Dance Theory & Acrobatics Gymnastics
By Alex Douglas
Editor's Note: This is an examination of dance and acrobatics that is still in development.
Acrobatics Gymnastics is acrobatic dance, and the goal of a good routine is to have the dance and acrobatics flow together naturally. But sports competition and dance have different goals. Dance is viewed as an art, whereas sport is competition. Dance uses competition as well, for competition is a tool for refining the craft. Competition is a means to an end, but, regrettably, sports tend to forget what the end should be. Both are crafts, and both intend to be an art. Craft is technique and the way it is done. Craft is form and style. But art is content. The medium of both is the human body and the personalities of the performers, which makes both unique in expressing the heart. The purpose of art is to express the heart. If you have nothing to say, then your craft is a mere routine, or exercise. But when you have a vision to express, the craft can cross over into art. The rules for Sports Acrobatics understand this, which can be seen in the storyline deduction. This series of articles will explore both craft and art, but we will first look at the craft.
Phrasing of Movement
As a craft they both possess “movement vocabularies”, i.e., specific movements that are used in the construction of a performance. In dance those movements break up into the broader categories of ballet, jazz, tap, modern, folk, and other dance types. All of those dance types are used by acrobatics on the floor. Acrobatics also uses special movements, for want of a better term, floor ex moves or gym acros, along with the partner stunts of balance and tempo. Tumbling is used by dance and gymnastics.
Because the body is the medium of our crafts, breathing, cadence of step, and the rhythm of the heart determine the phrasing of the movements. These elements are also what affects speech, so the craft is likened to grammar, as in “movement vocabulary”. Speech is made of words, phrases, sentences and paragraphs. And in writing we use an alphabet to phonetically craft the words.
|
|
Therefore the letters of ballet are the feet and hand positions of first through fifth positions. In acro the letters are the shapes used in our skills – tuck, pike, hollow, and so on.
A specific movement is the word of dance and acrobatics. In ballet that might be an assemblé. In acro that might be a valdez or a hand-to-hand.
Combinations of movements are the phrases. For example, an assemblé, sissone, no handed forward roll to kneeling would be an acrobatic dance phrase. Likewise, a tuck up to hand-to-hand, to over arch, could be an example of an acrobatic phrase. The length of a phrase is a breath. Similarly dance and acro combinations are phrases about a performer’s breath.
In music these phrases are built upon measures of time. Musical phrases are interpreted by performers as dance and acrobatic phrase. A musical phrase may be around 4 measures of music and are characterized by a start point finished with a pause point.
A sentence is a phrase or two joined as clauses. Likewise a dance or acrobatic pass of several phrases, whether dance combinations or tumbling elements, or partner lifts makes up a dance or acrobatic sentence.
Paragraphs are related sentences to a specific point. An example of a paragraphs in an acrobatic routine could be dancers traveling across the floor in synchronization to come together for partner stunts. . The partner stunts begins the next paragraph.
In the next article we will examine floor patterns in design and composition.