A post off subject -- I was watching a biography on David Bowie last night. As a dancer I amazed that some dancers/choreographers who use others music; or as a dancer you always hear the music of the artist. What’s amazing is that they only listen to what is being used for rehearsal--but not get into depth of the artist’s history.
David Bowie has been around for a long time --since the late 60’s and even changed his surname to avoid confusion of The Monkees, Davy Jones. I feel it is essential to plunge full force into an artist’s career when using their music. For example, let’s use Bowie as an example. If you are using an album -say, Heathen- and you only listen to more current albums….are you really really listening the artist’s body of work? No.
I am getting into Led Zeppelin and using their music for a suite and have been researching the past work. How am I supposed to portray the art to the music if I don’t understand what was happening at that time? I won’t.
In closing, most dancers who use an artist are not paying real respect to the album---but they {the singer/songwriter} do receive royalty checks from new people listening to the music. To bad the artist themselves is not educating themselves with what they are rehearsing.
