What Color Do You Hear?
An Exploration of Color and Music Through Dance
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the relationship between music color, emotion and dance. Throughout this report, you will read about my previous research on the effects music has on spirituality and wellbeing, as well as the relationship between all three areas. From this research, I have designed a research project in which I will explore dancers’ emotional connection to music through color and movement. This is something many dancers and artists do unintentionally already. By designing movements that reflect the genre of the song, they connect with the audience and deliver a message without using words. Colors have the same power that is explored in a similar way by visual artists. By combining both color and music, we as performers have the ability to create a story that will resonate with others. This not only leaves the audience free to create their own interpretation, but also with the ability to take something away from the performance. Allowing dancers to improvise with simple guidelines will allow them to develop a personal connection to the music and also create a story that will resonate with them. It is a very simple task to associate a color with an emotion, but being able to put that emotion to music and dance is another task in itself. This paper and project is designed to tackle all of these areas and further explain the connection between music, color, emotion and dance.
My Thesis Performance was intended to be a choreographed showcase, depicting how color expresses emotion through dance and movement. Due to the unprecedented circumstances of COVID-19, the remainder of our semester at Endicott College has been moved to distance learning, and because of this my performance has been changed to a virtual showcase. Below you can find my Thesis Performance and program.
Program
The following dancers took part in my artistic experiment of color expressed through music and dance. The four dancers, including myself, were assigned a color and a song. The song has no lyrics, only music. This leaves the chosen movement up to the dancers discretion without the influence of words. I focused on five of the primary colors and songs that I felt as though best represented these colors. The arrangements of these songs are instrumental only, so that way the lyrics of the songs had no influence over what feelings and emotions the song was meant to express. This gives dancers full creative range as to how the song makes them feel and what the message is that this song is trying to convey. Lyrics have the tendency to persuade the listener to think about what the song is saying. However, we have learned from modern day experiences, that even though the lyrics say one thing, a dance could be created around it that takes on a whole new meaning. For example, the song “Part Of Your World” from The Little Mermaid is a song famously known for being about a mermaid who longs to be human and have human experiences up on the shore. Moreover, how interesting would it be to choreograph a dance to that song, but about bullying and how a lonely girl longs to fit in with the popular crowd? Music has so many different interpretations and without lyrics limiting us to those interpretations, the possibilities are endless.
Orange: Chloe Castellanos
Fun by: Selena Gomez
Green: Jenna Brown
Vulnerable by: Selena Gomez
Blue: Alexa Brown
Something’s Gotta Give by: Camilla Cabello
Purple: Meaghan DelGenio
Roots and Wings by: Jessie James Decker