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Dancer’s Body and the Open Structure of Contemporary Dance

MalborgKim 1

1이화여자대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This study examines different modes of dancer’s body featured in current contemporary dance. ‘Contemporary’ is a tricky word to define. The term “contemporary dance” is sometimes used to describe dance that is not classical jazz or traditional folk/cultural dance. But contemporary dance is used here as the current world dance happening in the span of 20~30 years up to now. Through the survey of various functions and styles of dancer’s body in contemporary dance, this study aims to understand the changing environment of world dance in the 21st century. There are many ways that dancer’s body can be portrayed or used in dance. Dancer’s body can be used when a choreographer is trying to represent something or to convey his or her ideas to the viewers. And dancer’s body can be used as the medium to express emotions or feelings of choreographer. Dancer’s body and movement can be designed to portray abstract images other than human forms or meanings. After post modern dance, ordinary body that is not trained technically and daily movement that is not dancy appeared in contemporary dance. They are used as the experimental representation of the choreographer’s ideas. They were chosen to raise a question to the traditional condition of dance existence. Also there is a formalist dance style which takes formal beauty of dancer’s body and movement as the prime value of dance. These various modes of presenting dancer’s body covers from traditional way of dance existence to current avant garde style dance. From these findings, the most outstanding characteristics of contemporary dance are discussed and explained in the end as a conclusion. The most characteristic feature of contemporary dance is that they have an open structure in its narrative and construction. For an instance, Twylar Tharp’s Catherine Wheel shows an open ended mosaic structure of telling the story of that piece. In this work, traditional linear structure of story telling are deconstructed and gathered in a new sensitive and deconceptualized way. Also Tanztheater and William Forsythe and Montalvo’s way of producing dances are discussed as an instance of showing the crossover tendencies and deconstruction of dance movement and stage space, and the convergence of dance genre, technique, media, culture and races happening in a current world dance scene.

Citation status

* References for papers published after 2023 are currently being built.