Key stylistic features of contemporary dance

Positions of the feet:

Pointed:

Having pointed toes will  support your technique. When your feet are fully engaged, it further engages the muscles in your legs, providing greater stability and control. However this is not always the case as contemporary dance is not meant to be just pretty like ballet instead its meant to be different and just expressing yourself.

Flexed

Another position your feet will be is flexed, this is heavily contrasted with ballet because ballet is meant to be beautiful with perfect alignment where as for contemporary is heavily involved in feeling the music giving it an entire different look

Parallel

The last position is having your feet in parallel in other words neutral, this is mainly used for waiting for queues and your time to start dancing or to keep straight alignment so you can be technically accurate whilst dancing with perfect shape.

Breath to initiate movement? 

In this video you will see a women doing an improvisation of dance, things to take from the video is the use of a key feature in contemporary dance which was originally created by Martha Graham. Breathe is the way in which she initiates movement, which allows the dancer to flow into different movements with great fluency.

Personally i feel my ability to use breathe to initiate movement is slowly getting better. I struggle to do this as i am just so focused on getting the dance correct but when i know the material i feel like the musicality takes over allowing me to take that breathe to initiate that initial movement, i feel i will hopefully improve this overtime as I'm getting more confident in dance, which should allow me to be more comfortable to just go for it and really concentrate on using this in the near future.

Ways the spine move?

In this video you can see a women doing a spine dance, we are not so focused on the dance in this performance rather the range of ways the spine can move specifically the use of twists, curves and even tilts which are all key features in contemporary dance.

 

I feel as if my ability can definitely improve. This is definitely one of the most difficult techniques for me .Over the course of time i am sure that this will gradually improve as im getting more confident whilst dancing 

Use of centre core and contractions

In this video you will see a women going over stretches, what we want to take from this is the use of her centre core and her contractions as this is key features you will see in contemporary dance. Although this is just an exercise dancers use contractions to convey emotions (like built up anger)

My ability to contract and utilize my centre core could use some improvement i am a little more confident in this are then others however sometimes i struggle with this as i am too focused on the movement then rather feeling the music from which these contractions come from and am sure to see improvement in the near future.

Relationship to gravity

In this video you will see a group of dancers doing floor work as part of their warm up. This is all linked to the relationship of gravity, although this also needs core work as well gravity helps keep the dancer grounded as well as allowing the dancer  to travel in curved motions

Personally i feel that i don't often struggle to achieve the floor work which links to the relationship of gravity but i do feel like my actual shape is what i struggle with more, i am hoping to improve this so i can go into different movements with great fluency.