bitchin'

I’ve seen several hybrid-dance works from mature choreographers recently and I am noticing a recurring (slightly depressing) theme: Dancers get to this age where no-one wants to (or can't bring themselves to?) dance any more. Non-dancing dance works are the new 'cool'. Everyone is abandoning their art form in favour of minimalist movement, irony and satire.  


Kind of makes you feel a bit ripped-off when you’re paying eight grand a year to learn to ‘dance’. 


I mean, don't get me wrong. I'm not even Miss Super Technical, like-to-kick-my-leg-above-my-head, shebam-bam dancer girl; I can fully appreciate "post-modernity" and its merits. But is anyone who is in the industry and over 35 actually making full-out dance works anymore? Maybe Douglas Wright. Awesome. One person. Probably Shona's new company she's about to establish, after years of no funding. THANK GOODNESS.  


I'm just slightly worried because this non-dancing dance trend is beginning to leak into the younger part of the industry. E.g. me. I am guilty. I think it's because we're all afraid of being shit at dancing. I am afraid of being shit at dancing. So we just don't dance or choreograph "dancey"-dance. Can't go wrong then, right? No-one can criticize your dancing if you're not actually dancing. It's easier to just be intelligent than to dance intelligently as well.


Also (getting real fired up here eh?), there seems to be this trendy elitism where you make super-abstracted work (dancer-specific, homosexual or self-deprecating themes = bonus points) and then get pissed off when people go, "Ohhh so you do contemporary dance... [blank stare, maybe a thoughtful nod] ...what's that??" Again -- I am very much a fan of the abstract. I really am. This is how I found contemporary dance. But even abstracted work can be interpretable (however the hell you want to define that word). News flash: strange beautiful madness can in fact also be intricately crafted, well-considered, physical choreography. Yes, I just used the C-word. Naughty.


If you want people to come and watch your shows -- perhaps even pay for them -- you do actually have to give them something in return(!)  Yes, there is a happy medium between roses and tutus and heterosexual love stories, and five almost-naked girls walking slowly across the stage with neutral expressions screaming sporadically. No wonder people don't want to watch dance (yes yes yes I know there are other factors e.g. the internet/global financial crisis/people are lazy/rah rah rah; I'm trying to construct an argument, ok). Perhaps this is not why you are making dance work, perhaps you don't care if it's 'watchable' or not. But if so, then please don't complain about being poor and that the public "don't get it". 


Maybe this is just how I am interpreting it, you know, freaking out a little about job prospects because I graduate next year. Actually this is probably it. But I can't help feeling there's some exclusiveness going on, and this exclusiveness is a stripey burglar in the night (probably named Hamburglar) stealthily thieving our art form from us. Like, there's this huge divide between conceptual dance and form-oriented dance. Honestly, I'm a fan of both. I wanna see both. In the SAME WORK. We are both very talented. Can we please please please marry these two stubborn-headed bodies together? It's dancing. There's no need to be exclusive. You do not have corporate ladders to climb. Seriously.


Anyway. That's about it. Oh lordy this is going to offend everyone. Also, I am a hypocrite. But I don't even care. Hate mail accepted. I've said what I wanted to say. You can too if you like. Honest, I don't even mind if you want to. I'm into angry.




(Hit publish, close laptop, run awaaayyyyy...)