Madison Pitcher

Intro to Jazz Dance

April 18, 2016
The Forces of SLCC Dance Company
Dance is a destresser after my father died I turned to dance and it helped. This
memorable quote came from one of the performances that I saw called Why We Dance. Dance
has always had a huge impact on my life, but this just defies how important dance truly is. The
Why We Dance performance took place in the SLCC Dance Company Concert called Forces at
South City Salt Lake Community College campus. The day that I saw it was on April 16th at 7:30
p.m. Each routine had its own unique story which expressed different feelings or emotions. I will
describe two routines that I saw which are Why We Dance and Anti-Gravity during the concert.
The first performance I would like to describe is called Why We Dance who was
choreographed and danced by Braidie Gilbert. One particular element that was special to this
performance was the use of music and words. While the soloist performed there was a subtle
melody mixed with a video in the background of dancers describing why they danced. The
soloists movements were soothing and delicate with some quick and sharp movements to match
the slow rhythm.
Her movements were lengthy, filling every inch of space as she moved back and forth
across the stage. I would like to relate this movement to the wind and how it twirls and whips
around its self but yet it is easygoing as it gets to its destination. Even though it wasnt a group

routine the soloist used her space, energy, and powerful movements to make an impression to the
audience.
Mostly the meaning of the dance comes from the name Why We Dance and the prop the
soloist used which were the words of the dancers. The soloist used the stories and mimicked the
words into her movement representing their struggles, happiness, relief, grief, confidence, and
strength. One main story that characterizes each element of the dance is, throughout lifes toils
dance is there to take you in and create a setting in which you can express yourself. This was
expressed as the dancer showed times where she was stressed and helpless by holding her head
and lowering to the ground, but was relentless when she twirled around and elongated her body
to show the motivation deep inside.
The second performance that I would like to analyze is called Ani-Gravity choreographed
by Tess Boone with the dancers. Some features of the routine were the use of big balloons and
the colored lights. Their movements were light and airy as they lengthened their arms and made
little jumps. The melody was slow and steady allowing the dancers to complete each stretch. The
movement they made reminded me of a balloon floating up into space and it how sways back
and forth as it slowly makes its way to the blue sky.
The props they used, mainly the clear balloons, had a huge impact on how the dance was
perceived. Some key features of the routine was the way in which the dancers would push the
clear balloon upwards, how the balloon would slowly make its way back to the dance waiting
dancers, how they push their balloon to the next person, and how each movement was to
emphasize the prop. Since, the movement was more lyrical than jazzy, their energy wasnt as
prevalent.

The meaning of the routine Anit-Gravity is overall the feeling of buoyancy. I would like
to describe my own interpretation in which the balloon represents happiness. I would like to add
that the colored lighting showed through the clear balloon resulting in a happy glow. Each dancer
did the best to hold on to their balloons and when they did let it go they waited patiently for it to
come back to them. This signifies that happiness is not always prevalent but when it comes you
dont want to let it go. However, there were many times when the dancers released the balloon to
another person this interpretation would be that the feeling of joy can be passed around and it
takes friends and family to create such a feeling.
In conclusion each routine in the concert had its own feeling attached to its movements
including the two that I described. However, there was some routines I found a little confusing to
the concert as a whole in which the emotion wasnt as obvious. Still however, each performance
expressed an interesting characteristic of their emotion, and each one added to the theme of the
concert called Forces. Overall from the class, Intro to Jazz, I learned how dance can shape our
perceptive of how we can express our selfs without using communication. However the most
important piece of information I gained from this class was how jazz dance developed and how it
has become an important part in our society today.