Publisher: Editura Universitara
Author: Andreea Tanasescu
ISBN: 978-606-28-1213-3
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5682/9786062812133
Publisher year: 2020
Edition: I
Pages: 208
Motto: "If you want to build a ship, don't start by sending people for wood, nails, tools, string and other materials. First teach them to long for the distant, endless sea ... ”(Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Citadel)
This book was born in 2020, during the pandemic ... For the first time in my entire teaching career, I held Choreographic Art courses behind the screen, without having access to the actual spaces intended for the study of dance. The dialogue with the students was mediated by a computer - the interface between real and imaginary, between concrete and illusion. The students, however, were real and I assigned these courses to them - an opportunity to meditate on the dimensions that are part of the choreographic discourse.
The book contains a number of essays, all these essays represent an introduction to what we, the researchers in the field of dance, call: Choreographic Art. The book is addressed to all those who want to know the choreographic field, but also to those who try to walk the path of choreography, to those who will one day be choreographers, pedagogues, researchers in the field. This study does not aim to completely decipher the multitude of aspects that are part of the choreographic show, it will not clarify all the problems related to the choreographic art, but we hope, it will open a small window, will bring maybe a new perspective on the field.
Dance - living, complex art - can hardly be introduced into the written or spoken language box; the flat sign (letter) cannot reproduce the dancing vibration of life, just as the sea could not be closed in a room. Contemporary dance is the game with space, time, emotion, it is a field of continuous research, a free research, a dynamic dialogue of the inner and outer forces of man to discover himself or, further - to reach the heart of the universe.
The movement contains infinite dimensions, to put them into words means to take risks… But maybe, for the memory of the dance, it is worth the risk - the choreographic gesture must sometimes be condensed, described in words in order to live on, just as freely.
In dance, the metaphor acquires the body, the emotion becomes space, time. The scenes follow one another, and behind them, from the movement of the bodies, our dream remains. Movement is thought, momentum, struggle and often brings our soul to light. The man in motion proves that he is more than he seems, and dance becomes a revealing instrument of meta-realities.
In the territory of dreams and freedom, man dances, perhaps, to discover himself or to meet his Creator. Dancing, man resembles the Gods - he seems to be absolved of matter, worries, suffering…
The act of teaching dance is an act of courage, an act of love, an act of sacrifice. The choreographic art teacher should have the courage to "sculpt" in his students or students "eyes" with which they can see beyond reality, "ears" through which to listen to the indecipherable, "wings" with which to it flies beyond matter. And his sacrifice is permanent ...
I dedicate this book to my parents who opened my heart to art, to my students - who made me ask more and more questions and try to "perfect" my teaching methods, to the teachers of Choreographic Art within UNATC, IL Caragiale, Bucharest who trained me when I was, in my turn, a student. I also dedicate this book to a dear friend, the architect Mihai V. Popa, who inspired me and helped me to complete this book.
The author
Preface / 5
The author 's word / 7
Introduction / About the body: Metamorphoses of the inner invisible space / 10
Aspects of movement / 22
Body - communication / 31
Breathing shapes the movement / 39
Movement - communication - meaning - symbol / 45
Choreographic discourse - a puzzle construction / 49
Movement, a relationship between intuition and perception / 51
The “inner” space / 55
Sensory experience / 59
Memory / 63
The movement is conditioned by the environment / 67
Stage space / 69
The act of creation - act of learning, transmission of cognitive experiences / (Art and illusion ...) / 77
The time of the choreographic work / From the concrete time to the subjective time / 81
To create - does it mean to enter into a form of trance? / 92
Reality - Realism. From abstract to concrete / Between scenic concrete and realism / 99
Real image. Stage image / The space, time and action of the stage image / 111
General notions related to the concept of structure / 117
Empty and full in the work of art / The dual character of the scenic image / 126
Subconscious or dream / 130
The duality of the work of art / Duality and paradox of the being, of the human existence / 136
Subject - object / The relation of the object with the subject within the choreographic discourse / The scenographic object - part of the text and the subtext of the choreographic discourse / 152
Instead of an epilogue / 204
Bibliography / 205
In the first of the two volumes of the book "Dimensions of Choreographic Thinking", the author, Andreea Tanasescu, well-known choreographer and teacher at the National University of Theater and Cinematography in Bucharest, explores conceptual, poetic (i) and symbolic dimensions of choreographic creation in an approach that stands out in depth and scope and that creates bridges between theoretical knowledge, discovery, virtualization of the relationships between body, movement, spatiality and creative applications for the contemporary dance laboratory.
The author proposes more than an introduction, or a list of reading topics about contemporary choreography, the volume being rather an incursion of action-thinking in visible and invisible spaces shaped by forces, vectors, architecture, composition, mechanisms and scenic and imaginary objects during metamorphic processes that give the body the quality of a vehicle of choreographic discourse, the latter being "writing on water" and "puzzle with elements in continuous transformation".
The case analyzes of some creations that marked the contemporary dance, among which: Sutra by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Ceci est mon corps by Angelin Preljocaj, One Flat Thing Reproduced by William Forsythe, to, highlight the idea of system, cooperation between the various dimensions of the coherent choreographic universe, having the role of mirrors that allow the calibration of technical, expressive, communicative and didactic stakes in the sphere of contemporary dance creation. From conditioning to the abolition of the limits that separate conceptual knowledge from intuitive or conscious, logical, unconscious and imaginative mind, but also affective memory, from exploring various temporalities and experiences built and deconstructed through hypostases and body language in choreographic discourse, the author seeks to identify some key elements for the opening of new routes and scenarios of imaginary, aesthetic, symbolic, spatial construction.
The volume has a rich visual illustration, the drawings being made by the architect Mihai V. Popa. Some of these graphical achievements continue the tradition of schematic representation of the moving body, as a topology (in mathematics topology refers to the properties of a geometric object whose integrity is preserved in continuous deformations, such as stretching, twisting, bending, displacement, etc. the dynamics of the forces that transform the body, shape it and condition it.) Other drawings are visual cognitive metaphors having a descriptive and explanatory capacity; some tend to exceed this condition, generating a special aesthetic value.
Through the images, a subtle dialogue is initiated with the ideas presented in the volume, producing a symbolic articulation through which conceptual and productive dimensions of the text are projected, the author pleading for its multimodal and interdisciplinary character.
(Ana Maria Munteanu, Prof. PhD in communication sciences)
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