IndexSpillOutBreaking a pathThe concept of bodyspacebodySPACEIt is surprising how much common ground can be found between dance and architecture. Starting from a fundamental principle, all architectural constructions must obey the laws of physics, such as gravity, in order to hold up. Furthermore there should be complete agreement with the geometry and general shaping of each construction so that it can stand upright. This is also the case with some dances. From classical ballet to more recent dance genres such as tango, figures and movements will be incomplete or even unfeasible if the dancer is not in total agreement with the geometry of the space. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay In my experience over the years, classical ballet is one of the most rigid and challenging disciplines to teach and learn. Taking this as the first reference to dance in this research, the basic principle around which ballet has evolved is symmetry across the body and space. From the initial posture, which must be vertical to the ground in balance with gravity, to the different figures and combinations between them, everything requires a concrete and symmetrical approach. Moving on to the positions of the legs, head and arms, angles are a crucial entity. With angles from 45° up to 180° and straight lines, the body can create various shapes and be able to tackle any challenging dance fusion. Digging deeper into the geometry of ballet, we will start with the simple rotation, an essential figure, which hides many complex machinations that every dancer should be wary of. The most famous rotational movement in ballet is the pirouette. All a dancer should do is rotate around their center 360 degrees, with the sole point of contact being the sole of the foot. The center of the body (located approximately in the stomach area) must remain strong throughout the figure to aid balance and control the force on the floor used by the dancer. An important detail for a successful pirouette is the alignment of the head and hands. Both hands should alternate in circular open and closed positions to give appropriate weight, and the head should remain upright with the eyes using the "spotting" technique (keeping the head fixed for as long as possible, and then quickly rotating the neck to grab up with the body)(Mathscareers). In his ten-minute talk at TEDXLAU, architect Lidea Hajjar confirmed from his perspective the similarities between dance and architecture, this time sharing a new perspective on buildings and tango. Having the latter as his real hobby, he demonstrated that there are several principles that coincide in both fields such as “foundation, axis, space and form” (Hajjar). The buildings around the cities and the tango figures are so different and yet so similar because they obey the same laws. Even when these rules are broken, the results can yield an exceptional and original result, worthy of inspiration and causing admiration. Similar to what is described above are the principles of architecture. In order for a construction to stand and stand firm, an architect should take several axes into account when creating a building. These planks come in various shapes such as walls, columns and beams. Deviation from the axis can cause the fatal collapse of any construction. Similarly, a dancer who diverges from his axis fails to grasp the figure. Another postulate is symmetry. Closely linked to proportion and balance, symmetry is about respectingcustom spatial relationships that follow geometry. In other words, as Klaus defines it in his book, symmetry “seems to represent perfect order, beauty and divine harmony”. The same principles also apply to a dancer, as the whole body must be in complete symmetry to achieve any figure. Space ready and space being created Initially, dance and architecture seem to be two completely different worlds, and the truth is that they are. From the artistic to the functional spectrum, one is traditionally called art and the other science. While they may not seem that similar at first glance, they both share a common factor that connects them: creation. Architect Bernard Tschumi defines architecture as “a spatio-temporal form, intertwined with time, space and subsequent events within it”. (Tschumi, B. cited in Ersoy, p. 129). From this short but significant definition it is clear that architecture is not just about putting space together into a visual result. It also involves a sense of time, as a construction can be experienced through a particular time. The notion of movement seems to be important here, since the point of view changes – sometimes drastically – depending on the perspective from which a construction is observed. Movement therefore means perspective. Therefore, moving through space can impact the final experience in an architectural context. This is where they meet with dance, as dance is primarily focused on the movement of a body in a given space. Having found common ground in the relationship between dance and architecture, their correlation may nevertheless reserve some limitations. Doris Humphrey, a prominent figure and one of the founders of modern dance, dedicates a special place to architecture as one of her pillars of inspiration throughout her career. Typically she declares that “architecture, especially for those who live in cities, speaks to us and for us with the most insistent cry” (Humphrey, p. 29). Witnessing a new aspect of architecture beyond visual satisfaction, he goes on to add “in the extremely complex network of influences that surround us, architecture impresses me the most as it not only provides visual inspiration but also speaks to the attributes and values social networks of the city" (page 30). Thus architecture seems to have another, more ethical dimension. Not only regarding Humphrey herself but also all dancers, she discovers that “there is an inevitable relationship between the young dancer's archive of the accumulated visual and mental patterns dominant in our age (cities and architectural pieces) and what he will invent in the composition” (p. 30). Therefore, the conclusion is that architecture has such power to penetrate a dancer's own influence and sometimes even influence and change his or her dance style. Since the last century, architecture and dance have begun to collaborate more and more, giving a new perspective for that final combined performance. Thus, new ideas have begun to inspire the science of architecture by dedicating and creating a new branch, which is focusing its attention mainly on building pieces that will assist or have a starring role in a dance performance. It is a fact that many of them represent brilliant works of space art, but when it comes to the performance with which they have to interact, they tend to be considered exclusively solid constructions as independent. As further analyzed in the book Geographies of Dance: Body, Movement, and Corporeal Negotiations, this condition can force or prohibit certain movements and interactions with dancers, causing problems with artistic creation in the so-called ready-made space. On the other hand there is the concept of "spacein becoming", which is mainly concerned with constructive progress within a certain space. Exploring this above-mentioned concept, Adam Pine and Olaf Kuhlke in their book on body and space, borrow the philosopher Bruno Latour's initial concept on the opposition between the ready space and the science in progress and by developing it, the notion of 'space in the making' emerges. Latour's fundamental idea compares the notions of "ready science" versus "science in the making". Furthermore, he cross-examines “whether the profile of an experiment and its outcome will change based on its context” (Latour qtd. in Pine & Kuhlke, p. 159). different outcome depending on the context used from time to time, Frances Bronet's works can demonstrate essentialist space in action (2005) the constructions on stage interact with the dancers in real time. Every movement that the performers make will be used as a starting point for the space in progress. What this principle essentially means is that every action corresponds to a certain reaction on the architectural environment that happens live on stage, and the combinations that someone can make are infinite. These actions escape any direct movement, in the sense that each time the result produced is different due to the difference in the bodies that produce them. “One of the most innovative regional performance works of the year” (Ellen Sinopoli Dance Company) as stated According to the American newspaper Times Union, SpillOut constitutes an avant-garde idea that uses more than one type of art to achieve a new way of expression . Beating a Path instead investigates the mutual relationships between movement and architecture in an original environment. SpillOut Over the course of an hour, dance, electronic music, video and lights collaborate and present themselves "within a complex 40' installation, box 12' high and 3' wide wrapped in hundreds of electric blue rubber bands” (Ellen Sinopoli Dance Company, par. 2) The performance begins from the moment the audience enters the Gasholder Building. With an interesting yet original architecture, characterized by its circular shape and industrial vibes in both its internal and external environment, this building hosts Bronet's complex installation at its centre. Once the audience is seated and everything is ready, the performance begins with music, which includes the soothing chirping of the voyeurs, causing the dancers to wake up. Reviewer Tresca Weinstein addresses these thoughts by considering the concept and performance of SpillOut: They do so organically, elongating their limbs by sliding them along the bars. Because our vision is obstructed by the spandex walls, they appear to be suspended in water or air. Those at the top, walk high like long-legged birds. When they stop to scrutinize the audience, they do so with authority. They clearly have dominion over their environment. When the music changes, which often happens suddenly, the quality of the movement also changes. It goes from serene to disturbing to violent. Rather than caged creatures that have dominated their borders, they appear to be buried human beings. When they wake up, shaking off death, they begin to bounce and break through the cuts in the elastic walls. They throw their bodies off the spandex, which bounces them back with frightening force. Eventually they emerge from the cell, like little children who have figured out how to get out of the playpen. As we celebrate their liberation, once the dancers slip out of the box, the spell that "Spill Out!" the casts are unfortunately broken. Regardless, there is much to praise, including Ralph Pascucci's video and the costumesby Kim Vanyo (Weinstein). Beating a Path Following the same artistic logic as Spillout, Beating a Path is also an interactive performance. Dancers are challenged to express themselves by hanging from spandex strips, rolling on the floor or dancing on moving platforms. “The idea is that, simply by moving in our environment, we change it” underlines the creator F. Bronet (University of Oregon), a statement which makes more than evident the fact that both space and movement, despite being as different as perceptions, seem dependent on each other. An innovative detail that this performance brings with it is the fact that the audience is in constant movement. The case of mobile platforms is extreme. Each time the dancers moved them, these platforms would be pushed towards the standing spectators. Due to the extraordinarily uncontrolled reaction of the artists' dance, objects on the stage move and can hit anyone in the audience. Therefore the spectator should be careful and move so as not to get hurt. Consequently, part of the performance also consists of the constant movement of the spectators, giving a dynamic dimension to the final result (Pine & Kuhlke). The main principle on which this project is based are the interactive links between pure movement and architecture as The creator F. Bronet talks about herself:…the work emerged from the concern that conventional architectural designers and architectural pedagogy work to develop spatial envelopes independent of the way people move in and around them. This project deliberately set out to explore how dancers moved and how to construct or evolve the space generated by their movements... We are investigating how design in motion can motivate liberative new ways of building and living that challenge the hegemony of design in (ready-made) space (qtd in Giannachi & Stewart, p.285). As can be seen from the performances mentioned above, both productions are based on the principle that the architectural installation has no meaning without the dancer and vice versa. This is the so-called “creating through doing”, as used in the book Geographies of Dance. With this term the authors want to present the perspective according to which space and movement are so closely connected that "the space of construction and habitation cannot be fully determined without movement, without face-to-face interaction" (p. 160). With these installations, which witness the simultaneous interaction between space and performer, architectural design moves to another level by encouraging the creation of original constructions and therefore of continuously evolving buildings (Pine & Kuhlke). However, when it comes to the way space and movement collaborate, the links begin to become less distinguishable, forming a kind of fluidity in their interactive relationship. This is another dimension of space in flux; the boundaries are so thin, almost non-existent, and therefore different blending combinations become possible. The cited book refers to two fundamental conditions that an architect should take into consideration in the process of creating an installation for artistic purposes. First, “the project space must emerge from the specific context” (p. 160) from how the dancers will move down to small scenic details such as the placement of various objects, etc. Secondly, there is always the unpredictable factor of the audience; people's reaction and understanding of the message that each producer wants to convey can have unreliable reactions (Pine & Kuhlke). Making this division more practical, we will refer to architecture through the notion of 'space' and the notion of 'body', which in turn will be presented under the prism of dance. What matters most in).