Dance Techniques 2010

42
Concept and Ideology
Maren Witte
Concept and Ideology
Imagining the Body
In Alan Danielson’s classes, the body is considered to be
the instrument that allows a human being to practice the
art form of dance. The body, and everything this term
encompasses, is, for Danielson, the sum of who we are
as humans: creatures, energy, spirit, thinking, and consciousness.
The body, here, is the physical manifestation
of consciousness and spirit. Body and mind are the same;
both are human forms of expression—simply on a different
plane. And according to Danielson, such a holistic
approach to the body is apparent in all historical stages
of development in the Humphrey / Limón Technique: from
the beginnings with Humphrey, in the further development
by Limón, in Danielson’s own style, and in the work
of younger generations. The principles remain the same;
only the experiences made by our consciousness and our
physical bodies have changed over time. Danielson says
that we have become increasingly interested in the self and
that we now concentrate more intently on exploring what
this ‘self’ can be. Doris Humphrey and José Limón were
both members of an artistic community that Danielson
claims defined an individual’s identity based upon their
relationship to the environment—i.e., by their peers
and the surroundings in which they lived and worked.
Danielson believes that this way of thinking, this fundamental
approach to life and work, was more common
then than today. He also notes that the world moved more
slowly at that time and that our sense of speed is different.
Danielson believes that the body image manifested in
the Humphrey / Limón teachings is the “unique, aware
body” (Humphrey’s words). This implies that each body
is unique in the sense that every person is different—everyone
breathes differently, everyone has a different body
weight, and everyone takes up a different amount of space.
The training also aims for dancers to become as articulated
and precise as possible; the ideal approach is therefore
to strive for precision and awareness, or, as Danielson
puts it, to work on maximizing one’s individual, physical
intelligence.
Danielson explains the relationship between the body’s
appearance and the body as an instrument as follows: The
body’s physicality and shape derive from a specific energy.
For him, shape evolves from a particular use of energy.
The body is therefore a physical manifestation of this
energy—a physical instrument that expresses energy and
psyche (our conscious and unconscious selves).
There is little difference in the training for men and
women in Humphrey / Limón Technique, at least as far
as Danielson is concerned. Both genders learn all movements
equally. Women can dance as powerfully and vigorously
as men, and men can move as cleanly and poetically
as women. Despite this, Danielson stresses that his
training is not gender–neutral, as all bodies are different.
Size, strength, and weight are some factors that influence
the gender issue. Some solos in the Limón repertoire, for
example in Chaconne, 7 are physically quite demanding
and in Limón’s lifetime were only danced by men. Nowadays,
the Limón Dance Company is made up of an equal
number of men and women and these roles are danced
by both sexes—even though the dancers often claim, as
before, that these choreographies are particularly manly.
Danielson creates a relationship to the space in his
classes, as he sees this relationship as one of the fundamental
parameters of personhood: People are always in
a space, and they are always in contact with their environment.
Danielson is happy to paraphrase Limón in this
respect: “You never dance alone. Even in a solo, it is always
in a relationship with the space, with gravity, with
the space around you.”
Alongside the relationship to the space, there is another,
possibly more fundamental, relationship in Danielson’s
technique training—namely, the one to music. The
importance of music may stem from the fact that Danielson
is himself, as mentioned above, a trained musician.
Music and musicality were dominant features in Danielson’s
classes in Dresden. Every now and then, he would
sit at the piano and demonstrate to both the pianist and
students how a melody or a rhythm should sound, thus
emphasizing and illustrating the exact quality desired
from the movement. The musicians who accompanied the
classes mostly did so on piano, although some of them
also played percussion instruments every now and again.
Danielson says that music’s role in class is to support
the movement tasks. From time to time the music presents
a certain quality, for example something desired in the
movement, and, by hearing this quality in the music, dancers
can get a perception, an idea, a picture of how the
7 Choreography by José Limón, 1942.
8 This emphasis on ‘everydayness’ and
‘normality’ came up at other times as we
discussed the external characteristics that
distinguish his Limón students in New York:
“They look like I do: casually dressed, everyday,
just normal.” One has to understand
Danielson’s perspective in order to consider
what is meant by ‘normal’ and ‘everyday’. One
observer, like myself, socialized in a different
cultural, professional, and dance environment,
found the movement aesthetic in his
training anything but ‘everyday’, and his way
of dressing not at all ‘careless’, and cannot
imagine a valid definition of ‘normal’. As a
spectator, the underlying muscle tonus in
the Humphrey / Limón Technique appears to
be very high: In comparison to the Release
Technique, for example, the movements seem
to be linked and controlled, and the overall
impression is less ‘neutral’ than in the Release
Technique or Contact Improvisation.