Tuesday, June 07, 2005

‘A good dance technician is not necessarily the best dancer.’ Outline the characteristics of a good dance technician and discuss the skills, other than those of technique, which make a good dancer.

Dance is a holistic art form, requiring the practitioner to have a wide range of skills. These skills fall in two categories, technical skills and expressive skills. In this essay I will look at the skills that make a good dancer, and the skills that a good dance technician will possess.

Firstly the good dancer technician is someone who has mastered the technical skills of dance at a high level. These skills are core stability, balance, alignment, posture, kinaesthetic awareness, control, flexibility and strength. Possessing these all of these skill to a high standard would make the person a perfect dancer physically.

Having good core stability and control would mean the person would be able to direct the way their body moves, ensuring the movement was always performed in the right way. Good core stability would compliment the person’s good posture and alignment, ensuring the body was always in the correct dynamic position of readiness for dance.
High levels of flexibility and strength would work in tandem, allowing the person a wide range of movement in their joints, with the power behind the movement to sustain it and hold it in a range of positions. Kinaesthetic awareness allows the person to know what their body is doing without being able to see it, for example, the person being aware of where their leg is whilst performing an arabesque behind them. This would help the person with spacing in a dance environment.

The dance technician might be able to execute the movements perfectly, yet with out expressive skill the dance would appear soulless and dead to the audience. The expressive skills of dance are musicality, focus, projection

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