Who has emerged in the last 20 years as a choreographer of note? What choreographer or company has risen to the level of Mark Morris Dance Group or Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane and Company in the last 20 years?
I can think of none.
I wonder if it is because there are thousands of choreographers making work based on their academic training. Therefore they are making dances of a similar style and level of effectiveness. Every year a new group of choreographers graduate from universities all over the country. Who in the last 20 years has challenged the kind of work they have been taught enough to break away or form a new conceptual basis for movement or dance.
Remember what happened with the National Endowment for the Arts in the 1990's when it was almost shut down and the fear people felt about the government taking away their livelihood. I sense that same fear with the current government about the war in Iraq. I feel a fear of challenging the powers that be. I feel the fear of attack if we don't do work in a way that "they" approve of. So I say we must find a way around this and one way is the Internet.
My friends and I have started posting a new dance everyday. We call ourselves the Pre-Futurists because we are forward looking but only concerned with the now. By making work everyday and posting it on a website we create a new and unstoppable way to perform. One that does not depend on funding or theaters or audience response. Modern dance is becoming irrelevant as an art form because its audiences are mostly other dancers. But more importantly, the term is too hard to explain and people unfamiliar with it think there is a story that they don't get when they watch modern dance. The term modern dance has to go, and along with it postmodern dance. We make movement art. Say it to your self and identify what comes up for you when you say it. Don't call yourself a dancer, say you are a performing artist and don't limit yourself to just making dances in the traditional sense. Use the tools around you, does your cell phone take photos or videos, do you have a digital camera that takes video, do you have a computer, do you have an Internet connection, do you have a love of movement. In just a week of making and seeing dance everyday I am getting more and more ideas and there are more things that I want to try. I am inspired by the videos that my friends produce and we freely share them for the world to see.
Content is now being produced by the people. It is no longer a product of giant media companies and therefore movement artists once again have the opportunity to change the world.
People may devalue movement because it is the first skill we learn but don't let them. People are fascinated with movement. Look at the men who watch sports and talk about the movement skills of their favorite players. We live in a culture with people who have short attention spans and who spend their time actively communicating with others through their portable communication devices and social networking websites. Those of us who want a future in dance should not follow the old model. We need to recognize that audiences want and need different ways to be communicated with. Go where the people are! Get out of the theater and into the clubs, the streets and the web and perform your art everyday.
