The six questions

the long version

In The Six Questions: Acting Technique for Dance Performance, Daniel Nagrin examines the inner need that makes dancers hunger to return to the movement that lets them dance with power, authority, and an uninhibited outpouring of eloquence. Many attain the technical virtuosity of the art, but few achieve the eloquence that makes an audience gasp at their performance. To become such a dancer requires comprehensive and sustained preparation. In the late twenties, actors and directors of the Group Theatre, who were pioneering the use of Stanislavski's teachings, saw the value of teaching ballet and the emerging modern dance. Actors now routinely learn dance, but dancers do not routinely study acting. In The Six Questions, Nagrin maintains that using acting techniques allows the dancer to combine the passion of a body in motion with the combined force of the heart-mind of the dancer. This calls forth the eloquence that makes a performance great.