The Cave Dance Analysis

“The Cave," a modern, lyrical dance filled with beautiful lighting, astonishing choreography, and amazing movement was directed by Estee Carrizosa and performed on December 6, 2017, in the Artist theater by students in dance 2, 3, and company. Iris Swell, the choreographer of “The Cave,” is a company dancer in the Laguna Beach High School Dance Program. Swell created the dance to the song The Cave by Mumford & Sons and was inspired to create this dance from her grandma and her sisters’ individuality. She used lighting, music, energy, movement, and costumes to create a dance that portrays support, individuality, uniqueness, freedom, and nature.

The lighting created an image to the audience's eyes that made it seem like the dancers were in a

This song supports her achievement of support, freedom, uniqueness, and nature through its lyrics and instruments. The song has a broad use of unique instruments like a banjo and other creative sounds. The lyrics itself talk about support of one another, Mumford and Sons say in the song“I will hold on hope, and I won't let you choke, On the noose around your neck, And I'll find strength in pain, And I will change my ways,” Mumford & Sons is saying through this lyrics that he will find the strength to support someone. Their lyrics also involve a lot of nature and scenery which influences the audience to picture the dancers in a forest.

Costume design was not a large role in Swells dance but, she carefully chose items of clothing that would be easy for the girls to dance in, complement their figures, not distract from the audience, and go with the energy of the dance. For the shirt Iris chose a simple white tank top, that was easy and comfortable for the girls to dance in. For the bottom, she chose a pair of pinkish-orange flowy shorts, which looks extremely simple not to distract the audience of the meaning behind the dance. Swell created a natural look for her costumes to support the nature and freedom of the

She created dance moves that were very fluid and natural to go in with the theme of nature and its beauty. At one point in the dance, she has the dances crouch down in a stair-like position and has another dancer run across their backs with another dancer holding their hand to keep them from falling. This creates the illusion of freedom but, it also shows how the dancer needed the other dancers for support and stability. This part of the dance also fell into swells theme of nature. The dancer scurrying across their backs seemed like a bird, this was shown throughout the dance with the lifts and supports Swell used. Swell dance as well shows individuality throughout the dancers. She has each of the dancers doing their movement that comes naturally to them but fit it in, so it flows with the other dancer's movement as well. Swell created smooth and seemingly effortless dance moves that fit with her theme of nature, support, freedom, and uniqueness to help the dance come