Session W1-1
Location: Room L306
Time: 12/26 11:00-12:30
Moderator: Ra-Yuan Tseng
W1-1-1
Quality life for the elderly: A Bartenieff Fundamentals Duet
Presenter : Ra-Yuan Tseng
Abstract
Aging is an irreversible process. How to maintain a quality life for the elderly is an important issue for society and also for those obligated to take care of the elderly at home. I strongly believe that if the elderly can move as freely as possible, they can enjoy a good quality life.
For this reason, I would like to create a duet on the chair based on Bartenieff Fundamentals for my mother and her caregiver. During the process, I integrated four themes and nine principles of Bartenieff Fundamentals (BF) and the Scales from the Space Harmony to create a series of movement practices. I would like to apply an action research to develop this project. Data was collected from video clips, journals, photos, and in-depth interviews.
From the cycle of planning, acting, observing, and reflecting, I seek to select the most suitable movement practices in the duet. From sharing this experience of duet, I hope that this can be a new model for creating movement practices for the elderly in the future.
W1-1-2
Being There, in the Moment: A Practice-Led Investigation of the Possibilities of Performer Experience in Singapore’s Contemporary Dance Field of Practice
Presenter: Peter GN
Abstract
Debates on the fundamental nature of a dancer’s presence have been at the heart of dance practice and theory since the late 1950s. Yet does having presence mean stage presence, acting, charisma, or is presence just another buzzword on the fringes of the dance scene? Through adopting an open and phenomenological stance and heuristic approach (Moustakas, 2001), my practice-led research seeks to understand, in the context of contemporary dance in Singapore, the phenomenon of presence as “always complicated and layered, a thing of degrees” (Etchells, 1999, p.97). Yet this study is not conceptually based on a particular notion of presence. Rather, presence as a notion or experiential phenomenon is used as a springboard or conduit for investigating, exploring and understanding the complexities of contemporary dance performance and facets related to artful, embodied practice. This is done through the development and presentation of a new choreographic work complemented by a dissertation. As reflective practitioner engaged in artistic process and creative research, I explore and interpret the experience (Moustakas, 2001) of the dancers in terms of what they deem to be of significance when deeply immersed in dancing.
W1-1-3
Fitting in: Research and Pedagogy of Dance as a Tool of Education within a University Space and Beyond
Presenter : Deepshikha Ghosh
Abstract
I propose to look at dance not merely as another form of entertainment enhancing the pleasure of mind, but as a seminal vehicle for the dissemination of art and education within a university space and beyond. I am a research scholar in a central university researching on dance. As part of my study though I will take another university, my previous university, Santiniketan, as an experimental space for Rabindranath Tagore’s larger visions of using dance as an intellectually stimulant as well as a physically challenging activity thus proving that dance as art form and the teaching of dance as a means of meeting personality needs could be carried on simultaneously.[1] I will not only investigate how these creative experiments aimed at bridging the gap between the mind and the body and the verbal and the nonverbal, but traversing or navigating through different university spaces I will also search for dance’s identity within the context of the cultural- pedagogical agenda seeking to consolidate the learning- teaching process.
When the entire history of the nation is being re-written by the new government policies and the New Education Policy 2020 fleetingly mentions the importance of dance among the other subjects of the so called multidisciplinary university curriculum and “education as means for character and nation building”[2] it is even more necessary to explore how and why did Tagore as early as in 1901 place so much importance on free bodily movements as a part of this entire process of complete being as well as an integral part of holistic education he aimed at in his university space? How does dance become a means for student development and not an end in itself?[3] What role does dance play as a tool of education within university spaces? As a researcher and a practitioner of dance I will further question its feasibility within this new normal system of online education during pandemic?
[1] Alden, Florence. (1939). “The Administrator Looks at the Dance.” Journal of Health and Physical Education, X: 517.
