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December 4, 2007

The Three Rs

When working with students (and my company, for that matter) I try and work on a number of different levels - intuitive, intellectual, kinesthetic, etc... At times I am intentionally vague, other times I try and be very direct. When building their composition skills I usually try and be on the direct side of things. One of these skills that I introduce (and recently introduced to my university class) is what I call "The 3 Rs", or repeat, repetition and reoccurrence. I first use The 3 Rs in relation to movement vocabulary, or picking up and passing specific movements or phrases back and forth among the dancers. Specifically, The 3 Rs are:
       • Repeat: directly repeating something you see or sense someone else do. This could be a turn, lifting a leg, or any specific movement repeated directly or soon after another person.
       • Repetition: doing a movement or sequence a number of times in a row. This could be your own movement or someone else's movement, but it is repeated a multiple of times.
       • Reoccurrence: returning to a movement that was performed earlier in the dance. This could be your own movement, someone else's movement, or repetitive movement.

Having this type of simple strategy gives the dancers a tool for connecting, paying attention to one another, building a coherent structure and creating a vocabulary for the current dance. I wish I had alittle video to add to this post, but I don't right now....

Posted by Daniel Burkholder on December 4, 2007 10:26 PM


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1Comments

Boris Willis said:

I like it. Easy to understand and use.

Added: December 5, 2007 8:17 PM | Permalink

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