Northern Ballets, Midsummers Nights Dream Rehearsal.
I feel this short youtube clip of this rehearsal is what every dancer in ever performance should have: to know the intention of what they are trying to portray through movement.
This clip shows this perfectly, letting the dancers talk through the movements so their bodies and facial expressions can feel how they should be reacting, so when it comes to doing it with no words and to the wonderful music, their bodies remember what the intention is of that particular piece.
In dance its the dancers job to get feelings and story lines across to the audience with no words, but by having words in your mind as a dancer while doing the movement the story will start to form through the body. We don’t expect the audience to understand the full story, but to show the intention through our movement then the audience will create their own story and feel with the dancer.
I may have to use this technique with my wonderful Flipside contemporary students, to get them to feel more.