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Thinking Out Loud: A Future for Modern Dance
By Lisa
Traiger
Recent whispers I've overheard in
theaters as grand as Washington, DC's Kennedy Center and as
populist as a park amphitheater suggest that modern dance, at
least of a certain bent, is not all that accessible or
popular. For example, as I watched Daniel Burkholder's
DC-based company, The PlayGround, I couldn't help but notice
the neatly dressed couple sitting in front of me. The piece
was cerebral, addressing environmental issues in a structured
but open-ended manner. Yet that anonymous couple wasn't having
any of it. At first salt-and-pepper hair and khaki pants
snickered at the improvisational, perpetual motion of the
dancers. Prim polo shirt giggled. I could see the red flag of
pretension rising in her mind's eye as she listened to a
voice-over recounting environmental disaster. Before the
lights came up, the couple walked. Sure, it was a free
performance--nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? But
evidently modern dance--or at least modern dance of a certain
sort--wasn't enough to keep this seemingly well-educated couple
in their seats.
There is modern dance out there of
a populist, accessible streak: the exquisite, spiritually
moving Alvin Ailey company; Mark Morris' folklike community of
top-notch movers; the superbly crafted classics of Paul
Taylor; the eye-popping gymnastics of Pilobolus. But there's
another realm of modern dance-independent artists, creating
away from the mainstream, in New York or in university towns,
performing in loft spaces and black-box theaters. They draw
from modern, contemporary, and postmodern schools of thought,
and their dancers are frequently graduates of the burgeoning
university dance departments. (The number-two searched college
major this year on AOL was "dance.") Their audiences? Family,
friends, and a few adventurous supporters. No one's getting
rich or famous on this type of modern dance.
So, in a culture that seems biased
against anything suggestive of artiness, whose job is it to
bring audiences up to speed with the forward-thinking artists
of our era? We can't expect a season or four of Dancing
With the Stars flash to bring droves of the essentially
non-dancing, non-concert-attending public into theaters for
modern dance.
As ambassadors of dance, teachers
not only build the next generation of dancers, they stand at
the forefront of creating the next generation of dance
audiences plus board members, administrators, and supporters
of all forms of dance. Not all dance is created equal. Some is
hard to understand, politically charged, ugly even. But when
Serge Diaghilev said, "Astonish me," his Ballets Russes
changed the world with riot-inducing choreography and music.
Where will the astonishers and
their audiences come from if they are weaned only on the
latest pop-culture competition hits? The nature of true art
making is to make audiences think, to ask grand questions and
seek out universal truths. That dance in its immediacy, its
physicality, can best convey those deepest truths is our trump
card. In 1936 the great modernist Martha Graham wrote in
"Affirmations," "No artist is ahead of his time. He is his
time. It is just that others are behind the time." It is the
educators' job to build audiences for the next-generation
artists, not just the popular ones. If our youngsters don't
know who Graham is, or Cunningham, Pavlova, or Nijinsky, who
will be there to buy tickets to the next astonishment?
Behind me one Sunday at the Kennedy
Center sat a family of three. Their daughter was among a group
of middle schoolers tapped by Washington-area choreographer
Lucy Bowen McCauley to perform alongside her professional
troupe. Her work, a heady brand of contemporary ballet, favors
abstracted movement, shape-oriented configurations, and static
poses.
The family was clearly puzzled. By
intermission, mom was apologetically telling husband how
prestigious this opportunity was for their daughter. But she
opined, "It's a shame. I really don't have any idea what's
going on in these dances." Out came the candy, crinkly
wrappers and all, to get brother through the second half.
Luckily for family of three, Bowen
McCauley ended the afternoon with a no-brainer, her fun
Gustatory Romp: cheeky shoulders and hips, folksy
grapevines, swingy lifts, all easily digestible. The mom
sighed with relief. The family left sated. They saw their
daughter open the program and enjoyed the playful dancing at
the program's end. All that modern/contemporary stuff in the
middle? It might as well not have been there.
This is the problem with modern
dance: If these midsized, striving modern companies leave too
much to chance, too much that is hard to understand, audiences
will feel inadequate and likely won't return. It's in dance
educators' hands to encourage their students to venture into
the world of dance beyond their studios. It's an investment in
the future.
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