How everything started
HISTORY OF DANCE
Perhaps the history of dance is not shorter than the history of mankind. We can only guess as dances looked at early age.
Natya Shastra – is an early manuscript describing dance. She founded the modern interpretation of Indian classical dance Bharathanatyam.
In European culture is one of the first references to dance, makes Homer in his “Iliad” – it describes chorea (Greek dance, dance).
Early Greeks made the art of dancing in the system, expressing a variety of passions. For example, dance Furius terrifies all who happened to be his audience. The Greek philosopher Aristotle equated the dance to poetry and argued that the dancers through the movements in a certain rhythm can transmit manners, passions and actions. Outstanding Greek sculptors studied poses of dancers, imitating one or another state.
Pre-history of dance
Historically, the dance was used by people as part of religious rituals and public holidays. Evidence of this are found in many documents prehistory. Perhaps the court dances there as much as kings and queens. The variety of dance forms include folk, social, ballroom, religious, and experimental and other forms. Larger branches of this art was theatrical dance, originating in the Western world. The roots of modern ballet, dance, which we all know, go to France of the sixteenth century – the Renaissance.
XVI and XVII century: court dance
A prerequisite for the emergence of ballet was new way of thinking and philosophy of the Enlightenment: now a man became the center of the universe and able to manage their existence by means of arts and sciences. “Using music, which is exactly simulates the proportional harmony of the planets, man of the sixteenth century believed he could pull in a planetary impact. The dance itself was an imitation of the movement of heaven »(Designing for the Dancer, Elron Press, London, 1981).
By the end of the XVI century court ballet reached a peak: it is fully funded by the French monarchy, which used it to extolling his own greatness. Ballets become part of luxury, great holiday extravaganzas, which lasted several days in a row and included all types of entertainment. In essence, all these festivals were a way aggrandizement French court.
XVIII and XIX century: from court dancing to Romanticism
By the beginning of the XVIII century ballet has migrated from the French court in the Paris Opera to the versatile theatrical figure in Jean-Baptiste Lully, who “kept the basic concept of ballet – a composite form in which dance is an integral and important element.” During this century ballet spread throughout Europe and from the subtle way of movement of images during a major presentation turned into a self-contained performance art, ballet d’action («effective ballet, ballet with a plot – first ave.). This new form is almost completely destroyed the artificiality inherent in the court dance, and set a new motto: “art should strive to imitate nature, to nature.” As a result, costumes and choreography have become freer and more conducive to disclosure of expressive talents of the body. The door opened to the world of naturalistic costumes and beskabluchnoy shoes – pointe shoes, the dancer who provided great opportunities for climbing the polupaltsy.
Age of Romanticism beginning of the XIX century, with ballets, focusing on emotions, with a rich imagination and spiritual worlds marked the beginning of this work on the toes. Now the ideal ballerina (which embodies quality time with the legendary Marie Taglioni) in their shoes, it seemed, barely touching the surface of the stage and her disembodied spirit did not seem to know what the earth. At this time, the rising stars of women’s dance completely overshadowed the presence of poor male dancers, which in many cases dubbed just move the statues, existing only to dancers relied on them. The situation in the early twentieth century, a little fix climbing star Nijinsky from the Russian Ballet. By this time we have developed traditional ballet costumes, choreography, scenery, props, in short, everything was almost exactly as it is now.
The beginning of the twentieth century: from ballet to modern dance
Russian ballet that started a revolution in ballet, trying to break the old forms of classical ballet. Currently, the artistic possibilities of ballet technique and accompanies her music, scenery and multimedia more global than it has ever been. The boundaries that define classical ballet, constantly move apart and washed out, and everything that appears in place of them, now barely resembles the traditional ballet terms such as “revolution”.
Come for new thinking. Performers dance began to take into account the personality traits, ritual and religious aspects, primitive, expressive and emotional. In this atmosphere, there was a boom in contemporary dance. Suddenly, a new freedom that is now considered acceptable, what is termed a recognized art, which now wanted to do a lot of people. All attributes of the new art become as valuable as ballet costumes – or even more valuable than them.
Most of the choreographers and dancers of the beginning of XX century belonged to the ballet is extremely negative. Isadora Duncan believed his ugly meaningless exercises. Martha Graham (Graham) saw in him evropeyschinu and imperialism, in which the Americans have nothing in common. Merce Cunningham, despite the fact that he used in teaching some basics of ballet technique, approached the choreography and performances from the position directly opposed to traditional ballet.
The twentieth century was definitely time separation from everything that was based on the ballet. The time of unprecedented artistic growth of dancers and choreographers. The time of shock, surprise and audience, who have changed their view of dance. The time of the revolution in the fullest sense of the word.
The end of the twentieth century: the development of modern dance
The sixties marked the development of postmodernism, which changed the course of its simplicity, the beauty of small things, untrained bodies, and unsophisticated, simple movements. The famous manifesto of “No”, rejecting all costumes, stories and “window dressing” for the sake of raw, unprocessed movement – this is probably the brightest extreme of this wave of new ideas. Unfortunately, the lack of costumes, scenes and props do not contribute to the success of the dance show – and after a short time “scenery”, “decoration” and “rate shock” once again appeared in the vocabulary of modern dance choreographers.
By the 80th year of classical dance is returned to the starting point, and modern dance (or, by this time contemporary dance) has become highly technical weapons of professionals, not far from politics. Two forms of dance, contemporary dance and classical ballet, peacefully coexist side by side, feeling one another, only a tiny fraction of the former hostility and almost not getting into competition. Today, dance art permeated creative competition and choreographers often seek to ensure that it is their job called the most shocking. However, until now the art is beauty, and modern dance shakes such professionalism, strength and flexibility, which has never been until now.
