A Midsummer Night's Dream Dance Analysis

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On the 18th of March, 2016, Miami City Ballet performed Shakespeare’s sublime play A Midsummer Night’s Dream. This casting took place at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts, Miami Beach, Florida. A Midsummer Night’s Dream followed the romantic adventures and misadventures, quarrels and reconciliations, of two pairs of mortal lovers, as well as the King and Queen of all the fairies. Throughout the course of this paper, an analysis of the choreography, demonstrated principles of dance and the effectiveness of the message conveyed during A Midsummer Night’s Dream’s will be discussed in detail. According to an article posted in The New York Times entitled “Balanchine and Shakespeare Catch Some Waves in Miami”, A Midsummer Night’s …show more content…

During the performance, the principle of spacing was demonstrated when the dancers scattered themselves across the stage and used excellent spacing. As each scene approached, they respectfully stationed themselves in their allotted positions. Never was the stage oddly spaced or bare. Also, the core principle of dance was demonstrated by using rhythm/time. This referred to the speed of moment of the dancers. Throughout the play, the time of the dancers fluctuated. There were times of excitement when the dancers expressed feelings of joy and therefore they had a fast speed but there are other times when the dancers were confused and uncertain and as a result, their speed were much slower and calmer.
Additionally, they used the principle of shape to create illusions to entice the crowd. Some parts of the play instructed the dancers to form inanimate objects using their bodies. This was a creative way of capturing the audience’s attention and retaining their interest. Another core principle of dance which was demonstrated by the dancers were movement intention/dynamics. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream the movements were smooth, sustained and fluid. Every movement seemed to melt into the next one. In fact, the movement never stopped, it was continuous and the dancers were

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