Niggas in the Hood

“ To touch, to move, to inspire. This is the true gift of dance.” - Aubrey Lynch. I picked this quote to start off my paper because this is exactly what I think dance is to us as a class, and also around the entire world. Dance is such a universal thing, because it is also connected to another universal thing: Music. Music is something that anyone can listen to and groove to and move around to, which creates dance. My own definition of dance is that dance is the feeling that you connect to when you hear music, and the product of that feeling is the movements that create dance. The same way that music makes you feel a certain way, dance does the same exact thing, except with movement involved with the music. Whenever you watch someone dance, whether it is for fun, terrible, or professionally done, it is something that moves you and inspires you in all kinds of different ways. Another thing I find inspiring about dance, is the fact that every single person has a different perspective of what the dance means and what it means to them. The concert that I attended was Cal State Fullerton's Spring Concert on May 19, 2013 at 2:00 PM. Of the 8 dances that I saw, I am going to write about 4 of them. The first one that I am writing about is Swan Lake Pas de Trois, which was a very classical ballet performance reminiscent of Swam Lake. The second dance I wrote about is Lost Souls, which could either signify the dead, or people who have seemingly lost their way and found it through dance. The third one is The Race Marked Out For Us, which had one dancer, what seemed like it, leading the rest of the dancers around the stage, could also be a dance of love because the race would be marked out especially for them. The last dance I am critiquing is Club Independencia, which represents people who just want to be themselves, with a focus, as I interpreted, on gays and lesbians.

When I saw Swan Lake Pas de Trois, it is exactly what I expected a dance with the words “Swan Lake,” in it. It was a very classical ballet performance, and also very simple at the same time. I think that the dance was more of a sad, or somber tone than some of the other dances, but the background music would get increasingly upbeat at some points which made the dancers move a little quicker, showing a more happy side to dance as well. The costumes that the dancers were wearing also complimented the music almost perfectly in my opinion because they were very classical just like the music and movements of the ballet. Each dancer got their own solo time on stage, because there was only three of them throughout the dance. The movements were all in sync with each other, and they were also very simple but beautiful at the same time.

The second dance I critiqued was Lost Souls. This dance was exactly what the title sounds like: very dark and full of thought-provoking movements and dance. At the beginning and end of the performance, there was a voice that talked about