FULL NAME:  Gregory Scott                   

- PHONE NUMBER:  1.917.968.6701

- EMAIL:  gls62@columbia.edu

- SHORT BIOGRAPHY (400-500 characters) – relevant to the proposal, Symposium theme: 

Trained at the San Francisco Ballet School and the National Ballet School of Canada, Greg directed the doctoral program in Dance Education at New York University.  He has written on the philosophy of dance and on Aristotle's (THE ART OF) DRAMATIC MUSICAL COMPOSITION, previously known as the POETICS. 

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Melkine:dance::melody:music – using “melkine” in dance training & composition

 - DETAILED CONTENT DESCRIPTION (max. 2000 characters):  An anthropologist of dance, Adrienne Kaeppler first developed in the 1960’s-70’s a system of dance analysis that identifies culturally significant units of movement—the smallest being the “kineme.”  This is like a phoneme in language for her.  I extend the notion to what would be the equivalent of a melody in music or a sentence in language, and have had also to coin a term:  melkine (from the Greek “mel” meaning honey, and “kinesis” meaning movement).  In this talk, I give some examples of melkines, often but not always from the context of ballet, and explain how understanding the notion allows students to help isolate the upper body from the lower body, with sometimes the upper doing the melody, as it were, and the bottom, the rhythm(s).  Or vice-versa.  This helps younger teachers, dancers and choreographers understand even better that the human body when dancing can be more like an orchestra (or a complex instrument like a piano) than an instrument like a flute, in some contrast to the saying “Dancers’ bodies are their instruments.”  It also helps reveal that the human body is so complex in movement that without being very disciplined about “movement design” choreographers can completely overwhelm and confuse the audience.

- SUMMARY OF CONTENT DESCRIPTION AND MOTIVATION (max 400- 500 characters; for publishing):

Partly in order to facilitate musicality while dancing, to help with pedagogy, and to guide new choreographers, I coin the term melkine.  In this talk, I give some examples of melkines from the context of ballet, especially port de bras.  This helps us understand better that the human body when dancing can be more like an orchestra (or a complex instrument like a piano) than an instrument like a flute, in some contrast to the saying “Dancers’ bodies are their instruments.”

- SHORT BIOGRAPHY (max 60 words for publishing (if co-taught all in all max 60 words): 

Trained at the San Francisco Ballet School and the National Ballet School of Canada, Greg directed the doctoral program in Dance Education at New York University.  He writes on the philosophy of dance and his magnum opus ARISTOTLE ON DRAMATIC MUSICAL COMPOSITION: THE REAL ROLE OF LITERATURE, CATHARSIS, MUSIC AND DANCE IN THE POETICS just appeared in September 2016.

- GENERAL INTERESTS, CODE/KEY WORDS 

philosophy dance drama ballet Argentine tango

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- Participating requirements (for whom is this workshop for?)  Teachers, dance students, choreograhers, theorists

- TIME REQUIREMENTS (how much time do you need for sharing?)  60 min

- SPACE REQUIREMENTS (what kind of space do you require for your sharing? studio size etc)  Size depends of course on the audience; with movable chairs is fine

- TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS (what kind of technical support do you require? audio, beamer etc)  Projector for computer (Mac)

- OTHER REQUIREMENTS – comments.