Aaron Copeland How We Listen

“ The painting should be an original, not a reproduction, and we should start with the advantage of liking it, even if only a little. What would we find?” (9) is a quote from “Art Objects” by Jeanette Winterson in which introduces concepts based on the relationship between the arts and people. There are three different planes, taken from Aaron Copeland’s “How We Listen,” although he focuses on the musical aspect of art, it can apply to dance and how to look past ones sensuous or expressive ideas and focus on the dance event: body/performer, movement (specifically shape, space, phrasing, dynamics, rhythm, and style), sound, and space. Focusing on the dance event Cinderella by the San Francisco Ballet with composer Sergei Prokofiev and choreographer

Comparing the first scene to the third, Cinderella came out as a child with indirect focus (to portray a young curious child) and not a lot of dancing, but her actions in movement was in small in her kinesphere, light weight, with some sustained movement and with directional shape to keep the story line of Cinderella losing her mother. Grown up Cinderella then takes the space, leading up to scene three “The Grave,” which in a similar way was indirect focus (immaturity), light weight, carving with twists and spiraling (tantrum movement), with moments of fast movement juxtaposed with slow flowing movement following the music and story line of Cinderella being a slave to her stepmother and sisters. Cinderella herself was obviously a well trained dancer in classical ballet, not necessarily doing classical but modern ballet, with her physical body portraying years of training, coexisting with ‘young Cinderella’ a young ballet dancer with little training. Movement of the dancers and sound of the orchestra were overall integrated, with little coexistence in silence, but the sound of the ballet shoes added a different sound effect. Overall, the sound-space, movement-space, performer-space connections were all integrated due to the specific story line Sergei Prokofiev and choreographer Christopher Wheeldon were trying to

In this scene there are a lot of dancers on staged, different from the first when at max was five dancers in the space, now there were more than ten in different costumes and each representing a different spirit. The mood was slightly unsettling due to the sound having an eerie effect, and the dancers movements in a large kinesphere with carving and directional shape, structured ballet, the dynamics was mostly fast movement with some bound movement juxtaposed with free flows and light weight (dancers were en pointe), the music was eerie giving a style of the Grim Brothers version of Cinderella, but this was co existing with the strong technique of ballet. Each section of the spirit did not relate in movement, but contributed to the overall story and the performers were all visible trained in classical ballet, similar to the third scene, and their movement integrated well with their bodies. Looking at a specific phrase, there was a preparation in which the dancers quickly paused in four position plié, and initiated to rise up their leg to passé to pick up momentum to turn, which was the main action, following through dropping their leg into a plié in fifth position and transitioning into a pas de bourrée. There was a