Chapter 10 - Dance theatre

Summary

The analysis of dance, whether it is classical ballet or contemporary movement theatre, can be approached using some of the same tools that we have explored for dramatic and music theatre. This is especially the case for those forms of dance theatre that align themselves either explicitly or implicitly with principles of dramatic theatre. However, for those dance forms that place the body and its expressive possibilities at the centre of interest, which has been increasingly the case over the last century, dance-specific tools and methods are necessary. An analysis of George Balanchine's neoclassical ballets or of modern dance in the tradition of Martha Graham require, for example, a more formalistic dance-specific approach than that needed for works created in the context of contemporary movement theatre. Like other forms of theatre, dance can draw on long and varied traditions. To analyse dance, as with analysing opera, some knowledge of these traditions is essential in order to appreciate the aesthetic processes at work. Like all art, dance forms and particular choreographies are always suspended in a dialectic between reference to the world and self-reference, the former being more easily accessible to a wider audience and the latter requiring specialized knowledge of dance history, styles and choreographers.

Elements

Developments in dance theatre often stand in close connection to parallel trends in other art forms. Before 1900, dance theatre meant ballet, and it was usually integrated into operatic performance.