9.5: Making Movement- Movement Motivations

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    A choreography journal for making movement should include some additional key features for preparing your creative works, including but not limited to movement motivations and manipulations such as ideas having to do with

    1. Motivational Intent,
    2. Movement Motivations, and
    3. Movement Manipulations

    Motivational Intent

    Motivational intent can stem from many things. Here is a quick glance at some ideas to get the creative juices flowing:

    Music – Sometimes just a song inspires you.

    Human Pedestrian Movement – Alwin Nicolais Tensile Involvement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfxsFTDWWnw

    Emotion – Travis Wall’s “Fix You” (2011): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9iurjDa1hpQ

    History/ Politics – Jooss’s Green Table (1932): 1 Intro thru beginning of The Farewells – YouTube

    321.5: Ballet van Kurt Jooss: De Groene Tafel uit 1932 – YouTube

    Conflicted / Psychology / Questioning Reality: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpNs5sc_xIQ

    Nature: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X623FpCKCGU

    Culture / Borrowing vs. authenticity in African Dance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jB1HSQZ2FY

    Movement Motivations: Pedestrian

    Alphabet Shapes

    Shapes (Laban)

    Sculptural or Nature (Duncan)

    Key Words for Emotional Narrative (Wigman)

    A person dancing in a black dressDescription automatically generated
    Figure 9.8. Emotions are not performed only on the face. The human body has the ability to convey emotional narrative through evocative and purposeful movement phrases composed by a judicious choreographer

    (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/F..._Rubin_(1).jpg)

    Movement Motivations: Emotion

    Happy

    Sad

    Angry

    Frightened

    Morose

    Constipated

    Joyous!

    Movement Motivations: Narrative

    Narrative in dance is not as easy as you think. Whether tragic Greek mythology, boy-meets-girl sweet romance, comedic enterprise, a lover’s breakup, or politics – narrative is complex and multidimensional in dance choreography. For example, how could movement depict prescient political topics centered on international war, class struggles, refugee crises, bigotry, Black Lives Matter, COVID, Confederate Statue Removal, Re-Writing a False History.

    In 1955, second generation modern choreographer Anna Sokolow created an abstract work called Rooms (1955). It was repurposed in 2020. Do you think this piece remains relevant? More importantly – as you embark on your own choreographic journey, HOW and WHY does this narrative work remain relevant? You must choose movement that really tells a story, and sometimes meaning cannot be transmitted through a perfect pirouette en de dans or a shuffle off to Buffalo. Sometimes it merely takes a sharp single reach upward with crumbling contracted center core that can say it all.

    Rooms (2015): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7c9XBgj6F0

    Rooms (2020): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOfjTmJwCUw&t=75s

    A person holding a person Description automatically generated

    Figure 9.9. Choreography is culturally reflective and can be culturally impactful

    (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Remission_-_photo_by_ASCAF_-_Or_and_Oran_Dance_Theatre.jpg)

    Movement motivation: Music Interpretation

    Entrance/Set Up – How best fits the music?

    Beginning – Start off stage? Onstage in a pose? Crawling onstage slowly? Sharp turn and snap!?

    Build

    Crescendo

    Decline

    Fini

    Exit – How do your dancers get off stage that makes sense with the

    This page titled 9.5: Making Movement- Movement Motivations was last modified on Thu, 15 Oct 2026 21:24:50 GMT and is shared under a CC BY 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Debra Worth.