Different genres and their relevance today?

Different genres and their relevance today?

How important is it for you to uphold the 'tradition' of a particular genre in your Practise?

Different styles, how they originated is interesting.
Whether the dance was created for religious purposes, rituals and how the steps relate to 'actions' i.e planting seeds, ringing bells to rid evil spirits etc is quite fascinating and gives 'meaning' to the steps and dance as a whole.   The National Dance Syllabus (ISTD) covers many different dances from around the world.  How they 'came to be' and their influence in new choreographic pieces is apparent.  Many of these dances were just performed at a social occasion to celebrate the harvest and such like.

How relevant is tradition in what we teach now?
How many young children would be interested in learning some of these dances?
How could we inspire them to do so?

What newish genres have evolved in the past 30 years? 
Hip-Hop, Bollywood, Classical Indian Dance.

Will these genres supersede the others?  If so, then why?

How many of you believe that most dance stems from a strong Classical Ballet Technique?

And why?
Its roots originate from Italy then across to France.  The Ballet started as a court dance in pairs and groups with poetry and music performing for royalty and evolved from there in Russia and America.

One more question if you don't mind!
How many of you that grew up on Ballet understood its origins? 










Comments

  1. Hannah Lindsay4 November 2017 at 15:15

    To answer the last question first, I heard a bit of the history, but it wasn't until undergrad that I started to understand its cultural origins. As for tradition... hm, I kind of do a mix. When I teach ballet, I do teach the Vaganova syllabus more or less, but I have no problem with throwing in things from other styles in the sense of classroom atmosphere. I'll have the students do peer to peer coaching once in a while or have them face a different direction or something that's not normally found in a ballet class but I think will prove helpful to them once they're out in the world. The chances of them being in a company that would perform solely classical works is vanishingly small. I also find it helps them develop their own voice, which is another valuable skill.

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