The Music Center's Study Guide to the Performing Arts
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DANCE TRADITIONAL ARTISTIC PERCEPTION (AP) ® CLASSICAL CREATIVE EXPRESSION (CE) Artsource CONTEMPORARY HISTORICAL & CULTURAL CONTEXT (H/C) The Music Center’s Study Guide to the Performing Arts EXPERIMENTAL AESTHETIC VALUING (AV) MULTI-MEDIA CONNECT, RELATE & APPLY (CRA) ENDURING FREEDOM & THE POWER THE HUMAN TRANSFORMATION VALUES OPPRESSION OF NATURE FAMILY Title of Work: concert at Skyline College near San Francisco. The visual Voice/Dance Improvisation design of the performance was shaped through costumes, Creators: sets and lighting design. Most of McFerrin’s vocals were a Dancer and Choreographer: Tandy Beal b. 1948 spontaneous response to the dancers. Some sections of the Vocal Musician: Bobby McFerrin b. 1950 dancing were set with specific guidelines for the improvisational work. One of the highlights of the television Background Information: production, which is featured in this unit, is an improvised duet Dancer/Choreographer Tandy Beal and Musician/ with Beal and McFerrin where neither knew what the other Composer Bobby McFerrin met in 1975 when he was would do. playing the piano for dance classes at the University of Utah, where she taught. Delighting each other with their Creative Process of the Artist or Culture: improvisational skill, they began to imagine possibilities for Improvisational work is very challenging; it requires a great a joint project. In 1981 both artists were on tour in Europe deal of trust, alertness, and the ability of each performing in many of the same places, but never at the person to respond fully to the other in the present moment. same time. Finally, in London a plan was set in motion for Improvisation is about playing in a serious way. Someone a collaboration. Back home they experimented with sets out an idea and others who know the rules and bound- different ways of working together. Sometimes Tandy aries of the improvisational process can engage in the play, would respond to Bobby’s vocal music and sounds and at bouncing ideas back and forth. Within the established other times he would accompany her dance ideas. The context, the ‘players’ in improvisational work do not collaboration resulted in a national tour and a necessarily repeat moves; rather, they respond over and over television special, Voice/Dance, produced in 1987 by KQED, again in new ways to similar challenges. It is much like San Francisco’s PBS affiliate. The performance was professional sports where the players, working within certain improvisational in style. Some sections were quite structured rules and conventions, overcome while others afforded extensive opportunities for improvisa- barriers in order to achieve a tion by Bobby, Tandy and the dancers. Tandy and Bobby goal. However, while a creative continue to work together. She directed choreography for response is called for in both, in the 1990/1991 tour and television appearances of Voicestra, dance all the ‘players’ win. Both McFerrin’s vocal ensemble, and choreographed the video for Tandy Beal and Bobby McFerrin The Garden from Bobby’s Medicine Music. Their most recent bring a willingness to create collaboration is an opera that will be performed in Moscow, together along with years of Abu Dhabi, Basel, andin New York for the Nikolais experience, skill and sensitivity. Cnetennial. New York Photo: Marty Sohl About the Artwork: “Some of the best moments of artistry have to do with Voice/Dance was taped during a special performance of the playing.” Tandy Beal California Discussion Questions: • The Best of Bobby McFerrin. Blue Note Records, 1996. After the video has been viewed: • What were Tandy Beal and Bobby McFerrin doing Sample Experiences: together in this improvisation? LEVEL I • How was the Voice/Dance Improvisation a form of * • Use a selection of simple instruments to represent five playing and what made it different from playing? to seven different sounds; e.g. cymbal, drum, triangle, • Can you show any of the movements you shaker, sand blocks, recorder. Play each separately and remember from the video? have students respond in movement to its quality. • How did the sounds affect the types of dance • Select a group of five to seven sound ideas which movements which Tandy chose? How did her dance might include sighing, humming, roaring, sneezing, movements affect Bobby’s sound choices? shushing, sinking, rising, falling, popping, etc. Do an • Discuss how the length of the sound or motion, improvisation based on these sounds using both sound the rhythm, dynamics and energy affected the piece. and movement together. • Name all the ways you can communicate without • Experiment with different phonetic sounds, using speaking in words. Demonstrate each way. the letters of the alphabet. Vary the rhythm, tempo, • Can you communicate to someone right now dynamics and duration of each letter sound, playing using only vocal sounds, body percussion and with different possibilities. Make each idea into a sound movement? Experiment and then share ideas. pattern which can be repeated. Improvise different Multidisciplinary Options: movements which go with these patterns. String several • Selectively record sounds - children jumping rope, patterns together. Record it. LEVEL II video games, a sports event, people working with • Have a conversation with a partner using a variety of machines, etc. Use this recording to motivate a sounds instead of words. Repeat the conversation idea, writing assignment that uses the sounds to trigger using both movement and sound ideas simultaneously. emotions and thoughts which develop into a story. * • Use the Artsource® audio recording, Sound Phrases, to • Discuss other situations when people improvise to motivate movement improvisations. Have students solve problems or create something (scientists, listen to the quality, rhythm and duration, responding design teams, sports players, etc.). In teams, brainstorm in movement after the musical idea is heard. deas to create an ad promoting something worthwhile. • Play a recording of one of Bobby McFerrin’s voice Audio-Visual Materials: improvisations, e.g. Spontaneous Inventions. In small ® • Artsource video excerpt: Voice/Dance, courtesy of groups, work with it to create a dance movement idea, Tandy Beal, Bobby McFerrin, KQED, San Francisco using the concept of entrances, frozen poses and exits. and the American Federation of Television and LEVEL III Radio Artists (AFTRA). * • Select an environmental theme, such as jungle, sea, • Photos: courtesy of Tandy Beal. magical forest, cave, outer space, etc. and create a sound • Artsource® audio recording of a variety of short score using a combination of vocal and instrumental Sound Phrases composed by Paul Tracey. sounds. Create a clear beginning, middle and ending Additional References: and then record the idea. Improvise or choreograph a • Spontaneous Inventions: Bobby McFerrin. Compact dance to this sound environment. Disk, Blue Note Classics (Columbia Records, Inc.) 1989. • Working in groups of three or four, take turns having • Spolin, Viola. Improvisation for the Theater. one person create rhythmic vocal sounds to which the Northwestern University Press, Evanston, IL: 1999. others improvise. • Teaching Beginning Dance Improvisation. • Create a Voice/Dance duet in which one of the Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company. partners responds in sound and the other responds in www.ririewoodbury.com/education/resources. movement. Reverse roles to experience both parts. 2 * Indicates sample lessons DANCE SOUND AND MOVEMENT CODES TRANSFORMATION LEVEL I Sample Lesson INTRODUCTION: In many cultures music and dance are perceived as two parts of a whole. Some people find it difficult to think of dance without musical accompaniment. Music and sound are often the inspiration for the creation of a dance. This lesson will focus on the distinctively different tonal qualities (timbres) in musical instruments. These differences will be perceived by listening and then by expressing the differences through movement. Both music and dance share the element of quality. This element provides possibilities for creating and experiencing different feelings, textures and energies. OBJECTIVES: (Student Outcomes) Students will be able to: • Experience the element of quality (timbre) in both musical sound and in dance movement. (Artistic Perception) • Create movement responses to a variety of sound qualities. (Creative Expression) Bobby McFerrin & Tandy Beal • Describe, discuss, analyze and connect information and Photo: Marty Sohl experiences based on this lesson. Refer to Assessment at the end of this lesson. (Aesthetic Valuing) MATERIALS: • Artsource® video excerpt of Voice/Dance with Tandy Beal and Bobby McFerrin. • A small variety of instruments which might include: a drum, shaker, triangle, cymbal, wood block, flute or recorder, autoharp and any type of stringed instrument. PROGRESSION: • Have the students close their eyes and listen to sounds in the environment. After about a minute, ask them to describe what they heard. List the sounds on the board and discuss what makes each of them different. 3 • All sounds, whether made on musical instruments, or by objects in the environment, have several things in common. They last for a certain length of time (duration), have degrees of loudness and softness (dynamics), have a pitch (high or low) and have an energy quality (sharp, smooth, vibrating, combination). In this lesson, rhythm will be dealt with only incidentally. • Play each instrument and ask the students to show its energy quality in movement. If seated, they can use