Dance: A Creative Art Experience

6. Form and Content

Chapter 6 FORM AND CONTENT The inner, unseen dance is an embodiment of emotional experience unified by the organization of contributing psychological elements . Copyrighted Material Copyrighted Material T HE DISCUSSION of form so far has been rather general. The attempt has been to establish a broad concept of its meaning and to point out the distinction between the inner and the outer dance, as well as to establish the organic relation between the two. Each phase has its particular materials that must be organized. A dance begins with impressions, with sensory or psychic images which may be subjective or objective in origin. We may dance our feelings about ourselves, about our fellowmen, or about the nature of the universe as we feel and know it. Whatever the source of the impressions, from the moment of their reception they become subjective and personal. They take new character from the receiving personality. Thus all imagery is an individual transformation of original stimulation. If the image of a dance were an exact and unfiltered return of experience , it would indicate a very neutral relation of the personality to life. Such a mind, in dealing with experience, would show but little resistance or selection. But what is the nature of an experience that impels its expression , and what are the conditions of entering into the creative art activity by giving an experience an expressive form? Aesthetic Experience The kind of experience capable of producing a dance, or any work of art, is one that causes us to react in a spt:cial way. This special way is the aesthetic way. Unfortunately, aesthetic experience is too often considered as divorced from the capacities of the ordinary person. To enjoy, I I I Copyrighted Material DANCE: A CREATIVE ART EXPERIENCE to desire, and to feel pleasure and satisfaction are very human capacities. Broadly speaking, the many experiences that bombard us during the day could be judged aesthetically if we were capable of taking a detached attitude toward them and of evaluating them as experience, judging them according to their own standards. What usually happens to prevent such a response is that we are more concerned with the total effects of the particular event upon us. We permit other judgments and considerations to prevent the aesthetic judgment from existing as a single experience. For example, we may be witnessing a destructive fire. If we consider the grief and loss it is causing, we are likely not to enjoy the fire as a gorgeous blaze. The enjoyment of the blaze as a thrilling spectacle would be the aesthetic experience, no matter how great the catastrophe. And, too, the evaluation would depend upon what we consider a good blaze, which in turn is dependent upon how many fires we have experienced to form the basis of comparison. In so far as the demands for what we consider a good fire are met, we say it is a beautiful fire. Things, circumstances, character, ideas, objects of art-all seem beautiful to us when they have a value for us. Satisfaction and beauty are qualities not of objects and events, but of an individual way of experiencing them. In observing a dance or a painting or any work of art, we may not be aware of the specific purpose intended by its creator-but it is present and actively exerting its influence. We find beauty only in terms of our ability to discover it; that is, we project into the particular dance those liZ Copyrighted Material FORM AND CONTENT feelings of beauty which have been aroused and at the same time satisfied within us. To enter into an aesthetic experience through dance is to find satisfaction for the aesthetic sense of what we think beautiful movement should be. Under these circumstances we say "it is beautiful." What really has happened is that the dance has met the needs and demands of our aesthetic judgment. An absolutely pure aesthetic experience is perhaps possible only to the child and to primitive natures which are free to enjoy the sensations of mere perception untrammeled by any other consideration than the experience for its own sake. As we mature, different values emerge in our developing nature, varying from those satisfactions met by our physical needs to those needs of the higher social, mental, and spiritual natures. With the amassing of experience, the maturing mind becomes aware not only of relations existing between objects...