I went to the suburbs to see dance, got lost, got caught in a thunderstorm and then came home defeated. but on endless public transport I had time to ponder the dance I've seen and wondered if we dance-artists are sometimes a danger to ourselves...
it's not a foregone conclusion, as I hear the visual artists in the audience cry. but its been a hard day of seeing dance and while I was sitting in one of the most awful productions of 'independent art' I've been to in years, I was wondering to myself what damage we do to potential audiences members. while the dancers onstage squirmed and rolled and stood still for endless moments, I had time to think of how this awfulness would translate to someone out of the form: meaningless, unskilled, inaccessible and not something to see twice. while it's imperative for any artist, in any field, to be able to show work at different stages of creation, at different stages in their career (from novice onward) and to experiment with new forms and possibly fail, what I fear with dance, is that we think our interest in the form, which is also an interest in our body and ourselves, is as interesting to an audience as it is to us. and that that interest can actually be easily communicated to an audience who isn't intimate with those experiences: today was mostly about someone else having fun, or understanding, or sensations and me as an audience member being completely left alone and in the dark.
are we as dance artists, sometimes a danger to ourselves and our field?
I don't think being a danger to oneself is limited to dance artists. I too have squirmed as a member of the audience, be it dance, a play, an exhibition, in the street observing life pass by. Don't be too hard on yourself, but now that you have voiced this concern, your future productions will be so much the better for it.
in my limited but depraved experience of artists, the only danger you pose to yourselves or the world around you is red wine and introspection, for which the only known cures are red wine, introspection and body surfing.
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it's not a foregone conclusion, as I hear the visual artists in the audience cry. but its been a hard day of seeing dance and while I was sitting in one of the most awful productions of 'independent art' I've been to in years, I was wondering to myself what damage we do to potential audiences members.
while the dancers onstage squirmed and rolled and stood still for endless moments, I had time to think of how this awfulness would translate to someone out of the form: meaningless, unskilled, inaccessible and not something to see twice.
while it's imperative for any artist, in any field, to be able to show work at different stages of creation, at different stages in their career (from novice onward) and to experiment with new forms and possibly fail, what I fear with dance, is that we think our interest in the form, which is also an interest in our body and ourselves, is as interesting to an audience as it is to us. and that that interest can actually be easily communicated to an audience who isn't intimate with those experiences: today was mostly about someone else having fun, or understanding, or sensations and me as an audience member being completely left alone and in the dark.
are we as dance artists, sometimes a danger to ourselves and our field?
I don't think being a danger to oneself is limited to dance artists. I too have squirmed as a member of the audience, be it dance, a play, an exhibition, in the street observing life pass by. Don't be too hard on yourself, but now that you have voiced this concern, your future productions will be so much the better for it.
in my limited but depraved experience of artists, the only danger you pose to yourselves or the world around you is red wine and introspection, for which the only known cures are red wine, introspection and body surfing.
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