Revisiting Ballet through Groove

Julie Pecard

How can groove influence ballet language to bring forth movement signature and support new meaning? I aim to uncover how groove can bridge classical form and movement signature by developing a method based on groove, revisiting ballet terminology, and allowing the performers to find their movement signature. Resilience has emerged as an accompanying concept that provides a base when generating movement. I research, create, and perform work that is anchored in Western Contemporary Dance. In my practice, I search for connections between the dancers, the concept, the music, the rehearsal process, and the performance. Questions I ask myself are: What are threads that help all involved connect to the work meaningfully? And how do we all come out of the creation with a sense of authorship? I often invite personal memories of the dancers into the work to make it more relatable, finding that commonalities emerge to connect us. The themes I base my concepts around are identity, finding a place of belonging, home, and womanhood. I have chosen to approach this research with varying lenses: my personal experience both in life and in the studio, through poetic writing, relating to thinkers and choreographers, and through the creation of Lost Threads. There is an analytical approach through depicting what in groove can serve ballet. I have based my research on music theory and transferred knowledge to an embodied practice around groove. I have analyzed the biomechanics of ballet movements, precisely 8, adding how language can contribute to another level of experiencing movement. I define resilience as the process of finding one's centre, and how the process toward equilibrium can be used to generate drive and inspiration, relating this process to choreographic scores and improvisation. The counter side of this research is the poetic approach I have taken through writing and sketching. This world offers further possibilities to uncover more knowledge on the connection of ballet and groove, performers and movement signature, resilience and improvisation. I’ve come back to my roots of ballet and gone deeper into the ground, emerging with an innovative practice through groove. Daring to search for innovative ways of bending classical form. Fontys Academy of the Arts, Codarts, Master Choreography COMMA, Master Arts, Cohort 4: 2023-2025

Conclusion

In the course of this research, I’ve gone back to my roots, revisited ballet, and gone deeper into my origins and my knowledge, coming through with an innovative choreographic method. Daring to search for new ways of bending classical form, I find myself at the beginning of a choreographic path combining my analytical voice with the poetic. Through the method, I have found a voice that offers possibilities for narrative to emerge through the deeply embodied knowledge acquired over decades of dancing and investigating.

I anticipate using this method in future creations and workshop formats to transmit tools for movement generation through groove. My work in this context is geared toward professional dancers and dancers and choreographers in professional training programs. I see the possibility for deepening the research through sharing, receiving feedback, and gathering knowledge from many dancers in varied contexts.

The sketch of the tree in its full format is missing some leaves as well as the top and beyond. I find myself at the beginning of discovering the potential of revisiting ballet through groove by sensing and expressing the connections. At this moment, I sense that I need to let go in order to grow to the full potential that is within me, where I can take my place in the working and artistic field of choreography. There is an emergent power simmering up within me that will allow me to complete the sketch, one step at a time. Or rather, one moment at a time. For this, I first need to take the time to be within my full potential.

I sit here, closing in on a two-year journey. Feeling as if I was just at the beginning, but with a new level of depth, of knowledge, of confidence. I am strong, rooted, and ready to fly. Flying to gain new perspectives, to let go of ties, to find new horizons, new landing zones. Continuing with the wish to belong, I find myself sensing a departure, and I can say that I am rather at peace with planting new roots, knowing that the roots left behind are never fully lost. A place where I can occupy the space that I need. I am surprised by this outcome, it isn’t a period, it is a semicolon or the end of a chapter rather than the end of the book.

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Conclusion