I'll begin with the standard caveat. All that follows is not carved in stone. Each viewer is the best judge of how much they enjoyed a dance performance.
I find myself at a loss when I say that I didn't enjoy an evening of dance because I didn't like the choreography, and the response is, "But the dancers were wonderful!" Dancing is at an extraordinarily high and competitive level nowadays. There is a banquet of talented dancers out there, as a choreographer, I count my blessings. Yet, if I go to see a great actor in a bad play, I come out somehow unsatisfied, knowing that I could have seen him in a great play, and that the congruence of the two would have been intensely moving. I enjoy dancers dancing, but first I look at the dance.
When I choreograph, there are three major concepts being balanced as the work progresses.
The structural logic of the piece. This is its design in space over time. Think of the physical shapes the dancers are making, with their bodies and their relation to each other. Put very reductively - what you see as the dance progresses.
The emotional logic of the piece - the effect and impact of the piece on the audience. What the choreographer is attempting to communicate, or what sort of groundwork s/he is laying for you to bring your own associations to the work. Again simply, what you feel as the dance progresses.
The logic of the piece as it relates to other elements. I usually say "musical" logic here, but I'm going to expand that - it could be any parallel element occurring; musical, visual or otherwise.
I look for the same things when I watch a dance.
Structural logic. I am excited by dance with an efficiency of form. There's a reason so much music is done on traditional forms; theme and variations or sonata form of exposition and development. Think of a stimulating discussion. It's the same form. An idea is stated. You respond to it, building upon it, or varying it. And so on. From a simple seed a discussion blossoms. Conversely, think of how frustrating a conversation is when statements are merely hurled down in isolation one after another, with no regard to what has come before or what will follow.
I look for this sort of classical economy of form when I watch dance. Here are examples of this sort of efficiency: The Four Temperaments by George Balanchine works with a very few elements that become amplified and varied as the ballet goes on, such as the woman's supported pirouettes with a bent knee, or the entrechats into a split on the partner's thigh. These become altered in tempo, in the direction they move through space, elements become broken down and substituted. The economy of expression becomes an artistic force. Think of water trying to get through a small aperture - how it builds up pressure and shoots out at great velocity. Think of a magnifying lens. Keeping the ideas within a dance channeled and related is a statement of tremendous artistic power, maturity and focus. It also need not be classical elements. Two pieces this year [1996] which pleased me immensely for the above reasons were Neil Greenberg's The Disco Project (which will be at the Altogether Different festival in January at the Joyce Theater in NYC) and Ohad Naharin's Axioma 7.
Doug Elkins' Scott, Queen of Marys comes close to flying out of control with its fecundity of ideas, in total violation of the above paragraph. Yet, he holds the whole glorious salad in control, by keeping some elements recurring, and pacing the dance brilliantly. Art is about the controlled flow of information, in space, over time. Elkins holds his work in control by regulating the pitch of what occurs over time. Just at the moment when you think he might have gone on too long, the idea metamorphoses into something else. The tension is thrilling.
When you next look at a dance, try to isolate its major physical themes or motifs. What recurs? What gets transformed? Are there elements left unresolved? Think about the pace at which the choreographer unfolds the dance. Do you feel like what is happening has any relation to what has happened before? How does it all affect you as a viewer?
Emotional logic. Dances do not need stories. They do need to be "about" something. In the same way that idle chatter can send you shrieking from the room if it goes on and on, so can a dance without an artistic focus. This is an extremely broad requirement, one should choreograph as one should speak, that is, when one has something to say.
That thing can be an idea. Look to see if it's an idea best said in dance. Would what you feel is the point of this work be better off said as an essay? As music, a painting, some other mode of expression? There are choreographers I have seen who are more interesting when they open their mouths than when they move. I no longer go to see their works, though I might look forward to their essays.
As with the physical structure of dance, this focus of the piece is stated over time. Does the choreographer make intelligent use of time and pacing? Is there a beginning, middle and end? What was the journey in between? Simple test: Imagine the elements of the piece shuffled, and redeployed. Is there any change in the effect? If there isn't, is this purposeful, or do you get the feeling there isn't one because the choreographer couldn't manage it?
Content can be as simple as its structural elements (vide Concerto Barocco) Focus is an apt word in this case, in Concerto Barocco, the focus is so clearly on its structure that one feels as if one were watching a ballet with a transparent skin, giving one the privilege of watching its lifeblood coursing through its veins. Balanchine keeps a clear, taut pacing throughout, and its form becomes its content.
The next time you look at a dance, let your mind travel to where the dance takes you. Then stop and assess where you went. It's always amusing to postulate if this is anywhere near where the choreographer intended, but unnecessary. The production and consumption of art are not cause and effect. Once the dance has left the choreographer's hands, the circumstances behind its intent and creation are but of intellectual curiosity. It should be the soil in which you plant your own ideas. The choreographer's job is to make that soil as rich and loamy as possible.
Other elements. I will talk about these less, because although they are part of the dance, they are not dance, and not my field of expertise. Pace to Merce Cunningham, but I am most thrilled (even in his work) when there is a congruence of all elements used in a dance production. Is the music appropriate to the choreography? This is a much more important question than whether or not you like the music. Is the choreographer musical? Again, if s/he isn't, is that with a purpose, or do you get the feeling they don't even realize it? The same question could be asked of any of the other production elements. Do be aware that a choreographer doesn't always have total control over these things, and like the cast of dancers in the work, the production elements may evolve over time.
I suspect that those intimately involved with dance use these criteria as a sort of Masonic handshake, a secret sign. Turnout, ballon, extension, such terms are privy only to the initiated. Quite frankly, they are subjective. Most of the issues of technique are discussed in Tom Parsons's excellent and comprehensive FAQ. Important, but they may not be as important in another dance, or another era. There are most decidedly great dancers in the world, but besides these technical terms, one of the things that makes them great is their commitment to the choreography they are dancing when one sees them.
The dancer is a filter through which we view choreography. An intelligent dancer walks a fine line between acknowledging our presence through projecting themselves from the stage out into the audience, and concentrating on placing solely the choreographer's intentions before us. This balance should be different for every dance and every dancer.
What tools does a dancer have at his or her disposal to accomplish this? The way in which a dancer most clearly puts his or her stamp on choreography is in the choices made, questions of emphasis in phrasing, timing and focus.
When you speak, alterations in tone can change the meaning of a sentence. Raise your voice at the end of a sentence, and it becomes a question. In the same way, a dancer's choice of what step or detail to emphasize shapes the choreography. S/he can choose to emphasize or elide a detail musically, (this is called rubato) or physically, by making the movement larger or smaller.
More subtly, an intelligent dancer makes choices about where s/he directs the attention of the audience. This has a tremendous impact on one's perception of the work. In musical theater, most dancers focus directly upon the audience, they "play" all steps directly to them. It gives everything a certain excitement. This focus is not always appropriate in ballet. Choices must be made by the dancer. Should s/he concentrate attention (and direct ours) outwards, in a presentational fashion, like musical comedy? (A ballet where that might be done: Stars & Stripes) In the alternative, focus on the other dancers on stage, giving the audience almost a voyeuristic impression of something happening whether or not they were there? (Watch Cunningham. This is how most of it is done.) Or still another choice, to focus far into an imaginary distance, creating an otherworldly atmosphere in the ballet (this is a ballerina's secret, especially in the 19th century tragic roles like Giselle and Odette. It gives a tremendous impression of fragility, because it seems as if the ballerina is barely there - it can be disastrous when misused.)
As important as choreography is, these shadings by the dancer are the perfume that lingers about choreography. As much as I remember Agon, I remember Darci Kistler's Agon, or how Allegra Kent did the pas de deux from A Midsummer Night's Dream.
A dancer may be a tool of the choreographer, in the same way, make them a tool of you as the viewer to gain meaning from what is placed before you. When I watch one of my works performed, I am most pleased when a dancer is most him or herself in the work. Yes, I get crazed when their interpretation seems like it came from outer space. I also despise it when a dancer tries to "sell" choreography indiscriminately by a frontal assault on the audience. It implies that the choreographer has not done his or her job. I remember once with horror when a dancer decided to act on the night before the first performance. I believe I started to bleed from the eye sockets. Would that he had discussed this desire with me, so I could have helped direct his impulse.
I have seen brilliantly technical dancers who dance Sanguinic and Swanilda with no differentiation. There are dancers I only wish to see in a limited area of the repertory, because their bodies cannot produce the shapes required of certain choreography, and in choreography, physical shape is meaning. There are dancers so fixated upon their schooling, (and often more painfully, the correctness of it in comparison to other heretical schools of dance) that they are painful to watch in any area that strays from their native repertory. Yet some of them can be utterly wondrous within what they know best.
Look at a dancer not as an isolated object, but as another element within the total picture. It matters deeply if s/he sickles his or her feet if that detracts from the focus of the piece. As I said before, often the shapes produced are a significant echo of the meaning of the work, or even the meaning itself. But in the end, look at a dancer in relation to the dance. Do they help you to gain an association with the work. Are they honest in their interpretation, or selfish? What have you learned from seeing their performance?
LAW
The author would like to thank Tom Parsons for originally coding this essay in HTML.
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