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What Dance Has to Say About Beauty,
MICHAEL ROSE (managing director, Annenberg Center/University of Pennsylvania Presents). I think you may also want to ask the converse — what is not beauty? Within the context of dance, is it something that is imperfectly put together, or something that doesn’t have structure, or that is crassly commercial? I think you have to address this question to understand the aesthetics of dance. MYRA BAZELL (choreographer). I don’t think ‘‘beauty’’ is the right word for this whole thing, because the word ‘‘beau’’ or ‘‘beauty’’ for me means ‘‘not ugly.’’ It’s not the right word because what we’re striving for is to accept what’s honest, what’s nature, what’s sometimes organic to an extreme, or sometimes inorganic to such an extreme that it moves us. But what I find beautiful are things that are ugly as well as beautiful. We have to invent a new word. Maybe ‘‘creamy,’’ as in cream of the crop. EVA GHOLSON (choreographer). Instead of being so preoccupied with what’s beautiful or what’s not beautiful, I’d like to talk about what is good art and what is craftsmanship. Unlike Michael, I was trained (by Bessie Schöenberg) to create well-developed compositions. I think that good art is autobiographical. This is about perception. It’s personal. There is a way that both the ugly and the beautiful can coexist. But the pendulum keeps swinging back and forth — you’ve got to look like this, now you’ve got to look like that. Well, let’s talk about what is good art, how do you make good art, and what is integrity in craftsmanship. TERRY FOX (dance curator, the Painted Bride Art Center). I think that the dance field is actually much wider open than the art field. You can still have a ballet, and a ballet can also be modern. JOAN MYERS BROWN (executive/artistic director, Philadanco). There is so much more that dance can bring that is beautiful. I can go to a ballet and hate it, but I can still see beauty in it. Then I can go to a modern dance concert and see great beauty in what other people don’t think is beautiful. ERIC SCHOEFER (choreographer). I am drawn to the concept of beauty as an experience — beatific, to beam, to emanate — versus the concept of beauty as an object — form, space and time. The strongest flash of beauty for me recently in experiencing dance was working with a party of hip-hop kids in North Philly in a warehouse space with a lot of graffiti. These boys were dynamos. It will never be caught again. It was an embodiment of energy and motion. BAZELL. What does the audience want, and what are we creating? We lose the audience when things slow down and become a little more like nature. This is connected to the state of the world now, and the destruction of nature. It’s impatience with things that take time. I feel subjected a little bit, as an artist, to the pressure of what viewers feel is beautiful or what they need from beauty. There’s a void socially and politically at so many levels now that can’t be filled, and I see it manifested in the art and the commentary in the art. What you’re getting from the art is not the breath inside the experience but the constant commenting of the artists on art. This is a sign of the times. There is something missing about what is natural and what is beautiful. |
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