remains/">Wits University Press</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/177045/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nadia Davids has received funding from AHRC, The Leverhulme Trust and The Prince Clause Fund. She is affiliated with PEN South Africa. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jay Pather does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Winner of the Olive Schreiner Prize, What Happens was inspired by the discovery of a slave burial site.Nadia Davids, Associate Professor, University of Cape TownJay Pather, Professor, University of Cape TownLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1768012022-02-14T03:18:51Z2022-02-14T03:18:51ZThe new dance work And the Earth will Swallow Them Whole is unsettling and deeply engaging<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446142/original/file-20220214-21-1gugn5q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=32%2C8%2C5431%2C3628&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Emma Fishwick/Perth Festival</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Review: And the Earth will Swallow Them Whole, choreographed by Rachel Arianne Ogle</em></p>
<p>The first act of And the Earth will Swallow Them Whole, performed in Perth’s aptly-named Studio Underground, positions the audience around the edge of a three-sided balcony looking down into the black space and an open-topped grand piano. </p>
<p>Pianist and composer Gabriella Smart begins with a solo rendition of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. She is subsequently joined by composer Luke Smiles who manipulates and extends the piano sound to co-create a live score that transforms the familiar piano sonata into something new and unrecognisable. </p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Music from the prepared piano is unsettling and deeply engaging.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Emma Fishwick/Perth Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Created on an electronically <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/how-composer-john-cage-transformed-piano-with-help-some-household-objects-180973206/">prepared piano</a>, the score is a disconcerting amalgam of classical piano and electronic distortion. At times we see the pianist’s hands at work but no longer hear sounds that you’d usually associate with a piano. </p>
<p>It is an unsettling and deeply engaging prelude to the entrance of the dancers.</p>
<p>As the ensemble of six dancers come into view they seem, at first, weightless, almost adrift. The added plane provided by watching them from above creates an almost vertiginous effect in the viewer. </p>
<p>The longer you look down the more your sense of perspective is challenged and unmoored. Akin to that tingling sensation in the soles of your feet when you keep your eyes on the track as the train pulls into the station, there is a sense of simultaneously falling and standing still. The movement of the dancers seems to mirror that state.</p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Watching from above, your sense of perspective is challenged and unmoored.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Emma Fishwick/Perth Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>They warp and weft between connection and disconnection, evoking rescue and sacrifice, of each other and themselves. </p>
<p>From our perspective the dancers sometimes seem almost supine. They create images that hold and then just as quickly disintegrate. Their exquisite ensemble work is beautifully sculptured by Bosco Shaw’s lighting design that seems to both hide and reveal. </p>
<p>The work segues seamlessly through variations of movement until the haze lifts to reveal a kind of landscape of markings on the floor. I am reminded of <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40755007">Gertrude Stein’s response</a> upon first looking down at the flat landscape from the window of an aeroplane, of how it consolidated her resistance to the specificity of time and place.</p>
<p>Without familiar reference points we are all time, all space. And so the dancers are individuals, pairs, whole nations, falling away and raising again, together and alone, history passing.</p>
<p>The first act finale introduces another layer to the view from above making gorgeous use of a piece of fabric that billows and falls, engulfs and retracts around the lone figure of dancer (Zee Zunnur). Facilitated by the other dancers it is a mesmerising allusion to the title of the piece. </p>
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<span class="caption">We are frail in the face of unstoppable external forces.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Emma Fishwick/Perth Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Equal parts hypnotic and repellent, it speaks to a sense of temporality and frailty in the face of unstoppable external forces and it is a particular highlight.</p>
<h2>Immersive patience</h2>
<p>The second act provides an immediate change of perspective as the audience enters through different doors to arrive on the floor with the dancers. Standing or sitting, we circle the dancers as they enact rituals of devotion, death and burial around the figure of Zunnur. </p>
<p>For the audience, it is an exercise in immersive patience. By the end the actions and focus of the performers have transformed both the space and the atmosphere so there is a sense that we are all breathing together, as equal observers and participants. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446147/original/file-20220214-23-1ogocq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A staged funeral" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446147/original/file-20220214-23-1ogocq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446147/original/file-20220214-23-1ogocq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446147/original/file-20220214-23-1ogocq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446147/original/file-20220214-23-1ogocq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446147/original/file-20220214-23-1ogocq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446147/original/file-20220214-23-1ogocq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446147/original/file-20220214-23-1ogocq1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">We are all breathing together, as equal observers and participants.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Emma Fishwick/Perth Festival</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Here again the lighting, sound and design work together exquisitely. The live score, like the bodies of the dancers, builds and breaks down and builds again, constantly transforming, like all of us.</p>
<p>In collaboration with her dancers and creative team, choreographer Rachel Arianne Ogle’s adherence to an exploration of mortality and death is steadfast and all-encompassing. </p>
<p>Casting a cartographical eye on the space between life and death And the Earth will Swallow Them Whole is an impressive collaboration between artists, a work that deals in images and sounds that leave an indelible imprint on the senses.</p>
<p><em>And the Earth will Swallow Them Whole plays at Perth Festival until February 14.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/176801/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Leah Mercer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Rachel Arianne Ogle’s new chorography is an exploration of mortality and death.Leah Mercer, Associate Professor of Theatre Arts, Curtin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1762292022-02-09T01:20:39Z2022-02-09T01:20:39ZYour guide to the best figure skating at the Beijing Winter Olympics – through the eyes of a dancer<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444913/original/file-20220207-27-o8lztq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3004%2C1909&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kyodo via AP Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For dancers and ex-dancers like myself, the figure skating at the Winter Olympics is a particularly irresistible drawcard: the speed of the skating, the height of the jumps, the delicacy of the movements, the speed of the twirls and the musicality and interpretation of the skaters.</p>
<p>However, there are aspects of figure skating which seem odd to a dancer. Many of the jumps require the skater to be skating backwards before they jump – one would expect them to be facing in the direction in which they are going. </p>
<p>And despite the skater being applauded for maintaining a “good posture”, their overall bearing is bent forward with their bottoms stuck out. This is the antithesis of what a ballet dancer should do!</p>
<p>The costumes are generally glorious, giving the women an impression of fairylike fragility, but sometimes they are just that. Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron (France) learnt this to their dismay in 2018 when the top of Papadakis’ dress came apart, <a href="https://sports.yahoo.com/french-ice-dancers-remain-clothed-win-silver-wonder-073140726.html">costing them</a> the PyeongChang gold medal. </p>
<p>Skating boots, too, have always seemed very clumsy to my dancer’s eye. There is no ability to elegantly point the feet and consequently no beautifully stretched calf muscles. </p>
<p>Originality is key with the music. Something novel will delight the audience but often we get the same old favourites like Ravel’s Bolero, Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake and Puccini’s Turandot. </p>
<p>Sometimes the music is so weird and wonderful there is no easily identifiable tune or melody with which the audience can identify – or beat or musical phrasing that is predictable and comforting to the audience. (This is less the case when pairs skate together. The risk of lack of synchronisation is probably too high.)</p>
<p>The expression and musicality of the skater determines the extent to which their skating becomes much more: a vehicle for true passion. Unfortunately, despite being technically brilliant, many skaters lack the ability to portray emotion right from their core and their performance can leave the audience impressed but untouched.</p>
<p>But there are some stars at Beijing who manage to combine their incredible skating skills with a real passion for performance and interpretation of the music. Here are my top skaters to look out for.</p>
<h2>Nathan Chen (USA)</h2>
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<p>Nathan Chen’s musicality is good, but even he admits he is not the most emotional of skaters. Often the emotion expressed in his body and arms just doesn’t follow through to his hands and fingertips, which seem to hang in an uninspired fashion.</p>
<p>But he is the consummate technical skater, already wowing audiences with his <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYPueqqbH2w">quad Lutz-triple toe combination jump</a> in the teams event with a winning score of 111.71</p>
<p>His performance is neat, precise and accurate, executing all the technical aspects superbly and throwing in a number of challenging quad jumps. The latter he executes with blurring speed and neat, solid landings with an erect back.</p>
<h2>Jason Brown (USA)</h2>
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<p>Jason Brown has been described as the “<a href="https://www.dancemagazine.com/jason-brown/">ultimate dancers’ skater</a>”. </p>
<p>Lean and long-limbed with very high leg elevation, he uses his body from the core of his gut right through to the tips of his fingers and feet in the most expressive and captivating manner. He takes his audience with him every moment of the performance. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, he is at a disadvantage to much of his competition, as he typically doesn’t do the high-scoring quad jumps.</p>
<h2>Yuzuru Hanyu (Japan)</h2>
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<p>Yuzuru Hanyu, past winner of two Olympic gold medals, is a good combination of a Chen and Brown – beautiful execution with the dazzling brilliance of quad jumps as well as passionate feeling.</p>
<p>He possesses natural poise so with his upright back and beautifully deep <a href="https://www.rockettes.com/blog/ballet-101-how-to-do-a-plie/"><em>plié</em></a> when he lands, one never feels in any doubt a rotating jump will not succeed. Plus, his emotion extends right to his fingertips.</p>
<p>This is certainly a contestant to watch.</p>
<h2>The Russian women</h2>
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<p>No one can deny the spectacular performances of all three women on the ROC team: Kamila Valieva (age just 15), Anna Shcherbakova (17) and Alexandra Trusova (17). </p>
<p>These three young skaters are quite spellbinding. Lean and long-limbed, their superb leg elevation and exquisite feeling is nothing short of astonishing. Add to that some exceptional jumps – including quads – which spin at such a speed they are just a blur as they whizz round. </p>
<p>Small wonder Valieva has already done <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/feb/07/kamila-valieva-historic-quadruple-woman-team-figure-skating-gold-roc-beijing-2022-olympics">so well in the teams event</a>.</p>
<h2>The skating pairs</h2>
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<p>While the individual performances are impressive, one should not forget the pairs. The US ice dance pair, Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue, have already done themselves proud. Their musicality and feeling, their obvious empathy with one another propelled them easily into the lead in the rhythm component of the teams event. They demonstrate the synchronicity of interpretation of which <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torvill_and_Dean">Torvill and Dean</a> were such masters.</p>
<p>The equally talented Victoria Sinitsina and Nikita Katsalapov (ROC) are snapping at their heels, so this competition will be one to watch. </p>
<p>Two other pairs are also worth watching: Gabriella Papadakis and Guillaume Cizeron (France) and Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir (Canada). Both couples are highly skilled technically and provide consistently superb interpretations of their music. </p>
<p>However, Virtue and Scott possess a vivacity that seems to make them sparkle, which to possibly will give them the edge.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-snowboarding-became-a-marquee-event-at-the-winter-olympics-but-lost-some-of-its-cool-factor-in-the-process-175053">How snowboarding became a marquee event at the Winter Olympics – but lost some of its cool factor in the process</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/176229/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Val Hooper does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Technical brilliance is one thing. Musicality another. Here is our pick of the skaters who combine the two.Val Hooper, Associate Professor, and Head of the School of Marketing and International Business, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of WellingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1729452021-12-20T11:47:33Z2021-12-20T11:47:33Z‘HIV Made Me Fabulous’ film relies on science and embodied storytelling to counter stigma and discrimination<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/438226/original/file-20211217-15-11va8uv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=170%2C45%2C2667%2C1485&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">We need a new script about women and HIV. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Allie Carter)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>“We can’t demonize the very stuff that sometimes has made us be the people that we are.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>So says <a href="https://www.unitedagents.co.uk/juno-roche">Juno Roche</a>, <a href="https://uk.jkp.com/products/gender-explorers?_pos=2&_sid=7b3772f93&_ss=r">a writer, activist</a> and trans woman who has lived with HIV for over 25 years. Roche wrote and narrated the film <a href="https://www.lifeandlovewithhiv.ca/film"><em>HIV Made Me Fabulous</em></a>, a 10-minute piece that combines narrative and dance, and was directed and produced by filmmaker and dancer <a href="https://www.edmondkilpatrick.com/bio">Edmond Kilpatrick</a>. </p>
<p>As researchers who aim to improve responses to gender, social justice, sexual and reproductive health and rights and HIV, we co-produced the film, in collaboration with women living with HIV. We released it to commemorate <a href="https://www.worldaidsday.org/about/">World AIDS Day</a>, Dec. 1, a day to show support for people living with HIV and mourn those who have been lost. </p>
<p>We intend to promote hope and celebrate the lives and resilience of women living with HIV globally. Our research also seeks to understand the effect watching the film has on viewers, to consider future uses of film as a tool for combating stigma and discrimination and promoting empathy for women living with HIV.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/CWjLhHjsfo-","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<h2>Extraordinary HIV advances</h2>
<p>This year, the world <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/museum/online/40yearsofprogress.html">marked 40 years</a> since the first five cases of what later became known as AIDS were officially reported. </p>
<p>Since that era, which began in illness, fear and death, science has yielded extraordinary HIV advances that would have been unthinkable <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4309625/">a few decades</a> ago.</p>
<p>With the right treatment and care, people living with HIV can expect to live a long and healthy life with zero risk of transmitting HIV to their sexual partners if their viral load <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchhstp/dear_colleague/2017/dcl-092717-National-Gay-Mens-HIV-AIDS-Awareness-Day.html">is undetectable</a> — meaning that the virus isn’t showing up on blood tests. </p>
<p>This finding underpins the stigma-reducing “<a href="https://preventionaccess.org/">Undetectable equals Untransmittable</a>” (U=U) campaign endorsed by more than 1,000 organizations in more than 100 countries.</p>
<p>Researchers, advocates and people living with HIV hope that medical advancements like this can be liberating for people living with HIV, offering more agency over <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.12347">sexual choices</a> and turning outdated attitudes and beliefs about HIV on their head.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QamnyGc0gtY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">‘HIV Made Me Fabulous.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But not everyone knows the U=U message. And the benefits of this HIV prevention science <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s13178-020-00432-2">for women</a>, in a world where women still aren’t equal to men, is hindered by on-going <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1001124">discrimination</a>, harassment and <a href="https://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/topics/violence/hiv/en/">violence</a>, particularly for groups already marginalized on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, racialization, Indigeneity, disability or experience as a sex worker.</p>
<h2>Evoking emotions, changing thinking with film</h2>
<p>Some public health researchers have documented a growing interest in drawing on <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1049732319871251">the capacity of film as a tool to evoke emotions, change thinking and transform society</a> for better health outcomes.</p>
<p>In creating <a href="https://www.lifeandlovewithhiv.ca/film"><em>HIV Made Me Fabulous</em></a>, we explore the question of whether combining science with art could do more than communicate the shift in scientific understandings of HIV infectiousness. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://doi.org/10.1075/sin.18.15hyd">embodied storytelling</a>, a storyteller uses the body as a communicative medium, and may also enable viewers and listeners to tap into sensations experienced in their bodies. By employing this approach, we are seeking to use the film to measure whether the artful telling of Roche’s experiences of stigma and HIV, using dance, can help <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/19443927.2017.1327884">promote empathy and compassion by arousing felt emotions in viewers’ bodies</a>.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2-h2B55qYu0?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Collaborators involved in ‘HIV Made Me Fabulous’ discuss the film.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We hope the film allows viewers to engage with the information presented more fully, and expands viewers’ capacities to understand and relate to the experiences of women living with HIV. And in turn, we hope this alters people’s learned prejudices surrounding the disease. </p>
<h2>Reclaiming sexual pleasure</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Black and white photo of a trans woman with medium length light hair looking up and smiling." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/438227/original/file-20211217-17-1l4rdkz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/438227/original/file-20211217-17-1l4rdkz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438227/original/file-20211217-17-1l4rdkz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438227/original/file-20211217-17-1l4rdkz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438227/original/file-20211217-17-1l4rdkz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438227/original/file-20211217-17-1l4rdkz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/438227/original/file-20211217-17-1l4rdkz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Writer Juno Roche narrates both struggles and triumphs.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Allie Carter)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The film shares a story, often unheard, about the experiences of women living with HIV — both the struggles and the triumphs. Roche’s words are enacted by three performers (Jacky Essombe, Quanah Style and Joleen Mitton) who incorporate movement and dance. During the film, the women prepare to meet a potential lover, find the courage to knock on their door, and ride the ensuing emotional journey.</p>
<p>Kilpatrick, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ll66u0P_Uhc">whose work has explored dance as a vehicle for expressing life with HIV</a>, describes how he used movement, dance and storytelling in the film as a way to invite a physical and emotional response in the viewer, while hearing stories that may be associated with unconscious bias. “If Juno’s words are delivered with images that provide a visceral empathetic reaction,” he asks, “could old, embodied biases that lead to stigmatized reactions to people living with HIV be replaced by new, kinder ones?”</p>
<h2>Changing behaviours, attitudes</h2>
<p>To measure the impact of the film in addressing stigma, we’re inviting people to watch it and complete a <a href="https://forms.gle/HQYemm2HUPFKZEAd8">short, two-minute survey</a> sharing their reflections. The data we glean from surveys will inform the use of film in public health practice to change behaviours and attitudes toward sex and HIV — and ultimately improve people’s health.</p>
<p>We want communities to know that science has turned HIV into a treatable, chronic condition and that stigma has consequences to health and quality of life. We also want women to know that if they are HIV-positive, they still have the right to enjoy all aspects of life, including sexuality, on an equal basis to people without HIV.</p>
<p>We also invite people — from peer support workers and service providers to university professors, sex educators, people living with HIV and engaged citizens — to consider hosting a group screening and discussion using <a href="https://www.lifeandlovewithhiv.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/HIV-Made-Me-Fabulous-Discussion-Guide_v1-Colour-Spreads.pdf">the film facilitation guide</a> and more <a href="https://www.lifeandlovewithhiv.ca/film">resources on our website</a>.</p>
<p>The arts can catalyze dialogue, <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-depression-to-parkinsons-disease-the-healing-power-of-dance-123748">awareness, action</a> and advocacy, while simultaneously contributing <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-theatre-can-help-young-nigerians-who-are-living-with-hiv-150378">to reducing stigma</a> and discrimination. These are essential features to end inequalities and also help end barriers that prevent people from getting treatment for HIV and living fuller lives.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/172945/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Allie Carter has been awarded research funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Michael Smith Health Research BC, the National Health and Medical Research Council, and the Australian Government Department of Health.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Angela Kaida has been awarded research funding from CIHR, SSHRC, Grand Challenges Canada, and the Michael Smith Health Research BC. She does not work for, consult, own shares in or personally receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Can a film’s artful telling of experiences of stigma and HIV, using dance, help promote empathy and compassion?Allie Carter, Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Health Sciences, Simon Fraser UniversityAngela Kaida, Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Global Perspectives in HIV and Sexual and Reproductive Health, Simon Fraser UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1709132021-11-09T10:21:51Z2021-11-09T10:21:51ZAre some brains wired for dance?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430015/original/file-20211103-27-1gojlp9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/XmD4gx8jsXE">David Hofman / Unsplash</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Whatever our age, dancing can have a hugely beneficial effect on our physical and mental wellbeing. It can help us to maintain or build muscle tone, flexibility and stamina, while also releasing endorphins which can ease symptoms of stress and anxiety.</p>
<p>Some people, however, appear to have a natural talent which allows them to pick up dance steps with apparent ease, while others find moving gracefully difficult. </p>
<p>It is often thought that some people are “born to dance”, while others have “two left feet” – but in fact, a combination of real-life experience and science shows us that almost anyone can learn to dance well with the right training. </p>
<p>It starts at only a few months old, when babies are able recognise the beat of a piece of music and can move along to the rhythm. In fact, <a href="https://www.pnas.org/content/107/13/5768">we aren’t the only species</a> to respond rhythmically to music – parrots and one species of elephant can too. </p>
<p>Studying our fleet-footed feathered friends may help to reveal more of <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17065-dancing-parrots-could-help-explain-evolution-of-rhythm/">how dance has evolved</a>, and why it may simply be down to social bonding and assessing potential mates. </p>
<p>But being born with the ability to respond to music is far from the whole story, and many other factors determine what enables some people to progress to be professional dancers while others shuffle awkwardly at the school disco.</p>
<p>The first important factor is the physical traits of a dancer. They tend to <a href="https://www.thewonderfulworldofdance.com/dancers-are-born-not-made-according-to-new-study">have small feet</a> – two shoe sizes smaller than average – and be slightly taller than average, by one or two centimetres. </p>
<p>Genetic factors that promote social communication by changing the levels of chemicals in our brain are more common in <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2006/02/22/1576009.htm">professional dancers</a>, giving them an enhanced ability to express emotion through dance. </p>
<h2>The amazing benefits of dance training</h2>
<p>But even if we lack the genetic and physical traits of the professionals, we can still progress through hard work. To dance requires the integration of music, movement, and spatial awareness, all of which are controlled by the brain. It is here that we see the remarkable effects of years of training encoded.</p>
<p>Dance training induces subtle changes in the brain. This occurs by a process known as plasticity, where the brain adapts in response to experiences. Dancing can increase plasticity throughout the brain, even <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6040685/">in the elderly</a>. </p>
<p>When we dance, the premotor cortex and supplementary motor area, which sit near the front of our brain, link our memories of previous actions through training with our spatial awareness. Signals travel to the primary motor cortex, which relays these instructions to the muscles via our spinal cord and the dance begins. </p>
<p>The more often we complete this task, the easier it becomes for our body to do so without conscious effort. This is the neural basis of <a href="https://www.scienceabc.com/humans/what-is-muscle-memory-new.html">muscle memory</a>, which we hear professional dancers talk about.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, at the back of our brain, our cerebellum receives important information, including messages from our auditory and visual systems. And an area called the anterior vermis helps to synchronise our dance steps to music.</p>
<p>The cerebellum also regulates balance and coordination and receives information from the vestibular organs, which tell us we feel dizzy. Interestingly, the area that receives vestibular input is much <a href="https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/130786/ballet-dancers-brains-adapt-stop-them/%20(original%20article:%20https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16221923/)">smaller in classical ballet dancers</a>. Through plasticity, their training de-couples the input that could cause dizziness from the feeling of dizziness, leading to beautiful pirouettes and fantastic turns.
Here, training is more important than genetics.</p>
<p>Dedication and training can help dancers to refine and develop their art, suggesting that all of us can become better dancers. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Dancer jumping in studio" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430008/original/file-20211103-27-z78luv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430008/original/file-20211103-27-z78luv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430008/original/file-20211103-27-z78luv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430008/original/file-20211103-27-z78luv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430008/original/file-20211103-27-z78luv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430008/original/file-20211103-27-z78luv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430008/original/file-20211103-27-z78luv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Some dance attributes are inherited but we can all learn to be better dancers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/dHpp26q9QnY">Daniel / Unsplash</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is a worthwhile pursuit, as dance has many benefits. Argentine <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ccr3.2771">tango training can improve gait</a> and posture in Parkinson’s disease patients, while life-long dancing <a href="https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa022252">reduces our risk</a> of developing dementia. </p>
<p>Thanks to the plasticity of the brain, even non hearing dancers can learn to dance to an extraordinary level, illustrating the inclusivity of dance and its ability to bring people together.</p>
<p>Using mirrors and following visual cues such as copying teachers’ moves allows deaf dancers to <a href="https://www.dancemagazine.com/deaf-dancers-2641619050.html?rebelltitem=7#rebelltitem7">acquire the physical movements</a> of dance.</p>
<p>To achieve their hugely impressive timing to music, non hearing dancers report using vibrations to follow the beat of the music. Their brains have adaptations in an area called the auditory cortex, which is activated in response to <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/news011129-10">vibrations instead of sound</a> – another example of plasticity. With the arrival of hearing-impaired dance troupes such as <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5975f9dabebafb04b9657415/t/5d134bc2ad72940001e78eae/1561545667857/DMD%27s+Full+Biography+%282019%29.pdf">DMD</a>, who integrate elements of sign language into their performances, dance accessibility can only continue to grow. </p>
<p>Although some brains are wired to dance thanks to differences in the genes contributing to emotion and communication, we can all re-wire our brains to be better dancers while enjoying the many health and social benefits that dance can bring.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/170913/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gayle Doherty is affiliated with Dance St Andrews Community Interest Company. This is not-for-profit organisation that promotes wellbeing through dance across the lifespan. </span></em></p>Some people do inherit traits which promote dance ability - but with hard work almost anyone can learn to dance well due to the plasticity of the brainGayle Doherty, Senior Lecturer in Neuroscience, University of St AndrewsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.