#VaagnTadevosyan #modernhaligi #Choreography
MUSIC: ARWA - Bakolak
MY OFFICIAL INSTAGRAM : / vaagn_dancer
MY OFFICIAL FACEBOOK PAGE : / vaagn.tadevo. .
MY OFFICIAL VK PAGE: vaagntadevosyan
Dance stylization in the modern world
Nowadays we often face to the widespread reaction of the broad public to the folk dance stylization and the first words we hear about it are like: "That's not a folk dance!', "We don't dance this way in our country!", "They don't dance like that there!" and so on.
It's quite a usual occurrence when society doesn't understand the difference between the dance stylization, folk-stage dance, folk dance, ethnic and traditional dances.
Each of these groups has close connection with national culture, and each of them is a certain form of a folk dance.
I am a folk dancer. I used to dance and to study choreography at the university for five years and in the folk ensemble for nine years, trying to understand the essence and the idea of the folk dance in theory and in practice. I would like to devote this small article right to the theme of “The dance stylization”. I hope it will be useful for many people, and it will at least decrease division and disputes in the society all over the world.
The nature itself programmed new stage forms to appear in the course of time. It seems to be some function of self-preservation of the folk art throughout the time and space not only in dancing but in music, film industry, theatre and many others as well. And the only goal of this function is to keep authenticity in the modern world and to transfer cumulative experience from one generation to another by means of connection with the source material and interaction of different cultures. In other words, stylization of the folk dance is some kind of the bridge that connects the past with the present, “ours” with “yours” for the purpose of self-preservation and development of the primeval ethnographical material.
Thanks to the literate stylization, folk features, images and characters live in the modern world, keep in touch with the origin and transferred to the next generations all over the world.
Stylization as an artistical device of the stage adaptation of folk dance
The idea of “style” is multivalued. One can talk about his or her individual style of an artist (dancer, choreographer), about national style of this or that art culture or about historical style that combines set of the works of the certain epoch.
Stylization is a using of different art forms, ways and stylistic features, that were met in the world art history, in the modern artistic activity. They are used in the new substantial context to achieve some aesthetic goals.
Enriched with bright lexical innovations and different choreographic decisions, stylized dance gets highly aesthetic form and becomes more spectacular for a modern person’s perception. However, the line between a good and a bad stylization is quite fine, and it can be easily broken.
To create a stylized dance performance they take folk ethnographical material. After being transformed, the last and its samples get modern stylized stage adaptation. It means that before creating some stylization of any choreographic genre, ballet-master has to study and know the primeval folk ethnographical form of the style he is going to stylize.
A good stylization must serve the following points:
1 Preserve cultural features, character and forms of classical or folk style.
2 Attract attention of the amateur audience and excite interest among broad public.
3 Serve as an allusion to the origin, classical or folk ethnographical form.
Seeking to perceive, to revive somehow and to bring national culture to the audience and performers, choreographers create new workings on the base of folk traditions. So, the stylization method meets the interests of the modern spectators and artists, their perception of the folk music and dance as something not frozen in its evolution but as a constantly renovated living art to the full extent.
_____________________________________
As an example I’d like to show you a video with one of my choreography works. It’s a stylization of Haligi on a beautiful modern song of Yemeni singer ARWA - Bakolak.
In this song the girl says
“I will tell you something,
Never doubt in your beloved
And don’t listen to what the others say
As this way has no end.
Don’t make a big trouble from nothing…
Let the God blame the one
Who changed my picture in your eyes,
You forgot everything between us listening to him,
It doesn’t matter how far we are from each other
The wind of love is heard between us.
Don’t make a big trouble from nothing…”