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Poetic Dance (a choreographic handbook) is available from Waterstones and other good bookshops.

Books on dance composition that might serve as a guide to aspiring choreographers are not as plentiful as might be thought. This may be due to the comparatively late inclusion of dance as a field to be studied in higher education, the lack of a widely used notation system, the individualism enshrined in Modern dance, the current focus on somatic exploration and/or the increasingly collaborative and improvisational approaches to dance making. Within the UK, the Laban based choreological analysis of dance has provided useful structural principles for aspiring choreographers while, more widely, individual artists have written texts or provided digital materials which offer useful insights into their approaches to dance making but not necessarily a more general guide for the study of choreography.

Doris Humphrey's, The Art of Making Dances (1959) was one exception, that in the past featured on many choreography course reading lists, but now is of more historic interest regarding the principles of Modern dance than a guide for dance makers today. Blom and Chaplin's The Intimate Act of Choreography, first published in 1982, remains a well-used text alongside more recent publications by Kate Flatt, Sandra Minton and Jenny Roche and Stephanie Burridge.

In this new addition to the field, the choreographer Billy Cowie reveals a systematic approach to choreography that may serve as a useful guide to aspiring dance creators. As with the texts by the authors cited above, it is situated within the field of contemporary dance. However, Cowie aims to offer an approach that is ‘relevant to many forms of dance’ through his attempt to explore the ‘underlying principles of all structured movement systems’. In the context of increasingly global

perspectives, which highlight how culture structures the ways in which the world is experienced, this is perhaps an overly ambitious aim. (Given the position of contemporary dance it may also be perceived as an aim fraught with post-colonial complexities.) Nevertheless, what is offered will be beneficial for many of those wanting to create dances within a variety of theatrical or filmic contexts. Basic concepts are introduced and developed in short chapters in an accessible format suited to the needs of the beginner choreographer. For their teachers these have the potential to support the delivery of taught sessions. As an example, ‘key positions’ provide a simple concept for exploring recognisable positions from which or, through which, the dancer moves, while a variety of possible ‘transitions’ provide ways of exploring how the dancer moves into, out of and through key positions. The author admits this approach may seem surprising to some, since the starting point may be regarded as too static for an art form based in movement. However, he stresses how ‘key positions usually exist in passing’.

The organisation of these elements into patterns is then explored as are rhythm, and structures such as two part form and variation. For the student, short chapters on the use of pedestrian movement, interaction between dancers, the use of unison and variants such as canon, placement/travelling (spatial design) and consideration of facial expression along with the use of hand and shoulders provide important information that is explained simply and clearly. The chapters on text, music, improvisation, visual design, costume, film, notation and overarching approaches to choreography (accumulation and chance for example) will also serve as helpful starting points for students of choreography. In the appendix more ideas for patterns of key positions in transition are offered that may inspire more advanced creative exploration.

All of this content is framed in relation to Cowie's concept of poetic dance. With reference to literature, the poetic is described in contrast to plain prose in which ‘the information and ideas, the content is paramount’, although the author recognises how prose and poetry might be considered as ‘something of a continuous spectrum’. While this approach may have some shortcomings in relation to considering the significance of dance in movement terms, the translation of poetic terms to dance works well enough and may be particularly helpful when teaching students whose initial entry to the creative arts has been through studying poetry. Moreover, the approach offers a means of understanding how evocative dance images are built from basic elements while providing an alternative to more intuitive approaches to dance- making which risk repetition of well known patterns of movement.

A feature of the book is a link to case studies on video of Cowie's own work which exemplify how elements are developed in combination in professional performance. This avoids the complexities of copyright while offering access to professional dance works that serve as examples of the structured approach he proposes. For instance, the very first example of an opening solo from a longer dance work, Tangos Cubanas,

demonstrates how a series of gestural transitions in a simple ABA form have poetic resonance. Further case studies offer more choreographic complexity, while some examples offer insights into the use of film, including the use of archive footage.

In contrast to other artforms, the lack of available examples from a range of artists that the author can be confident his readers can access is a limitation that such a solution goes some way to resolve. The case studies also provide an invaluable resource in relation to the varied and interesting work of this artist – although, some teachers may wish to relate the concepts Cowie outlines to a wider range of choreographic works.

The communion between dance and science, far from being a characteristic phenomenon of our contemporaneity, consists of a form of constitutive approach of humanity to knowledge. This close relationship has taken many different forms: from rituals to understand the rhythm of nature to the way in which in Ancient Greece dance principles were taught along with those of the exact sciences. Today, science, although not without remnants of this, is in a moment of overcoming the Cartesian dualism that established the division between mind and body, between reason and emotion. And it is at this moment, with all the breadth of meaning that we can give to the notion of “overcoming”, in which Billy Cowie's new book is located.

The title Danza Poética underlines an invitation, however, we can say bluntly that it is a half invitation, since from the beginning of the reading, from the prologue, we detect that we will find much more than what the title promises. First and big surprise.

In a second moment, when turning the pages, performing a cursory reading, it may give us the impression that this cluster of leaves contains nothing more than a glossary of dance notions. However, the taxonomic effect can only deceive the hasty eye, since after a rhythmic and attentive reading, reaching the last pages, we notice that here, in reality, we are offered a travel instrument. Poetic Dance is about a place from which to start, from where to start a search.

Thus, whoever begins reading this book will find tremendously obvious data on dance, but be careful! Such evidence works as a foundation on which logic and deduction unfold. Second big – and pleasant – surprise.

As the author himself states, one of his sources of inspiration for writing Poetic Dance is the work of Euclid, Elements. This seminal compilation of the knowledge imparted in the classical academic environment represents, for Cowie, much more than a compendium of information on arithmetic and geometry, since it is evident that it is considered as an introductory text of elementary aspects leading to understand the regularities that make the functioning of the forms, matter and, ultimately, everything that constitutes the living world. This is how, based on logical principles, knowledge that asks to be transmitted, evidenced and questioned, Cowie builds a structure on his elements “elements one - key positions; elements two – transitions; elements three - patterns”, prompting reflection on dance from an analytical point of view.

Also, as the author mentions, his other source of inspiration for writing Danza Poética is Fundamentals of Chess by José R. Capablanca. Cowie adopts the method that the Cuban chess player used to elaborate his treatise, which consists of dividing it into two parts, the first, which meticulously develops the principles and strategies of chess, and the second, which presents "real" situations of the games of his own in front of the board. From this second part, he takes the model of presenting his “Case Studies”. This is an analytical exercise on his own artistic productions that are available to be seen online, and where the author shows the way in which his elements come together and function in interaction. And finally, in the last pages there are workshop exercises with which the author invites the reader to carry out the analysis of their own movements.

Here we can ask ourselves what relationship exists between this great knowledge about geometric shapes and trajectories, between points, lines and planes, strategies and movements of pieces, with dance? And above all, with “poetic” dance?

Cowie's work consists of a contribution that, by way of response, adds to the general tendency in the field of dance to demand erudition, sustained in the postulate that the action of knowing is increasingly urgent. But, in addition, in this urgency a method of practical knowledge is required, oriented to an implementation of the same level of practicality.

Anarchic dance or poetic dance? The author asks himself and then answers (himself) through his own set of geometries and trajectories - which, as he himself points out, are not, in short, totally geometric shapes or dogmatically straight lines, anarchy has a poetic element and the poetry is often anarchic.

In this way the elements that Cowie presents to us are nothing more than the pillars for a good poetic choreography, and this, in turn, consists of a mode of discovery that operates on confusion and anarchic pleasure, sensations that can only be generated by surprise.

She is a specialist in Criticism and Diffusion of the Arts (UNA - The National University of the Arts, Argentina) and in Analysis of Choreographic Production (UNLP - La Plata National University) and has a degree in Social Communication (UBA – University of Beunos Aires). Since 2007 she is a professor of Semiotics and Communication Theory and Semiotics of the Arts in the area of ??Art Criticism (UNA).
For more than a decade she has been devoted to the study of the relationship between dance and technology and its problems around the languages ??of contemporary art. She has published articles on this topic in Argentina and international media. She is the author of the book «Complexity and Periphery. Towards a dance analysis platform in interaction with technology», 2017, RGC, Buenos Aires and co-compiler of the book “Terpsícore en Ceros y Unos. Videodance Rehearsals” 2010, Guadalquivir, Buenos Aires.

'Poetic Dance: A Choreographic Manual', the book with which Scottish creator Billy Cowie guides young choreographers in the craft, has been published in Spanish. We tell you…

There are not many books on choreographic composition that can serve as a reference for young creators, even less so in Spanish. Faced with this reality, the choreographer and video creator of Scottish origin, Billy Cowie, awarded the Artist of the Year award by the Fiver Festival in its eighteenth edition held in Madrid, has decided to take action. Currently holding the position of Professor at the University of Brighton, the choreographer who has been described by Miguel Iglesias (director of Danza Contemporánea de Cuba) as a “poet of dance” whose work would impress Baryshnikov himself, presented in 2021 Poetic Dance: A Choreographic Manual, a text published by Idiolect publishers that has recently been translated into Spanish by Mariana di Silveiro.

In his attempt to provide a useful vocabulary that allows choreographers to communicate their ideas to dancers quickly and clearly, Cowie, whose work falls within the broad spectrum that contemporary dance represents, has not wanted to limit himself solely to that field, rather, he has set out to help all those aspiring choreographers through an approach capable of encompassing each and every one of the underlying principles of each structured movement system.

And, as the author states, “only with a developed and rigorous choreographic technique can genuinely original works be created.” With the structure of a chess manual, in turn inspired by Euclid's mathematical treatise, Cowie's book is built through a constant comparison between dance and poetry, highlighting the intrinsic similarities in both choreographic creation and the construction of a poem. In this way, Cowie probes notions such as Rhyme, Meter or Structure, delving into the implications that both poetry and a corresponding aesthetic of Poetic Dance entail, while emphasizing the fact that, as occurs with the works of dance, “the way the poem is written is as important as the information it contains.”

Poetic Dance: A Choreographic Manual is deployed in a total of 21 short and highly accessible chapters for the reader, where it delves into various fundamental concepts in dance such as Key Positions, Transitions or Patterns. As an example, Cowie defines Key Positions as a kind of photograph taken of the most significant poses within a performance, but they are not poses that are maintained, but are shown temporarily within the overall structure of the work. These Key Positions are reached by the dancer through various Transitions that will allow him to enter, exit and go through them.

Through a meticulous journey through a schematic set of specific notions for dance, the author explores elements such as Rhythm, Location, Interaction between performers, the use of Text in the choreographic work or Visual Design, offering various examples in each chapter.

At the same time, it delves into some of the most complex debates that the art of choreographic creation currently presents, such as the problems involved in using video recordings as a means for the notation or recording of choreographic works as well as the danger that poses, both to the public's experience, and the dehumanization of the dancers, even showing his concern about the fact that the choreographers tend to always be ex-dancers, something that the author observes as a limitation for the choreographic art because, as he states, “the talents necessary for dancers are not the same as those for choreographers.”

But the most notable thing about the book lies in the fact that it incorporates various case studies where, taking some of his own pieces such as Tangos Cubanos, Arte del Movimiento or Under Flat Sky (accompanied by their respective online links), they are used to exemplify and allow the visualization of all those issues addressed theoretically throughout the manual.

For all these reasons, Poetic Dance: A Choreographic Manual represents a fundamental tool for all those willing to create dances in different theatrical and cinematographic contexts, facilitating the achievement of an optimal result that manages to channel the path towards a full choreographic experience for both the public, as well as for the performers and, especially, for the creator herself.

POETIC DANCE