Modern Dance and Size Diversity
Janie pointed me to a fascinating article looking at size diversity in modern dance. I admit that I know zilch about modern dance, or dance at all, except that I can not dance. At all.
But I do acknowledge there's an art to it and it seems like the amount of body size pressure in that arena has been astounding. Claudia La Rocco's piece confirms that, and looks at a production by Larry Keigwin called "Bolero NYC". Its dancers range in size and shape, quite dramatically.
There's an interesting side-story about Keigwin's production of "Natural Selection" and one of its dancers, Hillary Clark:
Reviewing the show in 2004 in The Santa Barbara News-Press in California, Ted Mills took issue with Ms. Clark’s body, drawing unfavorable comparisons with the “unceasing athleticism†of the other dancers. ... "...Ms. Clark is a plus-size dancer, and her inclusion in this last work raised questions about Mr. Keigwin’s intentions.†Mr. Mills saw “old-fashioned shock-the-bourgeoisie†tactics at work.
Ms. Clark’s membership in the company ended shortly after that review. ... Ms. Clark, who now performs with Tere O’Connor Dance, found her dismissal, she said, to be “a result of the larger issue†that “the unfortunate and superficial assumptions of who and what type of body should be dancing diminishes dance’s very potential and range of experience.â€
There is some size acceptance to be found in this article, though - good stuff.
Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition | Fact and Fiction
Posted by paul on May 22, 2007
For me, I don't see this advancing size acceptance. I don't see having everyday people pretend to be a dancers, moving size acceptance forward in any way. It's one thing to have actual trained dancers who are on the larger size, (and they seem to have at least two of those) but this seems more like doing an opera or a bway show by casting people off the street! I guess I'm just from the old school where dance takes years of training, and a dancer is at the height of their ability when they hit the stage. Whether it's Alvin Ailey, NYC Ballet, or any hoofer on Broadway, I want to see dance at its finest and the dancers to be power and grace personified. I expect nothing less from any singer or actor on the stage and I expect the dancers to be able to perform. No single pirouettes or shoddy jete or rond de jambe en l'air for me!
I don't find this article size-accepting or uplifting. To me, "Bolero NYC" is really nothing more than a concept piece. There was an open audition for anyone interested, and the umm...the "dancers" cast are featured because they project the everyday look of people on the streets of NY. Meanwhile they are just regular people. I"m not saying they aren't capable of moving.. but in the Business, an "actor who moves" is a world away from a 'dancer". Just go to dance call---a real dance call..an equity dance call, and you'll see what I mean.
Now perhaps it was just the two photo's in the Times article that didn't do it justice, but I think perhaps the photos were representative of the piece. In the smaller photo, they're obviously on the subway, strap hanging, and the other was them "preparing"... right. Why do I have the feeling if I asked for a triple time step with wings, they'd not have any idea what I"m talking about, much less the ability to do it!
If we want to advance size acceptance in dance and theatre, we need large sized performers--real perofrmers with the same talent, technical, and artistic abilities, as our thinner couterparts. I can't take people off the street and serioulsy rank them with the performers on Broadway or at Lincoln Center. But that's just me, and how I feel about it. Althought it is fine as a performance piece at a black box at NYU.
Diane, thanks for the totally different perspective.
that's advancing fat acceptance. (my inner jury is still out on fatties doing skilled clown work). We see so few representations of neutral or positive fatness on stage, that seeing all body sizes included in a performance piece is definitely forwarding the cause.
(full disclosure: two performers from Big Moves in New York City were cast in this piece, and they were the two in that photograph, standing on the subway)
I did not see this piece, but I understand that all of the extras in that show were auditioned in the same way. And pedestrian moves such as walking or pretending to be on the subway or sitting in a chair for 5 minutes (hello, Merce Cunningham!)... these are now all part of the accepted vocabulary in post-modern dance and performance, though they may not have been once. It sounds like this is not the sort of piece that Diane likes, and that's okay.
I will make a stand on a couple of points, though:
** "I don't see having everyday people pretend to be a dancers, moving size acceptance forward in any way."
I don't think anyone there was "pretending to be a dancer". A dancer is a dancer is a dancer, in my book: someone who is moving to music to express something to an audience. NOW, you may have professional dancers, and highly trained dancers, and beginning dancers, and untrained dancers. But an untrained dancer moving to music in front of an audience isn't pretending to be a dancer, especially if the way she is moving or standing still is structured according to some larger principle set by the choreographer. Anna Halprin's work can involve hundreds of untrained dancers from a community, but it is still accepted as a "legitimate" dance piece.
** "If we want to advance size acceptance in dance and theatre, we need large sized performers--real perofrmers with the same talent, technical, and artistic abilities, as our thinner couterparts."
That statement addresses but one aspect of acceptance in dance--that of the dance critics, which is a nebulous and fragile thing, at best--and also puts the cart before the horse. Given the state of the industry, it will be many decades before even average-sized dancers--never mind serious fatties--have anywhere near the same amount of support or credibility as thin dancers, or access to the training. We just don't have the numbers, and the problem continues. Every year thousands of little girls are weeded out of ballet classes or dance studios, either directly or by neglect, because of their size. These are the kids with the passion and interest to get into the training, but what 11-year-old is going to have a tough-enough psyche to stand up to a teacher shaking her head and a class full of giggling peers because her costume isn't the same?
My belief? If we want to advance size acceptance in dance, we need to educate adult dancers to be as good as they can be, to get out and do their level best in public venues that are appropriate to their skills, so that the public can see good fat dance and fat dancers doing amazing things (we don't all need to be Alvin Ailey to amaze people). We need to educate the teachers and administrators in dance studios and movement programs to be truly accepting of size differences in their classrooms and practices. And we need to keep encouraging youth of all sizes to move, to dance, to feel strong in themselves and their bodies.
I agree that fat performers should be striving for ever-better technique. I don't agree that anything less trained than Alvin Ailey is not dance, or not valid, or not forwarding the cause. Context is everything.
Marina