The Fall for Dance Festival presented four dance performances that varied stylistically and culturally. One of the main signifiers of the cultural differences was the music that accompanied the dances. This was especially apparent in the first performance, Shivashtakam, which was an Indian style performance that was performed as an ode to Shiva. Before the dance even began, the audience was greeted with the musical styling of four musicians who were sitting on the stage. Immediately, the audience members, including myself, were able to recognize the culture from which the dance would be derived. Indian music has a very distinct quality about it, whether it be the singers’ style of performance (and the fact that they are singing in a different language), or the easily detected sounds of the string and wind instruments “typical” of classic Indian music. Within this performance, the music set the tone for the performance. As a member of the audience, I then expected to see and was relieved to see “Indian” style costumes, headdresses, bangles, etc. The addition of the live and authentic music enhanced the performance and helped to bring about an air of inclusion into the Indian culture that was presented. The second performance, as well as the final performance, were both aided by their musical accompaniment. The second, entitled Solo, was perfectly accompanied by traditional classical music. The style of dance, a mixture of ballet and contemporary, struck me as a much more comfortable performance. I am more accustomed to this style of dance and the music with which it coexists. The performance as a whole was less shocking to me because the culture within which it existed is one that I was brought up in, as opposed to the first dance that I had never before encountered. The final performance, entitled Myelination, was a fun tap piece that was accompanied by a live jazz band as well as the sounds that the dancers incorporated in the performance as dictated by the style in which they were dancing. Again, the band, although exciting and playful, was expected to be a part of the performance. Jazz and tap are typically paired in dance performances, as is a classical, orchestral piece to a ballet. I rather enjoyed the tap performance as it was lively, especially in contrast to the third performance. The music, or rather, the soundtrack that accompanied the third performance, entitled Locomotor, was by far the most surprising and simultaneously unsettling of the set. To start, the performance began before the music. Every member of the audience fell into absolute silence and confusion. When sounds did begin, they could not even be classified as music in the conventional sense. As strange as it may have initially seemed, the unconventional way in which the music was presented and even the “music” itself fit the performance well. I found that this piece was the most captivating of the set, and some of this nature can undoubtedly be attributed to the way in which the music was presented in the piece in contrast to the other three performances.
