Aerial dance

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[edit] Aerial dance

Aerial modern dance is a sub-genre of modern dance first recognized in the United States in the 1970s. The choreography incorporates an apparatus often attached to the ceiling, allowing performers to explore space in three-dimensions. The ability to incorporate vertical, as well as horizontal movement paths, allows for innovations in choreography and movement vocabulary.

Aerial modern pieces, whether solo or ensemble, often involve partnering. The apparatus used has its own motion, which changes the way a dancer must move in response. The introduction of a new element changes the dancer’s balance, center, and orientation in space. Aerial modern dancers gather annually at the "Aerial Dance Festival" in Boulder, Colorado since its inception in July 1999. Here, workshops, performances, and discussions bring together dancers, gymnasts, circus artists, and other aerial enthusiasts to showcase their own works and learn about new developments in technique and technology.

An early influence on aerial modern dance, Terry Sendgraff, is credited with inventing the "motivity" trapeze.[1] Terry Sendgraff actively performed, choreographed and taught in the San Francisco Bay Area from the early '70s until announcing her retirement in 2005, at the age of 70. The motivity trapeze came about as a result of an exploration on a low-hung circus trapeze. The ropes twisted together, causing the apparatus to spin. By formalizing this, hooking both ropes to a single point of attachment, Ms. Sendgraff used the apparatus to spin, twist, as well as fly in a straight line and in a circle.

[edit] Site dance

Another example of aerial modern dance are the site-specific works of Joanna Haigood of the Zaccho Dance Theatre, and Amelia Rudolph of "Project Bandaloop". Haigood’s work is based on careful research of the history, architecture and societal impact of found spaces, and the translation of these memories into the movements performed in that space. [2] Project Bandaloop combines rock-climbing with dance in performances that scale and/or descend canyons, rock walls, and tall buildings across the world. Video of their outdoor work is sometimes integrated into indoor performances, projected onto screens or trampolines behind the dancers on stage.

[edit] Amateur dancers

There are no regular amateur communities of aerial dancers. Nevertheless some people do on suitable parties where there are appropriate objects for climbing like dance or climb poles or stages dances with elements of aerial dance. As these form of dances are dangerous and possibly destructive, such dances are nearly always forbidden. Other forms of aerial dance practised by amateurs are non-erotic tabledances where someone dances on multiple tables or similar objects without touching the ground or where the act of getting on or off the stage or table is part of the dance or dances performed on objects the dancer climbed on before.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Terry Sendgraff web site - About Terry Sendgraff
  2. ^ Zaccho Dance Theatre web site - Artistic Directory Joanna Haigood

[edit] External links

[edit] Additional reference materials

  • Kloetzel, Melanie and Carolyn Pavlik, editors. Site Dance - Choreographers and the Lure of Alternative Spaces; University Press of Florida; 2009.
  • Bernasconi, Jayne. "Low-Flying Air Craft: a report from the Aerial Dance Festival 2000 and a talk with Terry Sendgraff". Contact Quarterly. 26.2 (2001): 19-24.
  • Felciano, Rita. "AXIS: Dancing with and without wheels". Dance Magazine 76.3 (2002): 58-61.
  • Haithcox, Kiran. "Learning to Dance on Air". Dance Magazine 76.3 (2002): 51-52.
  • Howard, Rachel. "Terry Sendgraff". Dance Magazine 79.8 (2005): 60.
  • Kreiter, Jo. "The Soul Needs the Body: the body and technology from a dancer’s perspective". Contact Quarterly. 26.2 (2001): 15-18.
  • Sanderson, Marcia. "Flying Women". Dance Magazine 76.3 (2002): 46-51.
  • Strom, Cat. "Tours: Hanging by a Thread: De La Guarda’s 'Villa Villa' Bounces into Sydney’s Big Top". Entertainment Design — The Art and Technology of Show Business 38.9 (2004): 10-11.
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