DCDanceBlog

What dance had changed things for me the most?

I said

DV8 Physical Theatre
Pina Baush Tanztheater Wuppertal
Cullberg Ballet
Rosas
Nederlands Dans Theater

What would you have said?

Wim Vandekeybus & Ultima Vez (who I didn’t say because I forgot).

————

shit, i totally forgot my hero Jonathan Burrows. I saw him a lot when I was the most “shapable” in 98-2000

michaelangelo antonioni, another giant of the film world, died on the same day as ingmar bergman this week. i freely admit that i haven’t seen any of his films either. but i was struck, again, by the articles i read about him and by the ideas that moved him to create work. his new york times obituary said that his “tormented central vision” was that “people had become emotionally unglued from one another.”

i’m also struck by the fact that these filmmakers’ philosophies have made an impression on me. i’ve read short bios of other artists and their central visions haven’t necessarily brought me to deeper thinking about why one makes art. i think, however, that filmmaking and dancemaking have a lot in common, and that they share some central tenets that are not necessarily present in visual art or music. both filmmaking and dancemaking, of course, are visual arts, but they’re also almost always (in the case of film) or always (in the case of dance) performed by people. i think, therefore, they both lend themselves very well to being about people, about how we interact or don’t, are alienated or close, etc. yes, one can dance the wind, or shapes, or nothingness, but i think it’s hard for observers to avoid feeling like the piece is about how people experience the wind, shapes, or nothingness.

maybe this is all obvious or boringly theoretical. but i’ve been having an ongoing debate with a friend about what role “being human” can or must play in dance (and especially improvisation), whether we can simply be empty bodies as we dance, or must always be humans (a small but key difference). i’m not saying i have the final answer. but i do think that each art form has its niche, concepts it is best at conveying. writing about homelessness is easy; playing violin about it is a lot harder. similarly, music about sadness can be amazing, while writing about it may miss the central element that makes it feel real. what is the niche for dance, and must it include humans?