Take this post from the perspective of someone who is still relatively new to dance. Still in the honeymoon phase. Still okay with people who watch dance and go “YASSSS” or “WORK” when they see something awesome. Still in the phase of dance where I appreciate being touched by raw emotion and feeling. Not everyone is in this place and for that reason, Anti-dance has come into existence.
Is anti-dance still considered dance? I have no idea. It is a work defined by/but not limited to the lack of “classical” movement more than anything. It requires a more refined and intellectual thought process molded from years of dance movement study. Most of the time.
I’m not entirely a fan.
I realize that it is important and that its very presence says something very profound about the commercialism of the society we live in. But I probably won’t watch it and I certainly don’t think it is the end-all be-all/ next iteration of dance. If you grew up in a negative dance environment where people emphasized to you the concepts of “right and wrong” dance by showing you whats on TV for the first 2 decades of your life, then I could see why someone might think in such a way. I suppose you could be jaded into a thought process where you feel the more intellectual approach to not dancing is the more enlightened and therefore better way to look at human movement.
The problem is that there are SO MANY more people that are still hopelessly in love with dance. And countless more who have no appreciation or knowledge of its complex existence outside of what they see on TV. In our economically broken world, its just not a good idea to shun so much of the population for its unappreciation of anti-dance work.
As a budding artist in the dance field I will always appreciate anti-dance but it won’t be what I do. I’ve spent way too much time in the studio perfecting my form to not use it. What good is learning to do the best arabesque you can do if you can’t show it off? I like entertainment way to much to make it a solo life experience. The more people I can get hooked on dance through the best of commercial artistry, the better.