Since I can remember, I’ve always been asked what kind of dance I do and when I’ve tried to explain, the common response I’d get is, ‘oh so like on Strictly then’ or ‘oh so you can do the splits then’. Time and time again, it has left me feeling protective and embarrassed that I have to defend my own style, and admit to my limitations in order to be taken seriously. It becomes even more challenging when I try to explain contemporary dance and give examples from pop-culture that might ring some kind of bell; ‘you know Sia’s Chandelier music video…’, which doesn’t hold true to me at all but at least the conversation can end there.
Once I’d made the decision to study dance at university this feeling became even worse, for a few reasons. Firstly, Fresher’s meant meeting a whole load of – usually drunk – people interested in what you’re studying, and when finding out you were going to study dance either meant they wanted you to take over the clubs dance floor for a free show-and-tell or a sly snigger, sarcastic and taken aback ‘oh… cool’. Because other ill-informed students seemed to believe that dance degrees are simply for those illiterate types, who have no other option. Far from truth.
Secondly, in my first year lectures the probing question was always ‘what is dance?’ and at the time, annoyance would overcome me when they wouldn’t accept my definition of dance. At the start of my studies, yes I did want to be a technical dancer and dance for companies like Akram Khan’s or Motionhouse. But that was valid too. So not only did I struggle to explain dance to strangers, ignorant or interested, but I could not explain dance to my own dance lecturers either, who were scholars and experts. Dance became a stressful and irritating word that had me looking forward to long hours, little pay and exhaustion.
Then I went to Estonia for a year out and wow, did my perspective change. I saw contemporary dance in many forms, performances I would never have considered dance either, and I came to the conclusion that the term dance is limiting. Dancers are performers, we are entertainers, thinkers, artists, researchers, improvisers, advocates, explorers, and we are movers. We never simply just dance. We become movers in our bodies, movers in our brains and movers of the audience. We also can move how we please and each should be taken as seriously as the last.
I am starting to prefer the term mover because I want to be rid of all existing definitions and constraints. I also want to take back the power over what I choose to pursue and how I choose to tell you about it. Because that matters and this study process is just as important as all of the others. _________________
I want to share this link of academic, well thought of public figures talking about the importance of being creative to them – because I think we need to hear it.
BBC Arts. (2019) What’s so important about creativity? [online] available from <https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p079885w> [1 May 2020]