"Enjoying success requires the ability to
adapt. Only by being open to change will
you have a true opportunity to get the most from your talent.” – Nolan Ryan
Television shows featuring dance and dancers are rapidly gaining popularity during prime time viewing slots. DancingWith the Stars pairs professional dancers with celebrities in a competition, So You Think You Can Dance pits dancers of various styles and skill levels against each other, Breaking Pointe followed seven company members of Ballet West for six weeks, and A Chance To Dance invites viewers into the audition process.
All of
these shows have engaged a large part of the general viewing audience who might
now have a better appreciation for the work dancers do. The questions that remain unanswered are
whether dancers are as eager to watch these shows and if there is anything they
can learn from watching them.
The episode
of A Chance to Dance that aired on
September 14, showcased the skill levels that each dancer brought to the
audition and provided an important lesson for today’s dancers and dance
educators.
The show
centers on dancers who have been recruited by Michael Nunn and Billy Trevitt,
who have been asked to form a company for Nigel Lythgoe. This group of twenty-four recruits must be
whittled down to a dozen dancers, who will be given “a chance to dance” in the
company. In this episode, Allison Holker
from So You Think You Can Dance and
David Dorfman, artistic director of David Dorfman Dance, have been asked to
work with and continue to audition the dancers.
The dancers
all have various levels of training and technical backgrounds. Kaitlin describes herself as a “classical
dancer”, Shepherd has specialized in hip-hop, and Patrick and Bayli are
described as technical dancers.
Allison’s
and David’s approaches are different for many of the dancers. The dancers are asked to take part in
improvisation, to let their bodies dictate how to transition between phrases,
to show emotion through their dancing, and to choreograph. Laura’s statement, “I’ve never had a teacher
or a class like that before where you’re just like so free with your body,”
after David’s class, gives the audience a clear picture of her background and
training. She is not alone in feeling
this way, and many of the dancers struggle with being too technical and feeling
uncomfortable emoting through movement and choreographing, or with being too
specialized and unable to adapt to different styles of dance.
A Chance To Dance creates a picture of
the demands placed upon today’s dancers and underscores the need for all
dancers to study, or at the very least be exposed to, other styles and
techniques of dance. The classically
trained dancers lacked the ability to move freely and seemed emotionally
detached from their dancing while dancers like Shepherd, whose specialty was
hip-hop, needed to be “more rounded”.
Fewer and fewer companies seem to be looking for specialized
dancers. Today modern choreographers
like Twyla Tharp and Jessica Lang are being brought in to choreograph for
ballet companies, urging dancers to take ballet off-balance and to listen to
the music differently. Even ballet
choreographers have begun to infuse their dances with some contemporary
elements.
Dancers who
wish to specialize in one technique need to be proficient in others to satisfy
the demand of today’s directors and choreographers. Dance students, regardless of what technique
they are studying, need the opportunity to choreograph phrases and learn
different choreographic techniques that can be used. These same dancers also need to be taught how
to perform and use dance as a vehicle to relate to their audiences. The most famous dancers of the past are those
whose dancing was technically sound and whose ability to emote through dance
was well developed.
Lastly,
today’s dancers need to have anatomical knowledge in order to adapt to the
various demands of different dance forms.
Adapting requires strong dancers, healthy dancers and dancers that are
comfortable in their own bodies. One of David
Dorfman’s critiques of Chase was that he did not have “the knowledge in the
joints”. By encouraging cross training
in dancers, educators help decrease muscular imbalances that are common in
specialized dancers, create stronger dancers, and give their students an
educated awareness of their bodies. This
awareness is necessary in today’s demanding dance world.
Unless
dance educators encourage exposure to other techniques, provide opportunities
for creativity and using movement to communicate, and encourage cross-training
to meet today’s rigorous demands, very few dancers will be able to work
effectively with today’s artistic directors and choreographers.
A Chance To Dance illustrates these
points to both the general public and to dancers, providing both a realistic
view of the dance world and an educational experience for all of those lucky
enough to watch.
