Musicality

Dance & Theories

Semester 2, Reflection 7

Musicality

        Music had been integrated from its extreme to its annihilation in the performing arts field. Its extreme when the music is dominant on the dance and comes to structure its dynamic, atmosphere and genre. Its annihilation when the dance is practiced in silence, even if we can still talk about the inner-musicality of the body, or when the dance does not get any influence or correlation with the musical background. In this case, there is no obvious musicality. We can go with the music or against it, not « being a slave » of its riddim or genre.

           Merce Cunningham perfectly explored this last system throughout an abstract and singular connection to the music. He used very square and direct movements through the body lines in space-related of the minimalist period in 1950^[1], played with the timing according to the unexpected and abstract music of John Cage^[2], his partner, with who Merce Cunningham has been working the most during his carrer^[3]. Music without any underlines. The minimalist let the subjectivity and the free will to the audience to find the extend of the virtuosity who resides in it. Music did not have the space to influence, guide, overwhelming dance or being overwhelmed by it. « The music does not support the dance in any conventional way. The music is made separately from the dance. »^[4] , Merce Cunningham said. Here, we can not apply the term of musicality through the dance medium.

            Steve Reich gives us another aspect of the relation between music and dance. He acknowledged that John Cage and Merce Cunningham didn’t have the desire to satisfy « the human desire for regular rhythmic movement, usually done to music. »^[5]

They are not meeting on a common regular rhythmic, both in dance and music, to underline the main object of dance. Music can be an independent experience so dance could also be independent of all other art forms. They are two separate arts that can, however, meet at some point and work together without for goal : serving reciprocally both art forms.

« What Cage put less emphasis on in the 1940s, and apparently still less as time went on, was the underlying impulse for dance: the natural human desire for regular rhythmic movement. He also turned away from the reality that people do in fact dance to the music–that music can and does supply rhythmic energy for dance. »^[6]

For Steve Reich, music and dance developed in similar directions. They can be interrelated only if they share the same rhythmic structure as the length.

        I strongly admire these artists (Cunningham and Cage) to have explored, used music and dance bellow another definition than the obvious influence that music can have on dance. However, for having studying Cunningham’s technique for four years, it hasn’t been the most satisfying dance experience to seperate them.

        I believe that the collaborative meeting between music and dance is evident and can be used as a tool in a collaborative way.  Music can guide you in the feeling you can have from your dance. It gives a particular taste to what you are doing. You can decide to express what it gives to you in your body. To translate physically through movement what music is telling you. Dance allows a connection, a lived relationship with music.

Often, for my creations, the dance inspired itself from the music but I do not fully decide to compose step by step on the music to not sustain from a musical dependence, regarding the becoming of my project. At first, I creat the material independently from the music, with the memory of it in my mind to let it free, a bit uncertain and able to be flexible concerning my final decisions. If I listen over and over the music, it will lose its « first magical dimension » that I felt while listening to it. I can not take the risk to let the inspiration out of breath while each material is supporting each other.

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