Friday, 14 April 2017

Dance and Rhythm

                    Rhythmand danceare deeply linked in history and practice. The American dancerTed Shawnwrote;"The conception of rhythm which underlies all studies of the dance is something about which we could talk forever, and still not finish."[13]A musical rhythm requires two main elements; first, a regularly-repeatingpulse(also called the "beat" or "tactus") that establishes thetempoand, second, a pattern ofaccentsandreststhat establishes the character of themetre or basic rhythmic pattern. The basic pulse is roughly equal in duration to a simple step or gesture.

                    Just as musical rhythms are defined by a pattern of strong and weak beats, so repetitive body movements often depends on alternating "strong" and "weak" muscular movements.[15]Given thisalternation of left-right, of forward-backward and rise-fall, along with thebilateral symmetryof thehuman body, it is natural that many dances and much music are induple and quadruple meter. However, since some such movements require more time in one phase than the other - such as the longer time required to lift a hammer than to strike - some dance rhythms fall equally naturally intotriple metre.[16]Occasionally, as inthe folk dances of the Balkans, dance traditions depend heavilyon more complex rhythms. Further, complex dances composed of a fixed sequence of steps always require phrases and melodies of a certain fixed length to accompany that sequence.

                             The very act of dancing, the steps themselves, generate an "initial skeleton of rhythmic beats" that must have preceded any separate musical accompaniment, while dance itself, as much as music, requires time-keeping[17]just as utilitarian repetitive movements such as walking, hauling and digging take on, as they become refined, something of the quality of dance

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