About : What we dancers and dance makers can learn from musical score?
The main part of this seminar was about how we as a dancer and dance maker listen to music/sound. There are many different systems of musical notation varied between time spans, cultures and places. Over years observing dance students from almost all over the world communicating to each other using English, I had the idea that if the Western music notation system can also be served as a common language as they use the English.
In this course we open music scores with the perspective of Western notation, to gain basic tools to listen to the music around the world.
The seminar offers a crush-course Staff (uk. Stave, de. Liniensystem = music notation) practices of listening, vocalisation (singing) and practices of movement/dance in improvisation.
There must be many culture doesn’t use the western system, or their tonality or rhythm sometimes go beyond the Western system.
While learning musical signatures (e.g. Time signatures 4/4, 6/8, 5/4 etc.) or symbols ( notes, rests, Dal-Segno, Coda, etc. ) , we have improvised in space to examine if those visual information of music utilisable and/or convertible into dance.
It was wonderful to see how the basic music theory can help dancers to recognize and understand the differences of their music culture.
I thank you for the students and the former and current team Danceworks.
Winter Semester 2023
Music seminar at Danceworks Berlin
Date : February 10. – 24. 2023 (15hours + exam)
15 hours + Exam
Day 1. Voice exercises + Introduction Staff/Stave (music notation)
Day 2. Crush-course Staff/Stave | Notes & Rests, Repeat-signs
visualise the sound and its resonance in space.
Day 3. Improvisation with Nico Lippolis + Crush-course Staff/Stave – Music Symbols
Day 4 Crush-course Staff/Stave | Interval and Scale, review + Improvisation
Day 5. Final practices |
Sound bathing with Voice
Improvisation with : poetry, music with various time-signatures,
emotion/tempo/rhythm
Day 6. Paper exam : the basic music notation.