ELEMENTS OF DANCE

body action space

Time energy
The elements of dance are part of the
foundational concepts that dancers understand
and practice, and they provide a way of framing
and talking about movement in any type of
dance. While different dance styles call for
specialized skills and stylization choices, the
under lying elements of dance body, action,
space, time, and energy Are visible in all dance
experiences.
The art of dance takes place in and through the
human body. In dance, the body is the mobile
figure or shape, felt by the dancer, seen by
others. The body is sometimes relatively still
and sometimes changing as the dancer moves in
place or travels through the dance area. Dancers
may emphasize specific parts of their body in a
dance phrase or their whole body.
Action is any human movement included in the act of dancing.
It can include dance steps, facial movements, lifts, carries, and
catches, and even everyday movements such as walking.
Dancers may choose movement that has been done before, or
they may add their own original movements to the existing
dance movement vocabulary. Dancers may also revise or
embellish movement they have learned from others. Dance is
made up of streams of movement and pauses, so action refers
not only to steps and sequences, but also to pauses and
moments of relative stillness.
Dancers interact with space in a myriad
of ways. They may stay in one place
and move parts of their body or their
whole body, or they may travel from
one place to another. They may alter the
direction, level, size ,and pathways of
their movements.
Human movement is naturally rhythmic in the broad sense that we
alternate activity and rest. Breath and waves are examples of
rhythms in nature that repeat, but not as consistently as in a
metered rhythm. Spoken word and conversation have rhythm and
dynamics, but the patterns are characteristically more in
consistent and unpredictable. Time may also be organized in other
ways including clock time, sensed time, and event-sequence.
Dancers may take sight cues from each other to start the next
phrase or use a shared awareness of sensed time to end a dance.
They may even take cues from an event such as a train whistle
during an outdoor dance performance. The inherent rhythms in
our movement and our aural landscape are a rich source of
variation in dance.
Energy is about how movement happens
it refers to the dynamics of an action and can
mean both the physical and psychic energy that
drives and characterizes movement.

Energy is not a single dimension. IT HAS 3

DIMENSIONS
Height
Width
depth