Contemporary dance as a component of students’ physical education

Abstract

Today in the modern world the basic human need for the development of one's own body and keeping it healthy and fit is a topical issue. Health is one of the most important prerequisites for harmonious, full-fledged life and personal self-realization. And it is precisely physical education that is aimed at the formation of a healthy, physically complete personality and the functional improvement of the organism. Dance is an integral part of a human plastic culture. The danceplastic culture education begins with the knowledge and development of the musculoskeletal system of a dancer. First and foremost, students need to learn how to perform basic dance exercises and movements efficiently, anatomically competently and consciously. In our understanding, the contemporary dance technique (post-postmodern) is the technique based on the natural laws of the body functioning with regard to the organization of movement and breathing. Muscles’ release from excessive tension and the activation of the faction level in movement organization, the natural anatomical work of joints and their strengthening, the structure of the body interrelations - all of the abovementioned should precede the technical dance mastery as a high-quality physical training of a student for further mastering of professional disciplines. That is why, in our opinion, a modern student-dancer should be knowledgeable about the body by the following parameters: how human movement is organized, structural peculiarities of the skeletal mobile zones (joints), the understanding what makes the body move in space, what is the center of the body gravity, how the movement of a person from the lower tier to the upper tier in space is organized, what is primary for understanding and training your body and why breathing is acknowledged as the number one item in teaching contemporary dance, what are fasciae and why the experienced dancers-teachers talk so much about them during their classes, how the floor plays the role of a partner and allows you to feel the zones with excessive tension in your body during movement, what BF (Bartenieff Fundamentals) and LMA (Laban Мovement Аnalysis) are and more.