1. Stimulus ideas for dance composition
© Commonwealth of Australia 2009

2. ideas for dance composition
stimulus
ideas for dance composition

3. stimulus
is defined as the starting point or incentive for creative movement. Stimuli can be categorised into 5 groups.

4. stimulus VISUAL what we see AUDITORY what we hear KINAESTHETIC
movement
TACTILE
what we touch
IDEATIONAL
ideas

5. visual

6. visual what we see images dreams films
The following images, descriptions of dreams and short film excerpts could be used to stimulate ideas for dance composition.
Click in the text box on each page to add your ideas about how the visual could be used for movement. You could write words to describe certain features of the images such as the lines, shapes, colours, patterns or emotional responses that the images invoke.
Consider using words that remind you of dynamic qualities, timing, spatial floor patterns, body shapes, relationships and other aspects of dance composition.

7. Double click to add your ideas

8. Double click to add your ideas

9. Double click to add your ideas

10. DREAMS
Dreams can be described as a series of images, thoughts and emotions that pass through the mind while sleeping.
The things that we dream about are often said to symbolise certain things.

11. Double click to write a dream that you have experienced
MY DREAM
Double click to write a dream that you have experienced

12. MY DREAM
Double click to write your ideas for how your dream could be used as a starting point for composition.

13. FILM
Visit the Australia Screen website below to view a selection of short films about dance, flowers, architecture and movement.
You could use the films as stimulus for your own composition or to give you ideas about creating a dance work for screen.
View the films at:

14. Double click to add your ideas
FILM
Select one of the films. Click in the text box below to add your ideas about how you could use the film as a starting point for movement.
Double click to add your ideas

15. auditory

16. AUDITORY what we hear sounds music
Music can be used to stimulate ideas for dance composition. Visit the downloads page of our website to download a selection of music tracks.
Select one of the music tracks. Click in the text box on the following page to add your ideas about how the music could be used for movement. You could write words to describe certain aspects of the music.
Consider using words that remind you of dynamic qualities, timing, spatial floor patterns, body shapes, relationships and other aspects of dance composition.
Click this link to download the audio tracks:
Dance DOWNLOADS

17. Double click to add your ideas

18. KINAESTHETIC

19. kinaesthetic movement dance movement dynamic qualities other movement
The following images suggest movement that could be used to stimulate ideas for dance composition.
Click in the text box on each page to add your ideas about how the movement in the image could be used for dance composition. You could write words to describe the movement or try to replicate the movement with your body.
Consider using words that remind you of dynamic qualities, timing, spatial floor patterns, body shapes, relationships and other aspects of dance composition.

20. Double click to add your ideas

21. Double click to add your ideas

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23. Double click to add your ideas

24. tactile

25. TACTILE texture what we touch
The following images focus on the textures of various objects and could be used to stimulate ideas for dance composition.
Click in the text box on each page to add your ideas about how the texture of the object could be used for movement. You could write descriptions of how you imagine the object would feel.
Consider using descriptive words that remind you of dynamic qualities, timing spatial floor patterns, body shapes, relationships and other aspects of dance composition.

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27. Double click to add your ideas

28. Double click to add your ideas

29. IDEATIONAL

30. IDEATIONAL ideas quotes poems concepts narratives
The following images and poems suggest concepts and ideas that could be used to stimulate ideas for dance composition.
Click in the text box on each page to add your ideas about the concept that could be used for dance composition. You could write random ideas or develop a short narrative.
Consider how the concepts could be translated to dynamic qualities, timing, spatial floor patterns, body shapes, relationships and other aspects of dance composition.

31. Double click to add your ideas

32. Double click to add your ideas

33. Double click to add your ideas

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38. Double click to add your ideas

39. Choreographers such as Martha Graham and Nacho Duato have used poetry as stimulus for some of their works.
Words and rhythms of poems can inspire dramatic shapes and relationships
Use the highlight text tool to select lines from the following poems that could be used as a starting point for movement.
Write your movement ideas next to the text.

40. Double click to add your ideas
There's a certain slant of light
by Emily Dickinson
Double click to add your ideas
There's a certain slant of light, On winter afternoons That oppresses, like the weight Of cathedral tunes. Heavenly hurt it gives us; We can find no scar, But internal difference Where the meanings, are. None may teach it anything, 'T is the seal, despair, An imperial affliction Sent us of the air. When it comes, the landscape listens, Shadows hold their breath; When it goes, 't is like the distance On the look of death.
Source

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Pain has an element of blank
by Emily Dickinson
Pain has an element of blank; It cannot recollect When it began, or if there were A day when it was not. It has no future but itself, Its infinite realms contain Its past, enlightened to perceive New periods of pain
Source

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Sonnet CXVI
by William Shakespeare
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Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove: O no! it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come: Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
Source

43. Double click to add your ideas
I Saw In Louisiana A Live Oak Growing
by Walt Whitman
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I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing,All alone stood it, and the moss hung down from the branches;Without any companion it grew there, uttering joyous leaves of dark green,And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself;
But I wonder'd how it could utter joyous leaves, standing alone there, without its friend, its lover near for I knew I could not;And I broke off a twig with a certain number of leaves upon it, and
twined around it a little moss,
And brought it away - and I have placed it in sight in my room;It is not needed to remind me as of my own dear friends,(For I believe lately I think of little else than of them;)Yet it remains to me a curious token--it makes me think of manly love; For all that, and though the live-oak glistens there in Louisiana, solitary, in a wide flat space,Uttering joyous leaves all its life, without a friend, a lover, near,I know very well I could not.
Source

44. Stimulus ideas for dance composition
© Commonwealth of Australia 2009