A Study On The Role Of Piano Accompaniment In Dance Teaching

Piano, as a type of performing arts, consists of solo, reprise and accompaniment. And piano accompaniment, widely applied to musical performing arts, comes to form a distinguished artistic appeal. It tends to be viewed as important as piano solo and play an irreplaceable role in musical practice. In terms of its features, musical accompaniment is practical, comprehensive and widely-applied, which makes it have vast space of thinking and complex space of operation. Meanwhile, piano accompaniment for dancing, as a key component of piano accompaniment arts, is becoming an independent major in some comprehensive and normal universities. Dancing is a comprehensive form of arts which expresses human being's thoughts and feelings via the dancer's various movements and gestures and this makes dance inseparable from music. Therefore, piano accompaniment may play a vital part in dancing. Furthermore, piano accompaniment for dancing is different from that of vocal music, in that the former is characterized by its regularity, improvisation and flexibility. As for the piano accompanist, he/she is required to have certain skills in his/her playing and be well acquainted with features of dancing and its relationship with piano accompaniment. And since piano accompaniment for dancing is an advanced arts form, it is difficult for the researchers to evaluate it thoroughly and profoundly.Based on personal teaching experiences, from a perspective of a piano accompanist, the author will analyze and discuss the following three questions: the role that piano accompaniment is playing in dancing teaching; the relationship between piano accompaniment and dancing teaching, and the way to improve the accompanist himself/herself. And I hope that analysis and discussion such as this may help lift the accompanists' quality so that they can make a due contribution to dance teaching.