Dance Ethnography

Music is a form of expression. It is a way of communicating an idea and telling a story. But music can be used in various ways. Throughout my life, I’ve found the power of music within my passion for dance. I enjoy finding different instrumental pieces and discovering how I can create movement based on them. However, my favorite part about creating choreography is letting myself go and using my experience in theatre to understand the power of conveying a story. I decided to follow this passion when we were assigned to create a creative assignment based off of one of the topics we’ve covered this year in World History Class. I have always been really interested in change and learning about how an individual is able to go against society to
In addition, in joining a professional dance company in the city, I had to go against the standards of having to be a college graduate in their 20s. I decided that my own talents and abilities should enable me to succeed and thus took a risk in auditioning for this company. Napoleon followed a similar philosophy throughout his life, abandoning the social expectations and letting his own skills and talent override his status. In establishing these similarities between Napoleon and myself, I decided that the best way to represent his life is through choreography. The analysis and specific connection to Napoleon Bonaparte to the piece of choreography that I created is described below.

This piece of choreography is performed to the song, “Elementi Della Terra”. This song is solely instrumental and gave me the vibe of wartime and chaos. The reason I chose this piece of music is because of Napoleon’s origins in Corsica and his leadership during the chaos in France. Napoleon was born in 1769 in Corsica. Corsica was a small island, often compared to Italy because of their overlaps. However, Corsica was proud of its individual independence because of the threat of France along with other external
This represents Napoleon’s battles. The standing up represents his victories. These victories include the Battle of Toulon, in which the British attacked and Napoleon used his military strategies to kick them out. However, I fell to represent the failures that he had throughout his career as well. However, when I stay seated and push myself back, with my chest out, I am depicting Napoleon’s ability to maintain his victorious image to the French. He did so by bribing the spies to only speak of his victories to the France. In addition, he used visual propaganda by establishing paintings of himself succeeding as a military leader. The movement I used to depict this visual and verbal proof includes turning my back and then returning to sitting position at 2:19. The reason I chose to incorporate this movement is because even though he failed, he did so with his back to France, meaning that they could only see his