Sample Dance Response Paper

I attended DanceScapes ’18 on Monday, March 19th, 2018 at the UWW Barnett Theatre. There were nine dances performed and all were choreographed by current and former UWW students and instructors, as well as one special guest choreographer, Joe Chvala. For the purpose of this response paper, I will be focusing on dances #3 (;) and #7 (R.E.M.). DANCE #3: The uniquely-named ; was choreographed by Anna D’Alessandro, a current UWW dance minor. This was her first choreographed piece to debut on the UWW stage. The music used during the piece was called Sleeping At Last by Arctic, which was edited by Eric Guenthner. This piece of music is rather slow and delicate-sounding, though the tempo does become more intense midway. Many of the movements incorporated into this dance were therefore rather slow and repetitive movements to match the music’s tempo and pacing. Several of these techniques utilized in this choreography were also reminiscent of movements

The music used for this piece was excerpts from Mr. Sandman by the Chordettes, edited by Eric Guenthner. Mr. Sandman is a rather bouncy, fifties-style piece of music, however, it was cut up to be just little short bursts of the song playing with complete silence between the bits. It reminded me of the sound of a radio station struggling to play through static when there’s just barely enough signal to come in. This effect gave the overall performance a sort of “Twilight Zone” feel, which works with the idea of R.E.M. sleep. Since many of the movements in the choreography were focused on the manipulation of the blankets that each of the dancers carried with them, there were not an outstanding number of notable movements that matched ones we have learned in class. However, there were various variations of head and upper body rolls, as well as full roll-ups and downs that I noticed throughout the