Tuesday, 19 May, 2009| | Share on Facebook
Repertoire...
I've always thought that learning rep for dancers is like reading a script for actors.
Its something already made, with clear parameters. Some authors allow artistic interpretation but I think its fair to say that most don't.
Repertoire, is quite a conservative word.
Well it has to be! In order to learn it the piece/script must have already been shown/read, to some critical acclaim (otherwise, why do it again?). With either a video or someone who's already experienced it for teaching purposes. So its probably been around a while.
However when performing actors have an advantage we dancers do not. I'm not in anyway undermining the talent/skill of an actor but actors spend a long time training to perform something that is not happening.
When a script is read, its not actually happening on stage. They are not in a living room or on the street or in 18th century Russia. Their skill is making us believe that what their saying is happening, right now, in front of us (when in actual fact its not). Which I guess leaves room for interpretation. Depending on the strictness of the director can be interpreted through set,movement,voice etc
As dancers we dont have this luxury of interpretation. Because what we're doing is happening, right now, in the moment, with our body's. We cant change the rep, change the setting, the way the movement is done, the music or mood of scene...because then it would not be rep. Although dance evolved from pedestrian movements its now very much a theater based art. Some dance tries to comment on real life but struggles because of the very nature of dance...
Its an exaggeration of everyday movement, it wouldn't actually happen like this in real life. Dance never had its realism faze like acting did. We can't try and replicate real life through dance, that's how musicales happen, and no one wants that
So I guess rep is the closest we get to realism, to try and make it seem like the performance is as real and close as in can be to the original.
