Visualising music through dance
I am going to investigate visualising music through dance, i have chosen to use a dance piece choreographed by Koharu Sugawara to the song “Elastic Heart” by Sia. this type of dance style is a lyrical dance style where the movements of the dance go to the beat by also reinterpret some of the lyrics of the song. Watching the dance there are moments where the movement are slower where the melody of the song goes softer because the vocals are more prominant, and more firm quicker movement where the beat comes in more making it a dramatic performance.
There are some arm and hand gestures to visualise the lyrics like when the chorus comes in. Arm and hand gestures are common when it comes to lyrical dance choreography and almost becomes acting with dance similar to contemporary dance styles where the music is amplified through whole body and body language of a contemporary dancer. This is where street dance and contemporary combine especially with a mixed song like this, where the beat and lyrics both play a big part.
Using hand gestures is almost like using sign language trying to find the easiest way to visualise a phrase or lyric so people will understand the gesture even if they can’t here the words. Common used gesture is pointing to someone or something because even without words you visually understand that someone is either being assertive pointing at someone, or direction. Another gesture is putting your hand on your heart meaning feeling sincere about something. Even when counting down using your fingers at numbers, they are basic gestures that are implanted in our brain from the start as we learn visual language.
Sia song quote "Thick skin, Elastic Heart"
Because of these certain hand gestures I’m going to use the backing track by itself with the lyrical dance and see of the movement still give a strong visualisation of the lyrics and suggests what is being said.
Sia song quote "And another one bites the dust"
From seeing this outcome its easy to say the movement go along to the beat, however there are only a few hand gestures that i know and can pick out from the song lyrics but the emotion of the dance movement still suggest a heart felt performance. Also because of the slow movement that were meant purposely for the lyrics, makes it stand out a lot.
Going back to the original video but reversing the clip so the dance would be in reverse. From this I can see that some of the movement still hit the beat of the music and looks mesmerising in reverse however the arm and hand movements start at different times of the song, still giving it a dramatic feel but the gestures are at the wrong time to look like a lyrical dance and doesn’t visualise the words of the song.
Here i have used a video i took of my friend dancing and placed it over the original dance video. but because he isn’t dancing to the same song the movement don’t go to the song and at times off beat. However with the song playing it does make it more dramatic looking, but off beat at times.
^Friend dancing in reverse^
I used the original dance footage but put it too a completely different song without lyrics and tried to time it with the choreography. Seeing the outcome i have noticed that the dance stays in time with the song which has more of a jazzy drum beat to it not knowing if the tempo of the jazz song matches the same tempo as Sia “Elastic heart”.
To conclude this experiment i have learned to visualise music through dance, you have to have a good understanding of the song itself especially if its a lyrical song that has a strong beat behind it. On the other hand seeing the dance in different situations without the same song behind it, i can see that as long as the song has a strong tempo and basic rhythm the dance movement will always match up with certain parts of a different song. Gesture wise you can't dance lyrically to a song that doesn't have lyrics to it because then you are not dancing to the song lyrics and are not using gestures that visualise moments of the song captured in a dance form.
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