On dance and creation

I don't know why I hold dance as an artform to such high standards. I myself am not a good dancer and cannot do most, if not all, of the dancing I watch. I know little to nothing about dance vocab, by which I mean the names of different moves. Yet for some reason when I watch dancing there are certain things I want to see and certain things I want the performance to do.

1. I want to see things I've never seen a human do before.

2. I want to see things I doubt a human could actually do so that I go CHRIST ALMIGHTY HOW'D THEY DO THAT?

3. or I want to see things that I've seen before done in a whole new way

4. I want to see good storytelling that makes it clear that the artist thought about the piece as a whole, from beginning to end.

5. I want all the elements of the performance- choreography, costume, set, lighting, and music -to go together well.

1 and 2 aren't mandatory if #3 occurs, but 4 and 5 are always mandatory.

And I apply these criteria to any level of performance I'm watching, from professionals to the campers I work with each summer. I feel sort of bad about criticizing the campers in my head, but I can't turn it off.

I just watched this video

I came away a little annoyed. I went in expecting to see things I'd never seen before (#1 and 2) but instead I saw a lot of street moves that I've seen a lot. Maybe I've just been watching too much ABDC, but my thoughts while I was watching it were "oh, he's spinning on his head. Oh ok, now they're doing robotic isolation deals..." so I had to realize that street dances are just like any other form of dance in that there are certain moves that people can attempt and some do better than others and people can be judged by how well they do them, like ballet or jazz or anything else. Maybe that's a thing people knew and I'm late to the game, but it wasn't something I'd thought about until now. So I was less annoyed once that occurred to me, but then I had to rethink my judgment of it. I had to judge it by criteria 3,4 and 5. And I'll tell ya, I liked that they were dancing to violin music and that the overall look worked really well together, it's that recontextualization I can't get enough of. Not that like performance at the Oscars with that crew that breakdanced (brokedanced?) to all the original score nominees, I didn't think it worked well or added anything to the music or dancing. But I digress.

Something like this

blows me out of the water. Fits all my criteria for an amazing performance.

So I guess then my personal tastes tend towards modern and lyrical dance where there aren't designated moves or styles or steps that people can master, it's all pretty subjective and works as a big topic heading that can encompass many kinds of abstract movement. I realize also this lends itself to more theatrical movement that can involve character and narrative, like the kind I like to do, so that the face is engaged. When I'm performing I need my face to be doing something constructive, otherwise I just get that face you make when you're dancing in a club and you think you're awesome.

I'd say this interest in modern dance has to do with the way I like to create performance pieces. As I've said, I like to play with lines and shapes- more form than content -so that naturally lends itself to thinking of the overall look of the piece, numbers 4 and 5. I might conceive of a piece as "I want to use this piece of music and do a thing where my foot's stuck to the floor" and then fill in the rest as I work with it.

I realized that a lot of young dancers starting out will pick a style of dance and maybe some music and so are entirely attached to the music, just filling in beat by beat with an arm movement here or a kick there and so the end result is a monotone collection of motions that don't require a lot of effort. It's not a bad thing, it's necessary growth. It just doesn't always make for the most interesting performance.

The summer camp where I work has dance concert after dance concert filled with these kinds of dances. But this past summer there was a neat little twist. The theme of the concert was the 7 deadly sins (watching lust was awkward). So for the envy section, one of the music teachers composed a chance piece to be the music. A chance piece is a piece where you come by the bits of the performance by, surprise!, chance, like rolling dice or picking it out of a hat. This particular piece of music consisted of different lines of text read in different ways, different strains of music played in different ways, and then both of those mixed on a sound board in different ways, all determined by dice. Meanwhile the dancers were choreographing a dance without any music, just around the concept of envy, and then the song and the dance were combined at the very last minute before performing. So as a result, there was this really amazing dance about the dancers wanting to be in the spotlight and this very weird noise happening at the same time that gave one the distinct feeling of envy and tension that was unrivaled by all the other pieces in the concert. Sorry dance teachers.

There's a sculptor, Arthur Ganson, who shares my creating philosophy in making his kinetic sculptures. I love and adore his things, especially for their simplicity. He makes pieces whose sole purpose is to lift and drop a piece of cloth very slowly for the pure joy of revelling in the texture of the cloth and the light hitting it. I feel like it gives me permission to do little nothing pieces that are just fun to do and hopefully watch.

Here's one of his pieces. The beginning is him setting it up, the actual piece starts at about 1:20.

He also composed and played the music.

I want to be him.

So anyway, my tastes evolve, my understanding of the dance world evolves, and my own performances evolve as I'm inspired to keep doing weird things in ridiculous ways. Which is the best advice I could give anyone, if ever they asked for it.