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Showing posts from April, 2013

Musicality and The Choreography of Events

I haven't had time to post much lately, but I just have to talk ever so briefly about a concept that comes up every time I teach. "Musicality in dance then might be considered a measure or degree to which a dancer is receptive and creative in his translation or rendering of music through movement." --From Dance Advantage: Musicality in Dance . In The Burlesque Handbook , I talk about the importance of musicality and timing. It's the art of making it look as if your movements and actions influenced the music, rather than the other way around. One of my favorite film clips for performers to study musicality is The Skeleton Dance , a Silly Symphonies cartoon. In it the skeletons are timed so that not just their dancing but their actions take place according to the music. It appears as if the music is caused by their movements rather than the other way around. When Billie Madley did a workshop at The New York School of Burlesque, she described "horns coming