Community Forums: Is Dance an Important Art Form for the 21st Century?

Home » Forum Home » Featured Forums » Is Dance an Important Art Form for the 21st Century?

Topic: Is Dance an Important Art Form for the 21st Century?
Replies: 52 Pages: 4 Last Post: Aug 11, 2005 3:16 PM by: jaime longoria

Welcome, Guest
	Login
	Guest Settings
	Help

Reply to this Topic

Search Forum

Back to Topic List

Replies: 52 Pages: 4 [ 1 2 3 4 \| Next ]

Colin Rusch

Posts: 1,435
Registered: Oct 16, 2002

Is Dance an Important Art Form for the 21st Century?
Posted: May 23, 2005 9:45 PM

Join a panel of dance and performance professionals 7pm on Thursday May 26th for a discussion on future of dance as art form.

Guests include:
Mary Easter is a professor of Dance and African American Studies at Carleton College;
Lane Czaplinski is Artistic Director at On the Boards in Seattle;
Judith Brin Ingber is an independent dance artist and historian;
Lisa First is Director of Link Vostok, an east/west exchange organization;
Anna Thompson is Executive Director of College of St. Benedicts/St. Johns University Fine Arts Programming and member of Dance USA's Board of Trustees.

Best,
Colin

Colin Rusch

Posts: 1,435
Registered: Oct 16, 2002

Re: Is Dance an Important Art Form for the 21st Century?
Posted: May 26, 2005 6:55 PM

Hi Everyone,

Welcome to tonight's forum on the importance of dance in the 21st Century. We have a wonderful panel of guests for this discussion. To begin I have a couple of housekeeping notes. Occasionally, we get such heavy traffic that our server struggles to keep up. It will automatically reboot if it goes down. If we do have a problem, please wait a few minutes and then login again. Second, we will be here for an hour, until 8pm Central Time. The last couple of forums have been a bit longer. If you have something to offer the conversation, please do not wait until the end.

Again thank you to everyone for joining us.

Best,
Colin

Mary Easter

Posts: 7
Registered: May 23, 2005

Re: Is Dance an Important Art Form for the 21st Century?
Posted: May 26, 2005 6:59 PM

It's 7:02 and I'm not sure what happens next. But my answer is YES, dance is an Important.......especially as I face an unfamiliar screen and long for the simplicity of the stage or the studio.I like breathing in the same room with another breathing person as the moving body communicates. Surely I'm not the only one.

Judith Brin Ingber

Posts: 10
Registered: May 29, 2003

Re: Is Dance an Important Art Form for the 21st Century?
Posted: May 26, 2005 7:00 PM

Hello, this is Judith, I'm here waiting to hear from whomever

Lane Czaplinski

Posts: 9
Registered: May 23, 2005

Looking for dance in all the wrong places...
Posted: May 26, 2005 7:01 PM

Yesterday, I asked Alison van Dyke, a young, talented Seattle-based choreographer, about the future of dance and she replied with the following:

"As long as we have bodies and the need to communicate, there is a future in dance, especially in this time of delicate balance between technological and biological systems. The future of dance will hopefully be something we have not yet seen or envisioned."

Alison is a 25-ish Cornish College graduate. This past year she mounted a large-scale performance installation at Consolidated Works with her collaborator Luke Allen, and created a 20-minute work-in-progress for our Northwest New Works Festival. She shared her thoughts with me while she was waitressing at a neighboring pub.

I believe there are a lot of artists like Alison who are quietly but steadily finding their creative voices in dance. Alison may be serving drinks but she's also envisioning choreography for non-traditional spaces and is creating intriguing relationships with dance and video with her co-creator (Luke). I think the fact that she refers to "technological and biological systems" is quite telling. Where and how dance flourishes is likely to occur differently than it has in the past. Glaring at a proscenium stage while waiting for some newly tweaked iteration of the form is not likely to provide many answers. I believe we need to begin looking more broadly at the Alison's in the dance world who have taken up the research and exploration of the previous generation and who are well on their way to adding their own twists and innovations. And while we could get caught up in how Alison is subsidizing her dance career and see its obvious limitations, she isn't allowing the paltry state of arts funding to get in her way. She seems entirely caught up in aesthetic concerns and how she can muster the time, resources and ability to say what she wants to say in dance.

Colin Rusch

Posts: 1,435
Registered: Oct 16, 2002

Re: Is Dance an Important Art Form for the 21st Century?
Posted: May 26, 2005 7:03 PM

Hi Everyone,

Tonight we are starting with the question, "Is dance an important art form for the 21st century?" There are variety of efforts in the dance world working to figure out how dance artists and their work can thrive. I am of the mind that dance artists and organizations need to look at what it is we offer a broad audience and why it is valuable to move closer to those goals. I hope we have a frank and lively discussion on the topic this evening.

Best,
Colin

Anna Thompson

Posts: 9
From: College of Saint Benedict/Saint John's University
Registered: May 23, 2005

Re: Is Dance an Important Art Form for the 21st Century?
Posted: May 26, 2005 7:03 PM

Hi- Anna here- I believe dance has much to offer in the 21st century and beyond. It is such an ever evolving form. It changes faster than the other arts disciplines, and has come to encompass to many other forms within its definition. AMT

Judith Brin Ingber

Posts: 10
Registered: May 29, 2003

Re: Is Dance an Important Art Form for the 21st Century?
Posted: May 26, 2005 7:03 PM

oh, hello Mary, I totally agree with you--rather than the space on this little white blank, I'm more eager for real interaction in real space in real time with others. like in Bonnie's ballet class this week, filled with dancers preparing for concerts, whether Toni and Uri's upcoming at the Southern or the Classic Ballet extravaganza at Pantages or Ballet of the Dolls, or anyway, all kinds of body types and body colors and body ideas in the same studio. everyone there surely feels it's worth training for the 21st century

Lisa First

Posts: 13
From: Link Vostok
Registered: May 23, 2005

Re: Is Dance an Important Art Form for the 21st Century?
Posted: May 26, 2005 7:04 PM

Hello. I am Lisa First and happy to be here. Thanks Colin for the introduction and the opportunity to join in on the discussion.

I spoke with one of my students today (in addition to being director of Link Vostok I am also an Alexander Technique instructor) and asked for his input on the question at hand tonight.

This led to a discussion on human potential and possibility. As an occasional audience member he remarked that he felt freer with his movements and actions after witnessing dance artists in performance - remarked that he felt watching dance
encouraged his creativity and provided him with new opportunities for aesthetic and kinesthetic pleasure.
As a presenter this was a satisfying perspective that speaks to the ongoing and (hopefully!) increasing value of watching dance in this century.

Lisa First

Posts: 13
From: Link Vostok
Registered: May 23, 2005

Re: Is Dance an Important Art Form for the 21st Century?
Posted: May 26, 2005 7:12 PM

Hi Anna. Dance does change quicker than many other art forms. I have been working in Russia since 1989 and have had the astonishing experience of watching non-balletic and non-traditional forms explode since that time. Not only have the Russian contemporary dance and movement artists made huge strides, they have moved very quickly in a 15 year period making our changes in dance look much more gradual. They are increasingly developing their own unique styles as opposed to the early years after the fall of the Soviet Union when artists were still grasping what was going on elsewhere that they had not previously been exposed to in their theatres and universities, etc.

Anna Thompson

Posts: 9
From: College of Saint Benedict/Saint John's University
Registered: May 23, 2005

Re: Is Dance an Important Art Form for the 21st Century?
Posted: May 26, 2005 7:13 PM

I would agree that the Alisons of the world need to find forums for the exciting new work they are creating- but we cannot assume that everyone has had the opportunity to see dance. Their first introduction has to start within the "safety net" of the proscenium theaters that they feel comfortable in, in order to get virgin audiences out to try contemporary and modern dance and to move beyond ballet. Up to 40% of our audiences at any given performance have NEVER been to a live performance of dance (this is survey information). I feel it is important to continue to attract new audiences to dance, while also getting audiences to return to try new companies and experience the vocabulary of a variety of choreographers which develops their aesthetic for dance.

Judith Brin Ingber

Posts: 10
Registered: May 29, 2003

Re: Is Dance an Important Art Form for the 21st Century?
Posted: May 26, 2005 7:16 PM

nice comment from your student, Lisa. In conversation yesterday with a painter, she told me since she's recently divorced, she has taken to dancing without a partner at clubs in New York. and she has had an amazing experience with much younger people coming up to her and telling her how free she looks and how exciting and could they be photographed with her. I bring this up because there's a certain vitality that others witness when someone is dancing, and with all our passive American experience, in front of screens, reaching people without really being in the same space, that when someone is dancing, it re-invigorates whoever is watching, even if it is NOT a "professional" dancer. We all need to feel and see and experience the vitality of what's happening with each other, I think, and dance embodies that. so it's all the MORE essential in our new century. Judith

Mary Easter

Posts: 7
Registered: May 23, 2005

Re: Looking for dance in all the wrong places...
Posted: May 26, 2005 7:16 PM

In the statement Lane quoted from Alison Van Dyke, I connected most deeply with its beginning:"as long as we have bodies. . . "
Dance is the art form that offers us what's now a cliche but no less true; a union of the intellectual, spiritual and physical parts of us in the act of communicating. I know young choreographers are finding ways to use technology to enhance and enlarge this, but it's not in the nature of technology to replace this essential experiece. The human ability to sense presence (as in the presence of another) can't be duplicated. It is basic to being alive. Technology can disseminate information (like right now), can open us to the existence of the unfamiliar and the far away, but you out there are not quite breathing into my room as I write this.

Lane Czaplinski

Posts: 9
Registered: May 23, 2005

Re: Is Dance an Important Art Form for the 21st Century?
Posted: May 26, 2005 7:18 PM

Except that young audiences don't necessarily trust traditional spaces and haven't grown up with that conceit framing how they view culture. I think the "safety net" approach can actually sap the creation and presentation of work of all its vitality and relevance.

Lisa First

Posts: 13
From: Link Vostok
Registered: May 23, 2005

Re: Is Dance an Important Art Form for the 21st Century?
Posted: May 26, 2005 7:18 PM

Hi Judith. Hello! It is good to read your thoughts.

I agree that it is assuredly worth training for the 21st century but what an increasingly challenging time economically and politically for dancers... I think a lot about audiences and how to connect to new observers outside of the big name companies. It seems that more education is necessary, not sure how most effectively to accomplish that, in order to spark interest and attendance in local dance and as well as companies and choreographers from outside Minnesota.

Replies: 52 Pages: 4 [ 1 2 3 4 | Next ]

Back to Topic List