IADMS Miami 2000   [back to the Category]

Generic Technique: Fitting the Phenotype for the Whole Dance Experience   [read the french version]

Author :   John M. Wilson, Ph.D.

Author: John M. Wilson, Ph.D., Dance Division, College of Fine Arts, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

“Generic Technique” was developed by the presenter over a thirty year period as a transition between conditioning and body techniques and stylistic techniques. In increasing numbers, dancers have available to them many excellent conditioning and body techniques ranging from yoga to Pilates; and stylistic techniques, from ballet to Graham to Giordano, are well established and widely practiced. Lacking, however, is an orderly, dynamic, developmental system for transition from the former to the latter. Generic technique is designed to fulfill that transition by: attending to the threshold level of sensorimotor experience in erect posture; cultivating passive consciousness of the initial articulation of joints supporting alignment; discovering balance as the result of dynamic interaction between the effect of gravity and the natural response of sensitized muscle; and increasing sensitivity to tactile and kinesthetic information. Additionally, the continual adaptability of the technique to “fit the participant” is described and experienced. Generic technique is designed to “fit the genotype and support the phenotype.”
This presentation, including a student demonstrator, will pace participants through the first four phases of the generic technique that progress from primary bipedal stance to dynamic, full-length body stretches and swings. The neuro-muscular and perceptual significance of each phase is made clear in the running narrative that accompanies the experience. Although the complete generic technique sequence cannot be explored in the time given for the presentation, the sampling will give participants and observers substantial information to evaluate and discuss.
Generic technique is currently being notated, videotaped, and described in a text that will provide a complete record for dancers and dance teachers to use in the training studio and for dance teachers and scientists to use in evaluating the development and maintenance of individual dancers as they practice their art.

This is the abstract of a paper presented at the Tenth Annual Meeting of the International Association for Dance Medicine and Science, held 27-29 October 2000 in Miami, Florida, USA. All rights are reserved by the individual author(s).