Lterature Review E

Acting for Dancers

(J. Alex Brinson with Sarah Brinson)

‘Acting for Dancers’ explores the use of acting within dance education to enable the student to find a connection, engage the imagination and attain skills to freely express oneself artistically through music. This book provides today’s dancers with the means to develop artistry, from young students through to aspiring professionals. The authors, a drama professional and dance master have hosted acting workshops extensively around north America specifically for dancers and dance teachers. Through the collaboration of drama and dance professionals, this book combines methods, techniques and games devised through many years of experience in theatre studies.

Theories

With relevance to my topic of inquiry I found the ‘Listening with the entire body’ concept informative as listening skills are essential in the development of musicality in artistry. The book presents the importance of developing listening skills by going beyond simply hearing the music and moving in time. Listening is only a small part of the equation, as all bodily senses engage to establish an emotional connection, by feeling the vibration up through your feet and entire body you experience thoughts images and sensations in relation to the music.

‘Listening with your entire body means using more of your nervous system, feeding your brain with more nerve activity both electrically and chemically, having all of that neural activity connect to the physical body for its expression’ (p21).

The training of dance technique is a long and gruelling process, however the artistic element is where the fun lies, conveying joy and passion for music and dance is a key component of artistry. Nevertheless, in order to convey this tension must first be eradicated to find freedom in expression and inspire an honest reaction from musical influence.

Imagination is a powerful performance tool used to internally transform oneself and externally engage with the music to form a connection with the audience. Again, the dancer must be relaxed, focussed and apply their sensory and listening skills for this to take place. Once the choreography has become ingrained the artistic layer can then be worked upon by asking questions; why are doing this? Who are you? Where are you? What do you want to communicate and who are you speaking to?

‘Dancers who use imaginative work have the ability to better translate emotion.’ (P38)

The secret of good acting in dance is to instigate a process of discovery, through exploring and asking questions, by creating circumstances in order to build a character and portray certain emotions within dance. Encourage students to think about the environment their dance might be set in and envision it, what does it feel and smell like? How does it look? Consider these circumstances to give an honest and engaging performance through one’s own personal experience.

 Conclusion

This book was straight forward and to the point, I felt it gave valuable ideas in the use of acting to interpret music effectively. It explored ways to help students dance with intention and purpose to engage with the performance. By exploring the means to address one’s insecurities, gain the ability to focus, develop listening skills and nonverbal communication, the dancer can therefore demonstrate a high level of artistry through music. I now plan to apply suggested methods to my forthcoming classes to evaluate their effectiveness.

Brinson, A.J. and Brinson, S. (2014) Acting for dancers: Dancing with intention, how to be a dance storyteller! United States: U Publishing.