Relationship between dance and sound:
In asking about the relationship between dance and sound, and if music is essential for dance to be performed Yassmin answered that it is not. First she pointed out that if we watch a video of someone dancing and we were to remove the music, or if we see someone dancing to the music from their headphones we are able to still recognise their movements as dance. And so from the point of view of someone witnessing dance it can exist from the performer. In terms of the experience of the performer Yassmin talked about how the rhythm can easily come within and that music-less dancing has no real limitations in what can work, people can dance together with no music. So what then, is the relationship between dance and music if dance does not intrinsically need music to exist. According to Yassmin the relationship actually works the other way, “music is made to be danced to,” the contrarian within me immediately wanted to say ‘no it’s not’ but I thought I would explore my thoughts here. If we take a scientific approach to a theory such as this, we could try and come up with examples that would disprove this. Immediately my mind went to classical music, which stereotypically is performed in large concert halls to rows and rows of seated audience members, however after a brief bit of research I found that often patrons would commission artists to compose music specifically danced to and often pieces were written with the intention of dance to be performed to them.
What of abstract music? Music that is without rhythm? My mind immediately goes to Jessica Ekomane’s Multivocal, which is many different metronomes that all start at the same time but are all a few milliseconds apart, the timing is constantly shifting and so there is not a consistent rhythm to dance to. In the end though it depends on each persons definition of music, according to oxford learners dictionaries it is
“sounds that are arranged in a way that is pleasant or exciting to listen to. People sing music or play it on instruments.”
Oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com. (2020). music noun – Definition, pictures, pronunciation and usage notes | Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary at OxfordLearnersDictionaries.com. [online] Available at: https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/music [Accessed 5 Dec. 2020].
but ask Throbbing Gristle if they intended their music to be pleasant or exciting to listen to. There is no real consistent definition and it really varies from person to person. For Yassmin it could be that the definition of music is an arrangement of sounds intended to be danced to. For me as a young emerging sound artist I am not so confident and feel like any definition I were to come up with would exclude great swathes of artists and their work. In the end though I do feel it is relative.