Bored!!!
A couple of times a year I walk into the theatre for another weekend of dance competitions. There are hundreds of children jumping, twirling, leaping and running all over the place. There are choruses of cheers and applause from audience members. All while individuals and groups of well-trained dancers performing this year’s efforts in front of a panel of judges. Yet--after about 20 minutes I am completely bored and uninspired. Why? Why is that??
I think I finally figured it out this year. I personally teach jazz, tap, a little ballet but my love is modern dance. I love how unpredictable modern dance can be. I love trying to come up with new designs and uses of positive and negative space around and between my dancers. I love taking a glimmer of a dance concept and develop it until it becomes more than I first imagined. I like that they are not perfect that there are always ways to make it better, more meaningful, and more satisfying.
But, this year, after watching the first few routines, what I saw was the same recycled, regurgitated crap from last year just with different music and the addition of this years' newest step. Over and over again, I watched dancers do the same thing and in some cases in the same order. There is no way that even the most uninformed audience member couldn't help but notice it. I think it's just horrible that teachers/choreographers, and I'm using the term choreographers very loosely, show that they have given no thought to about 98% of their routines. They string together a series of steps (often combination steps they have been working across the floor in class) that have no regard to music they are using, dancer they are moving, or audience that are watching. There were some amazing dancers that danced, but they were given the most uninspiring, meaningless collage of steps that joined together a few very well executed strength and flexibility moves.
Let me explain it another way. How many ways can you play a Bach invention and make it feel new and interesting. You can't! Oh no, you can't!! You can show your perfect technique, your flawless attention to meter, accent and expression, but you can't make them new and interesting. That's what I feel moments after entering the competition theatre space. I am watching "Bach-ance" inventions. Nobody can sit through 12 hours of various students playing, various interpretations of the same thirty Bach inventions. Yet, these dance teachers seem to think that a panel of judges, parents, and relatives can! I want you to know that I can't. I can't watch it. I can't sit through it. I have to leave the theatre often to take a "creative breath". I'm afraid that if I don't leave the theatre I will "catch" that horrible virus 'noinspirationalchoreographicoccus". And it's highly contagious and often terminal.
Now I don't want you to think that this is "sour grapes", our dancers and routines did pretty well at this years' competitions. But I was surprised by some comments by a few judges. They seemed to question my use of staging and spacing. Judging by their comments they seem to want dances and patterns to have something that is a discernible, like circles, lines, triangles, etc. But I feel that regular predictable patterns become uninteresting and boring. You never find a artist try to add symmetry to their paintings. Yellow flower on the left, Yellow flower on the right, etc. That would be so terribly uninteresting. They add perspective, depth, random shapes and colours. That makes for a more interesting painting. Even photographers often resort to the rule of thirds to add more unpredictable interest to their pictures. The judge’s comments lead me to think that the virus has infected them, too. They seem to expect and reward predicable dance routines. And that make me quite sad.
I've listened to some teachers talk about "commercial dance" vs. "artistic dance". What's up with that? Is "commercial dance" an excuse to give students routines that have a series of "run on" steps that have no artistic merit? Commercial dance I thought was dance that was focused more on entertainment than artistic value. I didn't think it meant dance that was more boring than artistic. If these 'so called choreographers' were to provide these routines for commercial works, they wouldn't be employed very long. You can only bore an audience so many times with the same routines before they switch to watching the latest episode of some chef yelling at someone for cooking salmon incorrectly. Commercial dance should be routines that look like the best production numbers from theatre and film. It should be things that, if filmed and placed on youtube, would get more than a million views and would make viewers go "wow" or how fun or how cute. I think using "commercial dance" as an excuse for the boring routines they give out is really a statement saying, "I don't understand dance as an art form therefore I will try to copy something that someone else was successful at. And I am too lazy to take the time to educate myself to do something different". These teachers haven't looked back into history very far. They haven't realized that commercial dance became boring and predictable then artist like Agnes DeMille, Hermes Pan, Jerome Robbins, Bob Fosse, Twyla Tharp, etc. added their artistry into the commercial dance they were doing. They made change, won awards, and are remembered. The commercial choreographers that didn't put any of their own artistry into their choreography have been long forgotten or neglected.
Unfortunately it take time and effort to create and give out good, meaningful, routines. More time, for these teachers, mean less routines which means less money in their pockets. So, we will continue to see tired, old, regurgitated routines for many more years to come. Well, you may have to see tired, old regurgitated routines for many more years. I will be outside enjoying some fresh air and watch teachers, parent and students rushing in the theatre worrying about a routine that will be forgotten 10 seconds after they have danced it.