About the Performance

by Falon Baltzell,

Artistic Director at The Wooden Floor

Welcome to The Wooden Floor’s 39th Annual Concert: Hope Abounds!

The Annual Concert provides all of us the opportunity to connect, witness the hallmark of artistic excellence, and appreciate The Wooden Floor’s mission in motion through the professionalism, creativity, and talent of the students. This year’s Annual Concert will feature three world premieres.

Those new to modern dance often wonder about how to experience what they are seeing. Below are a few insights I hope will help you enjoy the performance.

Watching a Modern Dance Piece

When observing a modern dance piece, you may wonder about what the dance means. The concept of a modern dance piece can range from literal, to abstract, to no meaning at all. Although piece descriptions are provided in the program, you are invited to see the dances from your perspective. You may witness a story unfold that reminds you about your day today or about a conversation you had with your best friend last week. Leaving the performance with questions about what you saw is a good thing–a conversation-starter about what your experiences were while watching our Annual Concert.

The History of Modern Dance

In the 17th century, ballet was first standardized and popularized by King Louis XIV of France. Louis XIV established the Paris Opera Ballet, a theatrical school for music and dance, where its artists developed the classical techniques of ballet as we know it today. In the early 1800s, European dancers and members of the Paris Opera came to America and opened the first American school of ballet. In the 1890s, San Francisco-born Isadora Duncan, although trained in ballet, believed ballet limited how a person could move. Through her exploration of free movement, Isadora was the catalyst for modern dance. Throughout the 20th century, Isadora and other influential pioneers rebelled against classical ballet and sought to inspire audiences with a new form of free movement they called modern dance. Modern dance today often incorporates balletic movement and other styles of dance that innovate different ways of moving.

Why The Wooden Floor Performs Modern Dance

We are often asked why we choose our approach to dance. It is a commitment to a dance approach that values exploration, discovery, and innovation, which leads to the success of our students in school and in life. Dance makes a lifechanging impact on the young people we serve. Through dance, we teach our children to take responsibility for themselves and their futures by taking ownership of their bodies. The properties of our dance curriculum center on innovation, creativity, curiosity, teamwork, self-sufficiency, and courage. In pursuit of a life challenge, our students follow the same processes they learn in the dance studio – processes that are used by working professionals every day: ideation, collaboration, planning, execution, and reflection. Repeated over and over in the dance studio and on stage year after year, this leads our students to reach new personal milestones. Success and feelings of accomplishment permeate and lift up all areas of their lives, from academics to the dreams they hold for their futures. As a result, creativity and resilience are cultivated, confidence blooms and full potential can be realized. For these reasons, dance is at the core of The Wooden Floor’s Theory of Change.