Physics and the Art of Dance : Understanding Movement KENNETH LAWS OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Physics and the art of dance Physics and the physics and the art of dance art of dance Understanding movement kenneth laws photographs by martha swope 1 2002 3 Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogotá Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Paris São Paulo Shanghai Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Warsaw and associated companies in Berlin Ibadan Copyright © 2002 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Laws, Kenneth. Physics and the art of dance : understanding movement / Kenneth Laws ; photographs by Martha Swope p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-19-514482-1 1. Dance—Physiological aspects. 2. Ballet dancing—Physiological aspects. 3. Human mechanics. 4. Biophysics. I. Title. QP310.D35 L388 2002 612.'044—dc21 2001035077 135798642 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Foreword T he longer i teach the more convinced I am of the logic and efficacy of classi- cal ballet technique. While many great pedagogues have codified it in different ways—Bournonville, Legat, Cecchetti, Vaganova, Balanchine among them—the basic principles have remained more or less the same since the latter part of the nineteenth century. This can only be because the exercises work. Good ballet train- ing produces long, supple, strong muscles, awareness and control of the entire body, and the ability to move in many different ways at the request of a choreographer. The aspect of our work that changes continually, as it should, is our growing use of other disciplines to enhance classical teaching and provide new ways of reaching our students. Kinesiology, psychology, Pilates conditioning, weight-train- ing and the study of anatomy are providing useful tools and raising the bar for each generation of dancers. But physics? I was more than a little skeptical when Kenneth Laws offered to do a seminar on “Physics and the Art of Partnering” for Pacific Northwest Ballet School’s Summer Course students in 1994. We were always eager to explore new ideas so his offer was accepted and twenty young couples were chosen to partici- pate. The day arrived and our students lined up not knowing what to expect but were immediately charmed by Professor Laws’s easy manner. At first the exercises and Ken’s explanations were deceptively simple but as they went on both the dance sequences and the discussions of physical limitations, possibilities and consequences grew in complexity and fascination. One could see the light dawn on our students’ faces as they asked questions and experienced the principles of physics through their own bodies and their interaction with one another. They understood that though we work hard to give the illusion of defying the natural laws, gravity for instance, phy- ics applies to every movement we make and must be taken into consideration. For the audience of teachers the greatest benefits of Ken’s seminar were the pos- sibilities for injury prevention and the images he gave us, word pictures which proved to be powerful tools in our efforts to reach students’ intellects as well as their bodies. When I am asked, as I am very often, to cite the attributes necessary for a career as a classical ballet dancer, I always list “intelligence” first so this has had great appeal for me. Ken Laws seems to me to be an important ambassador coming to dance from the world of science. He is our interpreter and all his explanations of the physical laws are informed by, and infused with, his great love of dance and dancers. One of the things I prize most about him is that, as passionate as he is about work, he feels, as I do, that technique is only a tool—a beautiful and essential tool but not the ulti- mate goal. In the end it is the illusion that counts, the character, musicality and in- tense personal involvement of the dancer that creates a performance. Francia Russell Co-director Pacific Northwest Ballet July 2001 foreword vi Preface T he physics of dance was published several years after the world of classical ballet turned my life upside down. After teaching college-level physics for more than a dozen years, I was introduced to the beauty of classical ballet and discovered that a dance studio is a physics laboratory! There are many intriguing ways of using principles of physics to understand how the human body moves. Then came that fateful moment when the impetuous me told the rational me, “Hey! Let’s write a book about this!” An editor then at Schirmer Books, Maribeth Anderson Payne, went out on a limb and took a chance on the project. Two fine dancers and the premier dance photographer in the country helped make The Physics of Dance work. Ten years later a second book—Physics, Dance, and the Pas de Deux—was published by the same publisher and the same editor but with an additional au- thor, Cynthia Harvey, then a principal dancer with American Ballet Theatre. Her contributions included many valuable insights in addition to the credibility that can only come from one so respected in the dance community. We spent many hours struggling to find the common ground that would allow her agile and analyt- ical mind to communicate with my rigorous physicist’s mind. I recall trying to con- vince her that she couldn’t move without the floor exerting a force on her, causing her center of gravity to accelerate. Her answer? “Look! I’m moving!” And she waggled her arms like a bird. I then realized that what I meant by “move” referred to the whole body in translational motion; her broader sense of “move” was the common intuitive meaning. This is just one of many lively encounters I had with Cynthia in which our minds came together between the cloud of pure physics rea- soning and the ground of common understanding and communication. I have learned much since that second book was written. A particularly star- tling revelation has been to see the remarkable ability of even young dancers to un- derstand the pertinent physical principles. The fact that they can feel these princi- ples working in their own bodies helps them develop deeper insights than others who only read or hear the ideas described or see them demonstrated. It is also often astonishing to see dancers sense, in some deep analytical part of their minds, how to accommodate to near-impossible challenges. And if dancers have not yet learned to fear science, they are open to the benefits and joys of this analytical level of under- standing. Working with dancers has been a privilege and source of great joy to me. preface figure p.1. Cynthia Harvey and Robert La Fosse in Giselle. viii In the eighteen years since The Physics of Dance was published, the dance com- munity has become much more open to the science of their art. It is no longer un- usual to find dance teachers explaining how forces act on the body from the floor or how to adjust the location of the body’s center of gravity in order to accomplish some movement. And it is not unusual to find scientists who enjoy the fact that their science can speak usefully to the arts. This Book Is . . . , It Isn’t . . . This book represents the best from the two earlier books, The Physics of Dance and Physics, Dance, and the Pas de Deux, illuminated by clearer explanations and enhanced by added features. While many of the ideas, explanations, photographs, and diagrams appeared in one or both of the earlier works, this book includes addi- tional analyzed movements, twenty-five new visuals, and a challenging puzzler for the reader at the beginning of each chapter. Again solo movements are divided into categories for analysis: balance, movements without turns (such as vertical and trav- figure p.2. The author “talking physics” with Benjamin Pierce, now principal dancer with San Francisco Ballet, and a young Abi Stafford, now a member of New York City Ballet. preface ix [...]... appreciation of the art of dance if they understand the physical basis of movement Perhaps science and dance are not such disparate activities According to Allegra Fuller Snyder, former head of the Dance Department at UCLA: Dance is more than an art It is one of the most powerful tools for fusing the split between the two functions of the brain the fusing of the logical with the intuitive, the fusing of the. .. of the choreography Only when the movements called for by the choreography work within the constraints of physical reality and of the technical capabilities of the dancers can the dancers apply their interpretive skills in order to dance, and not just go through the motions Then, of course, dancers strive to free their minds from concerns about the mechanics of movement, and to think about dance, movement, ... merely the most convenient vehicle for the analyses since it is the most well defined, constant, and universal style of dance and is the form of dance most familiar to me The Artists Many of the photographs appearing in this book are taken from The Physics of Dance and/ or Physics, Dance, and the Pas de Deux Two dancers—Lisa de Ribère and Sean Lavery—spent a long and exhausting day in the summer of 1983... subtle way the dancer can control body configuration so that the movement creates the illusion of a turn that occurs only after the dancer has risen into the air Understanding the way the physical principles apply tells the dancer how to perform the movement most effectively and also provides the observer with a deeper appreciation of the dancer’s skill in creating the illusion The Physics of Dance What... cooperation, and understanding that one can expect only from the most dedicated and confident artists Martha Swope was challenged to catch on film fleeting instants of movements that one does not usually see in dance photographs The understanding and artistic sense of all of these artists have added immeasurably to the book These comments would be incomplete without mention of the extraordinary privilege of working... training began at the age of five in Bethesda, Maryland, and continued at the Pacific Northwest Ballet School, the National Ballet of Canada, the Washington School of Ballet, where he studied with Choo San Goh, and the School of American Ballet Both Ms Kent and Mr Pierce performed for the photographs in Physics, Dance, and the Pas de Deux courtesy of American Ballet Theatre All of the photography for... The aesthetic imagery determines the basis for categorization of body movements Another type of analysis 4 Allegra Fuller Snyder, unpublished address to the faculty of the Department of Dance, University of California at Los Angeles, fall 1974 6 introduction deals with the constraints on movement imposed by the structure of the human body The field of biomechanics involves a mechanical analysis of the. .. these two realms of human activity? Can physical analysis of dance or of any art form, for that matter—be of value to the artist or the observer, or will it only detract from the dancer’s artistry or the observer’s aesthetic appreciation? There is an understandable fear that the aesthetic impact of dance may be sacrificed if one tries to analyze the art form scientifically A newspaper dance critic reporting... to delve into the appendixes, which describe the basis for many of the claims made in the chapters For instance, in chapter 3 there is a discussion of the relationship between the height of a jump and the time in the air The results have profound implications for dancers’ sense of tempo and differences in execution of the jumps depending on body size Appendix A contains the derivation of the equations... pirouettes, and turns in the air There are three chapters on partnered dance, an expansion beyond the first book but less emphasis than in the second The effects of body size are discussed for both solo and partnered dance There is no analysis of ice skating or a specific pas de deux (features of the second book) but there are analyses of some additional movements such as the supported lunge The latter is the . Physics and the Art of Dance : Understanding Movement KENNETH LAWS OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Physics and the art of dance Physics and the physics and the art of dance art of dance Understanding. the form of dance most familiar to me. The Artists Many of the photographs appearing in this book are taken from The Physics of Dance and/ or Physics, Dance, and the Pas de Deux. Two dancers—Lisa. a chance on the project. Two fine dancers and the premier dance photographer in the country helped make The Physics of Dance work. Ten years later a second book Physics, Dance, and the Pas de Deux—was published