Within Her Eyes: Properties

Within Her Eyes: Properties

Within Her Eyes: Costume

  • The female performer is seen in a white dress, symbolic of purity or innocence.
  • The male performer is in casual clothing - a shirt and trousers, suggesting normalcy.
  • Both costumes allow for free movement and tend not to detract from the actual dance.

Within Her Eyes: Dancers

  • The dance is a duet, involving only one male and one female performer.
  • The dancing style relies heavily on the chemistry and connection between the dancers.
  • The dance requires strong technical ability and emotive performance skills from the dancers.

Within Her Eyes: Aural Settings

  • The music is instrumental, devoid of lyrics to dictate the story.
  • The music has a melancholic, somber tone, emphasizing the emotional depth of the performance.
  • Changes in tempo and dynamics in the music correlate with the dance’s choreography.

Within Her Eyes: Dance for Camera

  • Majority of dance scenes were filmed on location, contributing to the overall mood and setting.
  • Utilizes aerial shots to create a sense of vastness and isolation.
  • Close-up shots are used to emphasize emotional engagement and intimacy.

Within Her Eyes: Performance Environment

  • The dance takes place in an expansive, open-air environment.
  • The environment changes from a field, to a forest, and finally to a rocky landscape, showing progression of locations.
  • The outdoor settings contribute to the theme of space and isolation.

Within Her Eyes: Choreographer’s Approach

  • The choreographer uses contact improvisation and partnering to build on the emotional bond between performers.
  • The dancers remain in constant contact, demonstrating their dependency on each other.
  • Maintains a narrative approach to present an emotional journey.

Within Her Eyes: Movement Content

  • A large part of the movement vocabulary involves lifts and counterbalance moves.
  • Showcases a wide range of dynamics, from fluid and languid movements to more abrupt and tense actions.
  • Makes use of eye and body focus to highlight the emotional context.

Within Her Eyes: Structuring Devices

  • Uses narrative structure to keep the audience engaged in the story.
  • Repetitive motifs are used to emphasize key themes and ideas.
  • The dance escalates in intensity, culminating in a climactic moment, where the female dancer ‘walks into the sky’.

Within Her Eyes: Form

  • The dance uses a linear narrative form, progressing from beginning to end without flashbacks or time jumps.
  • The narrative form allows the story to unfold in a simple and straightforward manner.
  • Despite the linear form, the dance includes recurrent motifs and themes to tie together its distinct sections.

Within Her Eyes: Choreographic Devices

  • Makes use of unison to show the connection between dancers.
  • Motif development and repetition are utilized to drive home the main ideas.
  • Contrast is used in terms of dynamics, space, and the tension between the dancers.

Within Her Eyes: Mood

  • Prevails a mood of sadness, loss, and longing throughout the dance.
  • The intense emotional atmosphere is heightened by the vast, lonely landscapes.
  • Despite the prevalent somber tone, there are moments of joy and nostalgia.

Within Her Eyes: Meaning

  • The dance tells a story of a woman’s struggle with loss and longing.
  • It interprets the theme of love in an intense, deeply emotional context.
  • Depicts emotional dependency as a significant aspect of human relationships.

Within Her Eyes: Ideas

  • Addresses the concept of emotional isolation and dependence.
  • Explores the dichotomy between emotional closeness and physical distance.
  • Through the character’s emotional journey, the dance grapples with the ideas of love, loss and longing.

Within Her Eyes: Themes

  • Emotional dependence and interconnection are recurring themes.
  • Closely connected to these are the themes of love, loss and distance.
  • The elements of nature in the dance also serve to underscore the theme of solitude and isolation.

Within Her Eyes: Style

  • Incorporates a blend of contemporary dance and ballet techniques.
  • Notable for its expressive partnering and contact work.
  • Combines technical proficiency with a strong emotive performance.

Within Her Eyes: Similarities with Other Dances

  • Shares with other contemporary dances a focus on narrative and emotion.
  • Similar to other works of the choreographer, the outdoors plays a significant role in setting the mood.
  • Stylistically similar to other neo-classical ballets and contemporary duets.

Within Her Eyes: Differences to Other Dances

  • Unlike many contemporary performances, the dance takes place within an expansive outdoor setting.
  • The constant contact between the performers is a unique feature.
  • Instead of using ensemble work, the dance relies only on a duet.

Within Her Eyes: Audience Understanding

  • The narrative form and clear emotional tone can be easily understood by the audience.
  • The expressive performances of the dancers make the emotional context of the dance accessible to the viewers.
  • The transformation of the environments also provides visual cues to the unfolding emotional journey of the dancers.

Within Her Eyes: Purpose

  • The purpose of the dance is to convey an emotional journey of love, longing and loss.
  • It’s also aimed at showcasing the incredible breadth and depth of motion that’s possible within a duet.
  • The performance invites the audience to reflect upon their own experiences of emotional dependency and loss.

Within Her Eyes: Environment in Which the Dance was Created and Performed

  • The dance was created in the 21st century, in a contemporary dance environment.
  • It was performed in an outdoor setting, with each location carefully chosen to act as an extension of the emotional landscape.
  • The expansiveness of the dance’s setting reflects a trend toward site-specific and immersive pieces in contemporary dance.