The Opening Dance In Igor Stravinsky's Rite Of Spring

Being an active viewer while watching a performance allows yourself to understand the meaning behind different aspects of the performance in your own interpretations of the choreographers message. While watching Igor Stravinsky’s piece titled Rite of Spring, the opening dance resembles the theme of The Scarlett Letter novel. During the dance, I saw some movements and space recognition that represented a burden of this “letter” an individual dancer with corresponding a with the other dancers in the piece who symbolized a society. The “letter” in the novel was a woman who had a child out of wedlock with the society around her being angry with her action. This was a burden upon the women because this aspect wasn’t appropriate to others in 1850’s when the novel

We can find a common theme to be discussed however, how did their body shapes contribute to the story? Each dancer showed aspects of circular body structures while performing their movements. For example, this was conducted in a group who all used arm movements and contracting their upper bodies in a semi-circle motion. The body also mimics the increasing music tempo. Such instances include fast piqués and running. These movements always corresponded with the music tempo that increased the dancers cardiovascular performance during these instances. Also, all these dancers jumped and ran to travel across the stage. During these transitions, the body tight in form and a stern expression on the dancers faces were seen. This showcased the anger of this burden that conveys the Scarlett Letter theme. The dance also had elements of ballet structures and movements. For example, the dancers used piqués to travel and were in first position with contracting their upper body. The body used elements of ballet and modern styles that made the dance unique and showed this combination of these styles to convey the dances