Dance Techniques 2010

36 Introduction
Maren Witte
Introduction
“Start standing. One–two–three, let the head drop, release your neck.” Training
has begun. Alan Danielson goes through the exercise once to establish
rhythm and tempo. He brings in the piano accompaniment as students repeat
the movement. Music and dance come together and fill the space with
a soft, flexible dynamic. “Melt and curve. We are allowing gravity to affect
our body.”
Focusing on Doris Humphrey’s ideas and principles, Danielson teaches a
movement–oriented technique that works with breath, weight, tension and
relaxation, opposition and succession, dynamics and rhythm, movement initiation,
and space. 1 Of note in Danielson’s interpretation of the work is his
strong focus on the pelvis as the center of the body and initiator of movement.
Professor Alan Danielson, director of the Limón School in New York, was
invited to teach a group of students at the Palucca Schule on fifteen mornings
from 23 November 2009–16 January 2010. The Humphrey / Limón Technique
is named after its two founders, Doris Humphrey and José Limón.
Alan Danielson’s teaching transfers this knowledge, and its innovative quality,
to the next generation of dancers, while, at the same time, he continues
to investigate these principles in his own work. The Palucca group consisted
of students in the final years of the dance degree program (BA), former students,
graduates of the teacher–training degree program, an MA student, and
an external dance professor and former dancer. Since the 1980s, experts in
the Humphrey / Limón Technique have regularly been invited to teach at the
Palucca Schule, ensuring good conditions for analyzing this technique inside
an educational system.
1 For a full description of basic principles, see
Understanding of the Body / Movement.