I. Irish Tap Dance Traces Its Origin
Tap dance originated in Ireland, and was officially formed in the United States in 1920. Irish immigrants and African slaves brought their respective folk dances to this immigrant continent, and thus American tap dance was considered a stolen dance and a challenging dance. It originated at the bottom of the social ladder, was popular on farms and in the streets, and was almost exclusively danced by blacks in the early days of America. On farms and plantations, black slaves were forbidden to perform traditional religious rituals such as dancing and drumming, so they secretly clapped their hands and beat their feet on the floor instead of drumming. In the cities, blacks were not allowed to go to dance schools like whites, but often competed with each other, "stealing" each other's steps and competing in contests. This form of competition still exists today in River Dance performances.
Irish tap dance combines dynamic steps and elegant dance, and its magnificent performance style allows people to watch the dizzying. It is a two-footed movement for the performance of the main body, is suitable for men, women, old and young people of all sports; at the same time it is a popular form of dance around the world, not only can improve people's artistic cultivation, but also an important way to develop intelligence, in favor of the individual's overall physical and mental development.
Second, from the psychological point of view to explore the positive role of Irish tap dance on the development of personal intelligence
Irish tap dance is a unique and creative art of movement, dance steps, the dancer's skill requirements are high. Its fast rhythm requires the hands, feet, eyes, ears, brain and other organs of the whole body to coordinate with each other. It has a good training effect on Irish tap dance practitioners' observation and learning ability, imitation ability, memory ability, and movement coordination ability. The following is based on Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligence to explore the positive effects of Irish tap dance on the physical and mental development of people.
People's intelligence is a combination of wisdom and ability, mainly including perception, observation, memory, imagination, thinking, creativity, and so on, and perception and creativity as its core. Although there is no significant difference in intelligence scores between people, people in different cultural backgrounds differ significantly in the composition structure of intelligence and the performance characteristics of intelligence. Irish tap dance, as an important part of Irish traditional culture, has an important impact on the development of human intelligence in the process of its inheritance.
( I) Development and improvement of human feeling ability
Feeling power, psychologically known as perceptual ability, is the basis of human intellectual ability and behavioral ability. Human sensory integration system is divided into visual integration system, auditory integration system, tactile integration system, equilibrium integration system and proprioceptive integration system. Through the brain, human beings organize, analyze and synthesize the sensory information coming from various sensory organs of the body for many times, make correct decisions, and make the whole organism operate harmoniously and effectively. Different parts of the brain must work in unison and coordination to accomplish advanced and complex cognitive activities of human beings, including attention, organization, self-control, generalization and comprehension. When the brain's integration of sensory information occurs problems, it will make the organism can not function effectively, called sensory integration disorder, so the ability to feel is the basis and prerequisite for a variety of human capabilities.
The form of Irish tap dance is relatively free, without too many additional restrictions. But it has a prescribed skill requirement, focusing on the rhythm of the toe and heel strike. Performers wearing special tap shoes, with all parts of the foot on the floor friction beat, issued a variety of tap sounds, coupled with a variety of beautiful dancers, the formation of its unique humor, wit and expressive power. Irish tap dance emphasizes "stepping" and "stepping", keeping the upper body immobile and relying only on the vibration of the lower body to create audio-visual effects. In the process of practice, the dancer's external analyzer and internal analyzer should always maintain a high degree of tension, timely processing of all kinds of internal and external information, and then in the brain to combine this information with the experience of the movement, through the analysis of the comprehensive judgment of the psychological process of processing, so as to send out the control of the action of the command. Irish tap dance not only requires people to have a high degree of feeling ability, in turn, also cultivate the exercise of human feeling ability, the two promote each other, **** with the development. As it is said in philosophy, "Without feeling, we cannot know any form of physical objects, nor can we know any form of movement." The training of Irish tap dance helps to improve the ability of human sense perception, and then expand and deepen people's understanding of the objective world.
(ii) cultivate people's keen observation
Observation refers to the use of the organs of perception conscious, planned, purposeful and accompanied by thinking activities to participate in the process of advanced forms of perception. Through observation, feeling and perception to make themselves and the external world connected to the objective world with personality characteristics of the ability to recognize. The ability to observe is inherent from time to time, and is formed in the process of constantly using one's own organs of perception, such as sight, hearing, taste, and internal organs of the body. The process of intergenerational transmission of national culture is also the process of training and development of the individual's observation ability in learning and utilization.
Love tap dance form and content are relatively rich, such as: tiptoe step, a basic action in the soft shoes, the rhythm of a variety of forms and rich in change; flash dance, dance combined with acrobatic movements, especially exciting, usually used at the end of the dance; fixed moves and melting, highlighting the `contrast between the fixed and unchanging gestures and sudden and rapid jumping. The dance has a compact rhythm, a precise pace, and a high number of heel-fall moves, creating a rhythmic beat. Learners can only gradually master various techniques through the process of first observing, then imitating and then applying. If the practitioners do not have good observation skills to observe the characteristics of these movements delicately, it will be difficult to master these dance techniques. Learners with poor observation skills often have ambiguous memories of dance movements, so that they have low movement accuracy in dance, and the learning process is slow and cannot be fast and accurate. And it is in the process of learning, practicing and performing tap that practitioners effectively develop a keen sense of observation.
(3) Shaping the rich imagination
Imagination is the ability of the human brain to process and transform a number of representations formed in the past to establish a new image, which has the role of a gas pedal and catalyst in creative activities. Modern science reveals that imagination or fantasy is a special function of the human brain, and it is the unique ability of human beings to redesign and combine existing information with new information. Artistic performances cannot be separated from imagination, and only if one can imagine various scenes, plots or characters in his mind, can he appropriately interpret the beauty of art. Dance learners and performers need both imagination for artistic creation and rich imagination for artistic appreciation.
General dance is through the body language and facial expressions to convey feelings and meanings, and love tap dance is a two-legged rhythmic dance, is through the legs to express the theme of the rhythm of percussion. This rhythm includes different factors such as the speed of the speed, the lightness of the sound, and the crispness and dullness of the sound. For example, in the first act of "Dance of the River", "Dance with the Sun***", a group of performers' thunderous tap sound and passionate music bring people a kind of heart-pumping happy experience. The ninth chapter "hometown in my heart" is different from the previous crisp sound and fast rhythm, the sound from sparse, dull, slow, gradually to dense, agile, brisk, expressing the dancers' love for their hometown and the vision of a better life. Dancers need to figure out the feelings of the characters and the developing plot of the story according to the movements in order to express their rich emotional world, which is actually the process of cultivating one's imagination. If the dancer lacks the imagination for creation and artistic performance, he or she will not be able to realize the inner beauty of Aisu Tap Dance, and even if he or she is skilled in the dance movements, he or she will still be a simple imitator, rather than a dancer who is able to express his or her feelings in the form of a god and a spirit. Love tap dance on the human imagination puts forward a high demand, but also greatly improve the imagination of the practitioners.
In summary, Irish tap dance is beneficial to the development of human intelligence, enhance feelings, cultivate observation, improve memory, rich imagination, development of thinking, and then promote the overall development of intelligence.
Irish tap dance with other dances are the same as the kernel of emotion, to the body as a tool, to the art of body language as a form of expression, in a certain space combined with a certain music beat continuous movement, with a distinctive performance of externalization of the inner thoughts and feelings of the people, catharsis of the spirit of the people's aspirations. For people who love Irish tap dance, dancing is not only a kind of sport, but also a kind of enjoyment. In the rich rhythmic sense of rhythm in the development and exploration of the spiritual world of self, its energetic dance steps let people always keep a high morale, the joy and positive attitude to life. Tap dancing in Ireland often requires a combination of both physical and mental movements, keeping the unity of physical movements and inner emotions. Such practice will undoubtedly promote the psychological development of human personality.
Irish Tap Dance
Tap Dance
Tap dance is a modern dance style. It was formed in the United States in the 1920s. Irish immigrants and African slaves brought their own folk dances to the United States, which gradually fused to form the dance form of tap.
In terms of dance movement, tap dance focuses on the toe and heel of the ground beat rhythm, performers wearing special tap shoes, with all parts of the foot, friction on the floor beat, a variety of tap sound, coupled with a variety of beautiful dancers, the formation of a tap dance unique free-spirited and full of the sense of rhythm.
Tap dance is a dance form used to listen to, a great tap dancer is a great musician. In the early days of tap competitions, the judges would even sit down on the stage and not look at the dancers, but just listen to the rhythm of their blows. For a good tap dancer, it doesn't matter how fast the rhythm, how complex the steps, or how light the sound, it's all clear and clean.
Tap dance has developed over nearly a hundred years, forming different styles, the two main branches, is the American style tap dance and Irish style tap dance.
1 American tap dance
American tap dance is the combination of Irish tap dance and African traditional dance and the development of the formation. The dance is free and easy as a form, the pursuit of rhythmic complex expression. In the era of Hollywood cabaret movies, American tap dance is familiar and loved by people all over the world as the most fascinating dance part on the big screen. From the lovely Shirley Temple to Hollywood's famous King of Dancers, Kim Carrey, their tap dance performances in the movie have mesmerized millions of viewers.
2 Irish Tap Dance
Tap dancing is a specialty of Ireland, and is the country's national pastime, combining artistic performances, elegant dance moves, and the amazing physical ability of the dancers. But unlike the American tap dance, which is a witty and unrestrained form of expression, Irish tap dance is more disciplined and pure. When performing, Irish dancers often keep their hands naturally down on the hips, the upper body without excess action, relying on the lower half of the body and feet hit the ground to complete the action of the rhythm. If the U.S. tap dance in the individual showmanship, then the Irish tap dance is long to show the momentum of the group dance, from the "River Dance", "Dance of Kings", "Dance of Flames" to the upcoming stage of the National Bureau of the House of the "Dance of Fate", all highlighting the Irish tap dance neatly, the characteristics of the broad waves.
In addition, there are British tap dance, Chinese Tibetan tap dance, etc., each with its own characteristics of tap dance types to make the tap this kind of dance more diverse and rich.