3/2/2026 - Week 8 / Meeting 14: Five Rhythms / Staccato

 

 

Unit: 5 Rhythms

Theme: Staccato

 

I

Introduction

Continuing with our unit on the 5 Rhythms created by Gabrielle Roth, today, we will explore Staccato, a broken rhythm, where the notes are performed in an abrupt, sharp, clear-cut manner. Applied to Dance Improvisation, Staccato is moving one's body fast to the drum beat. Remember, this is another step towards using dance to transcend one's immediate mind state and enter a state of body surrendering.

II 

Learning Objectives

 

• Understand the ideas behind Staccato rhythm
  
• Explain the sensations generated as a result of Staccato
• Gain awareness of the use of embodied movement-meditation in letting go
  
• Experience solo and group dance dancing Staccato
• Reflect on the creative process at the end of the process
  

 

 III

 

 WARM UP

Stretching 

 

IV

 

Main Lesson

 

1

 

 

Question 1

 

Based on what 5 Rhythms teacher Sophia Campeau-Ferman says, what is the difference between flow and staccato?

 

 

 2

 

Question 2

How would describe the transition from flow to staccato in this duet?

3

 Music

 

4

 CONCEPTS

Staccato is a form of musical articulation. In modern notation, it signifies a note of shortened duration, separated from the note that may follow by silence. It has been described by theorists and has appeared in music since at least 1676.

Staccato rhythm acts like a broken rhythm, where the notes are performed in an abrupt, sharp, clear-cut manner. It is like machine gun fire or a rapid drum beat. Dancing staccato (meaning to “separate”) is taking steps with quick bursts of energy, sharp movements. Symbolically, it means to let go of anger, reference one's childhood, and experience love as one, connects with one's heart heartbeat.

 

 

 5

 

Rhythm is Rhythm 

 (Nick Lambrianou's review on Jannina Wellman)

(Paragraph 9)

Link:

https://www.radicalphilosophy.com/reviews/individual-reviews/rhythm-is-rhythm 

 For Wellmann, it is in musicology around 1800 that these theoretical reflections on rhythm become most evident, as the discipline expands into generalised concerns with meter, measure (Takt) and accent (Akzentheorie) as the keys to an aesthetics of musical form and beauty. Coupled with the physiological disposition of the human as ‘rhythmic being’, which both romanticism and musicology inherit from contemporary science, a more philosophically systematic account of nature and becoming is revealed. As such, what was new in 1800 was not the musical concept of rhythm itself, but that the changed ‘vision of rhythm in both music theory and biology had – unconsciously – reordered knowledge in each domain. Rhythm became understood as the underlying structure of flowing movement, ‘development’ in both aesthetic and organic meanings of the term. This is important not least because this places rhythm back into its truly multi-disciplinary origins: the category of rhythm for Wellmann indicates a lost unity of cultural and natural thought, which existed before nineteenth-century academic and scientific specialisation split them into separate and distinct spheres.

 

Question 3

 What was the change that took place in the 1800s in reference to rhythm?

 

 

 V

 

A Note to Remember

 

Dancing staccato is taking steps with quick bursts of energy, and sharp movements to let go of anger, reference one's childhood, and experience love as one by connecting with one's own heart heartbeat.

 

 

VI

Case Studies

1

There is no movement without rhythm

 

 

 

2

Yoruba-Caribbean Dance

 

 Wemilere

 

Link:

 https://vimeo.com/312332715

 

 Students explore Yoruba-Caribbean dance movement.

 

 Question 4

After watching this videos, why is rhythm so important?

 

3

 

 

Sharing the Dance: Contact Improvisation and American Culture 

Cynthia J. Novack 

(Page 11)

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Sharing_the_Dance/6sHFCQAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Dance+Improvisation&printsec=frontcover

Novack, Cynthia J. (1990). Sharing the Dance: Contact Improvisation and American Culture. The University of Wisconsin Press

Question 5

 

Read page 11 and summarize its content.

 

 

 

 

 

VII

 

 ACTIVITY

 

 1

We will use the idea of the negative space to experience the flow rhythm. 

Negative space, in art, is the space around and between the subject of an image. 

Negative space may be most evident when the space around a subject, not the subject itself, forms an interesting or artistically relevant shape, and such space occasionally is used to artistic effect as the "real" subject of an image.

 

 2

Students dance staccato rhythm using all the academic and embodied concepts explored in class.

[Students who need to make up, record 1 min. of staccato movement and post it on Discussion Board]. 

 

 

VIII

Glossary

Staccato is a form of musical articulation. In modern notation, it signifies a note of shortened duration, separated from the note that may follow by silence. It has been described by theorists and has appeared in music since at least 1676.

Staccato rhythm acts like a broken rhythm, where the notes are performed in an abrupt, sharp, clear-cut manner. It is like machine gun fire or a rapid drum beat. Dancing staccato (meaning to “separate”) is taking steps with quick bursts of energy, sharp movements. Symbolically, it means to let go of anger, reference one's childhood, and experience love as one, connects with one's heart heartbeat.

 

IX

Journaling

 

X

Sources

 

XI

Students' Work