Thinking about what it means to be a dancer. . .

Since I hadn’t been to the show in question nor have I seen Ringer or Angle this season, I am still not sure whether his quippy comments were valid or appropriate. I appreciate his rebuttal and I do think he is on to something when he wrote “Dancers do not ask to be considered victims.” He is entitled to his opinion and it is his job to exert it.

The dance community cannot have it both ways. If we want there to be more opinion and thought pieces on and concerning dance out there, we can’t just leave it to the few critics and historians who occasionally expound on the subject and often not to our partifcular liking. Dancers have to be more involved intellectually as a community in thinking and discussing our art as well as physically doing it. (I mean more than just bitching about what happened with casting or who did what in rehearsal)

I believe the most frequent statement I hear from other artists and audience members at any given dance show is that they “didn’t get it”. When that is the case, it is hard to comment on anything besides line and shape. Dancers, choreographers and directors should see it as their mission to bring the world into our process of creating our art as part of developing a broader and more educated community for it to be received in. Dance does not have to be the art world’s second class citizen!

I am happy to report there are some dancers out there who are doing this, and other super interesting things unrelated to dance, and I hope we are able to have those people as contributors and/or link to them, in order to bring their thoughts and ideas into a full discussion on this site!