Contemporary Dance

Contemporary dance is one of the strongest dance forms where each stretch and each step speaks a
thousand words. It is a fairly new style and a collaboration of modern, jazz, classical and ballet. The
uniqueness of contemporary dance is it can only be performed by one who is trained in the particular
form and is very well defined.

Cunningham

The Cunningham Technique is an abstract dance training programme that's designed to simultaneously
strengthen the body and mind, improve flexibility, precision and your dynamism as a dancer. 

History:

It's named after Merce Cunningham; the founder of the Cunningham Technique was an American
dancer and choreographer who developed this style of dance during his own training. Cunningham
loved the random and abstract, which lead him to devise a form of dancing that was determined by
something so uncontrollable as flipping a coin. A true modern dancer, Cunningham challenged
traditional ideas of dance so much so that it led him to explore Cage's possibilities of music and the body
existing separately from one another whilst on stage.

Core Principles of Cunningham:

 Strengthening & Flexibility

The Cunningham Technique teaches you to increase your flexibility whilst maintaing correct form so as
to not distort your body shape in any way. The Technique keeps your muscles and brain engaged by
challenging you to work your torso and legs sometimes in opposition and at other times in coordination.
You'll be eased into learning the Technique at a slower pace before the count tempo is increased to test
your accuracy.

 Spacial Awareness

This section teaches the dancer how to use any space - small or large - whilst maintaining balance and
navigating around other dancers. Moving in multiple directions, including sideways and backwards, is
key to practicing spacial awareness and helping the dancer with their traveling. Turning and spinning is
also practiced at this stage to again test balance, along with jumps (during which the torso upright must
remain upright). As you progress in this Technique, your teacher will introduce not only moving in
different directions but also your body parts (like arms and legs) moving in different directions.

 Rhythmic Accuracy

Fine-tuning your ability to move your body accurately in time to a piece of music is crucial for a
breathtaking solo and even more important for a synchronized group performance. The Cunningham
Technique improves your "rhythmic precision" through a series of exercises to make your body and
mind cohesive with any musical piece you're presented with. This will improve your diversity as a dancer
and increase your confidence to dance to any music or sound you're faced with. Just to keep things
interesting, the Technique also tests and improves your ability to move independently to the music.
Cunningham believed that "changes of rhythm should be introduced consistently to keep the idea of
flexibility alive" - memorize this to keep your work in the Technique strong.

Graham

This style basically focuses on the use of contraction, release, recovery, and fall. Graham is distinguished
by floor work and the use of pelvic and abdominal contractions. The style is much grounded and the
technique is visibly contrary to the slender and graceful, airborne ideals of ballet.

History:

Graham took a psychoanalytical viewpoint on dance. She believed that the purpose of dance is to
illuminate the life and struggles of the human experience, paying particular attention to humans' inner
nature. Her dances were dramatic expressions of the conflict between the individual and society in an
attempt to look at the internal motivations of humanity. 

Purpose of Dance:

Since the purpose of dance is to translate emotional experience in physical form, in the Graham
technique, every movement must have a clear and perceivable meaning. This does not mean the
movements must be realistic, only that the stylization must be meaningful and recognizable to the
viewer as well as to the performer.

Limon

It involves exploring the use of energy in relation to gravity and working with weight in terms of
rebound, fall, suspension and recovery. Limon technique uses the feeling of “heavy energy” and weight
in the body, and movement is initiated using breath to lift, and swings through the body to create and
halt movement and thus it feels very nice to perform.

History:

Upon release from military service after World War II in 1945, he formed a company of his own. Doris
Humphrey, who had just retired from active dancing, became his artistic director and together they
enjoyed many fruitful seasons until her death.

Limón developed Humphrey’s technique further. The Limón Institute states his technique “emphasizes
the natural rhythms of fall and recovery and the interplay between weight and weightlessness to
provide dancers with an organic approach to movement that easily adapts to a range of choreographic
styles."
Release
Placing emphasis on minimizing tension in the search for fluidity and clarity and the efficient use of
breath and energy. In Release technique just as it sounds, we release through the muscles and
joints to create ease of movement, releasing the breath to support the release of the body. A dance
style as well as a great relaxation technique.

History:

This particular approach to movement gained great popularity among the postmodern dancers of the
1970s in the U.S. However, its roots seem to have arisen much before, by the 1930s, in the explorations
made by Mabel Elsworth Todd, who created a form of somatic education.

Following her teachings, Lulu Sweigard gave Todd’s method the name of ‘Ideokinesis’. Other figures
continued working on it, like Barbara Clark or Joan Skinner who systematized a derivative work and gave
it the name of SRT (Skinner Releasing Technique).

Improvisation
It mainly focuses on the relationship between movements and performance and on the investigation
of movements. Development of individual movement material is made possible through a variety of
creative explorations.

History:

Within the context of the timeline of Classical Dance, Classical Ballet came first. Modern dance was
created in reaction to the stylized, codified movements of Classical Ballet, Post Modern dance was
created in reaction to the stylized, codified movements of Classical Modern Dance. Post Modern dancers
used pedestrian (everyday, non-technical) movements in their work—opening up the performance of
dance to non-dancers—and dances were often different every time they were performed. The practice
of improvised dance performance developed in the 1960’s and 70’s. 

In the Renaissance Italy, improvisation was used and valued in performance and