Aesthetics of Movement Paper #2
Tues.&Thurs. from 8:30-10:00am
By Nery Gamez

Introduction
Recently a movie called Black Swan was released, very good movie by the way, portraying the challenges that dancers have to go through. This film was somewhat of a revival for classical ballet. However, the following paragraphs are not about the challenges of dancers, but rather the differences between classical ballet and contemporary ballet.
Stage #1 – Identification and Description The setting on the classical ballet video and the contemporary ballet is similar. Neither of the videos showed any setting or used any props. It was simple and plain, as if to emphasize the performance of the dancers than that of the entire play. The costumes on the other hand were completely different. In the classical ballet performers wore fancy, beautiful, bejeweled, costumes while the contemporary ballet dancers wore simple, comfortable, light clothing. It is clear that the costumes are made with the dancers movements in mind. For instance, the classical ballet dancers have more restricting, less fluid movements, while the contemporary ballet dancers are fluid, flexible and contortionists. As for the lighting involved, the contemporary dancers were being focused on most of the time, while the performers’ of classical ballet were not. During the performance the classical ballet used live instrumentation, while the contemporary ballet performed to a recorded soundtrack.
Stage #2-Analysis
Use of body During their performances the dancers mostly used their legs, however the contemporary dancers used all of their body more than the classical ballet performers. The contemporary performers contorted their bodies to create different shapes. For instance, at the beginning of the performance the male dancer creates an M shape with his body as he approaches the female. These