Let’s see how these elements play out in the media you will be watching this week using just the first context that of where the dance takes place:
The dances you view this week take place on a stage for a TED talk, in a film studio, in clubs and dance choreographed and filmed especially for the camera in what is called screendance.
In all these different places there will be rhetors (dancers) who will talk both vocally and/or with their body through the movements.
There will be texts (the words the dancers speak and/or the choreography or improvisational movements the dancers do).
There will be an audience- both you watching these films, but also audience could be the people in the films.
The constraints will be different for each location. Here are just a few to consider and as you watch you can figure out more for yourself: in the TED talks there is a small stage and no wings. In the clubs there is also limited space and other dancers to consider as well as the constraint of the rhythm of the music. When dancing in a film studio the constraint is being out of the context for which all these moves emerge which affects the dancer who is inspired by being in the club itself. One of the constraints of screendance is the single lens through which everyone has to look in the same way at the moving body.
The exigency will also change in each context- in the TED talk the reason for dancing is to explain ideas; the club is to express yourself; the film studio to document the movements and for screendance to present a view of the movements, the dance, or the ideas being created through movement through the lens of the camera.
Use these elements as you watch each media:
Rhetor
Text
Audience
Constraint
Exigency
Watch Rachel Burns in her TED talk Seeing the Body Differently to see how the experience of the rhetor can change the text of the body.
Watch Dance your Ph.D. to see how the text of the movements changes when dance is used as an explanatory tool.
Watch Check your body at the Door and try to identify all the elements of the rhetorical situation and see how these elements change as the physical contexts change during the film going from studio to club to a home, etc.
Watch Screendance and investigate your own perspective of the context as the audience. How does your experience of dance change when viewing dance made specifically for the screen?