Dance or Ballet Critique Your name Maxwell Schultz Class day/time T,Th 1:oo p.

Event Repertory Ballet Ensemble in Concert Date of event November 16, 2013 Performers Christian Tippetts, Mckenzie Eldrege Location of event UVU Ragan Theater Your review should answer all of the following questions with enough detail & reflection to satisfy the question. Your completed review should run between two and three pages. 1. What major mood in the concert interested you? How did the music help you understand the dance? One of the major moods was darker and a featured a very sharp classical renaissance type song. I liked this because usually when I think of classical music, I think of light and high pitched boring music, but this theme helped to spark my interest in the dance in general. The music did a great job in helping me to understand the dance, but I think the combination of music and choreography is what really helped me to understand the message behind the dances. This was done very well in my opinion. 2. Did the performance have a theme or concept that guided the choreography? What was it? The performance as a whole seemed to showcase the different emotions that can be expressed in ballet such as lust, arousal, anger, mistrust and hate. These specific emotions fueled the moves of the dancers whether they smooth and swift, or fast and more rough. 3. Did the dancers seem to have good control of their technique? Did their movements seem easy and comfortable, or were they "out of control"? To me the dancers did very well in this category and I thought that their moves looked very comfortable and it was enjoyable to watch. In the first act, there were points where the girl who was one of the main dancers showcased her moves and those stood out among the rest of the dancers and showed her experience in ballet. In one of the pieces called Fugue, I really liked the moves of the dancers as a whole and how they looked as they danced. In this piece each of the dancers had a partner that would help them to do spins and jumps according to the choreography and the music. When they would do a specific move, they would do it as a whole and it looked really beautiful. 4. What aspects of the style of the piece(s) did you like or dislike? Why? I liked the style of the piece called Just Before the Fall because of the costumes and theme of the music. I thought they went well together. The white colored orange lights overhead

complimented the dark grey and black costumes of the dancers and gave me a real feel of a dark fall night. The music also did well to influence this vision of a dark and scary night of that particular season. 5. Did the staging of the piece seem to be "balanced" i.e., did everything about the performance seem to work together well? Was there any aspect that you found to be distracting or out of sync with the whole? The concert did go smoothly and the pieces went well going one after another. One of the things that bothered me was that I could hear the squeaking and scrunching of the dancers shoes on the floor. From time to time, this would inhibit me from being engaged in some of the pieces because it got to be loud as a result of all the shoes squeaking during some moves, but other than that and some dancers being out of sync with others, I was able to enjoy the performance. 6. Did the dancers work well as an ensemble (i.e. were their lines clean and symmetrical? Did they all work together for the good of the piece? Did you feel that the energy was distributed well?) I felt that the energy was distributed well but the dancers as a whole could have worked better to keep their moves in sync. It seemed as though each dancer was just focusing on his or her own moves and not paying much attention to the group next to them which may seem like a good trait in concert, but it proved to show a lot of lag in the sync of the dancers. I recorded a video during the second performance and in looking back at it, I clearly see just how noticeable and out of rhythm some of the dancers were. 7. Was there a particular dancer or piece of choreography that stood out to you? Why? One of the dancers that stood out in particular to me was one of the male dancers whose name was Christian Tippets. His moves were done well but throughout the performance, but he looked really dull when he was finishing them. I felt like he could have had more emphasis in finishing them and that seemed to bother me throughout the performance because he was in all of the pieces. 8. Did the dancers and choreography work well with the music? I think that the dancers and choreography worked really well with the music and this aspect of the performance surprised me because I did not know what to expect in that regard. 9. How did the set, lighting, costumes and sound compliment the mood/tone of the piece(s)? The combination of the set, lighting, costumes and sound really helped me to feel involved in the pieces. Whether it was bright and blue lighting with lighter costumes that gave me that dreamy ball dance type of feel or the darker costumes and warmer lighting helping me to feel engulfed of the emotion the piece was trying to display, I felt that I was able to relate to the

dances and able to concentrate on them without distractions for the most part. Watching the performance helped me to understand that those attributes do play a huge part in the mood of just a single piece, and also the whole concert. Things such as lighting and costumes really do set the mood for the piece and also help to open the door to being concentrated on the dancing. 10. What was "artistic" or "beautiful" or disturbing about the performance? What most appealed to you in the "spectacle" of the DANCE? Again be specific about what you enjoyed and why. I thought that the craftiness of the moves and how well the choreography was put together with the music really helped me to see the art in ballet. This was my first time seeing a ballet ensemble in concert and I really wasnt expecting much, but by the first piece I was into the performance. I liked how each piece seemed to tell a story. The first piece was called Sleeping Beauty/Vision Scene and I was interested in how the male dancer would watch the star female dancing perform her moves and then proceed to chase her. While all of this was going on, there were other dancers shielding the female dancer from the male so that he couldnt catch her. The story itself seems to be a simple one, but the way the moves were carried out really sparked my interest early on and in all honesty, I was able to enjoy the whole performance without feeling the urge to get up and leave. After watching the performance, I was able to overcome the typical stereotype of what I thought ballet was, and really see that ballet and dance in general are in fact art. They show the art of movement.