Graphic by Lyn Enrico
I initially set out to write a piece about dance’s accessibility problem. Nobody goes out to see dance performances. Well, some people do — dancers do, pAtRoNs Of ThE aRtS do — but even then, that’s basically nobody, relative to the numbers other performances pull. (You’ve seen the mobs that materialize for concerts, right?) Hell, I’ve been a dancer for 15 years, and I am rarely possessed by the dance-attending urge — I’m definitely more used to scratching a concert or movie itch.
My reflex was to think that something must be wrong with dance and/or the way we’re marketing it. Maybe it just isn’t accessible enough to reach a wider audience. So, I set out on a quest so common that it’s becoming cliché: The quest to find potential antidotes to dance’s chronic ailment.
I do the obligatory sleuthing and come up with the expected awful stats. A quick search on the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics site reveals the median pay for different types of artists (as of May 2021), and dancers are bringing up the depressing rear. Hourly, musicians/singers make $30.49, and actors $23.48. Craft/fine artists make $49,960 annually (which would be $24.98 hourly if they worked 40 hours/week for 50 weeks of the year). But dancers and choreographers? $18.78 and $20.53, respectively.
Dance/USA reported some nauseating unemployment rates from the National Endowment of the Arts’ June 2021 research. Dancers experienced unemployment rates worse than artists, which worsened with the onset of the pandemic. In 2019, artist unemployment rates went from 3.3% to 10.3%. Dance unemployment rates were at 9.4%, then jumped to (*gags*) 45.6% in 2020. Yeah. There appears to be a problem!
My next move was to see how people in the industry were processing this struggle. A particular article from Dance Magazine’s “Rant and Rave” section was what tweaked my meddling “wait, but actually” instinct. Written by award-winning dancer, choreographer and teacher David Dorfman, he began his article in the same, unassuming way I’ve started this one — with some righteous exasperation.
He notes that, despite the deep appreciation of and commitment to dance that characterizes the industry, the public clearly feels differently based on where its money goes, and we need to do something about it. The pervasive need to grovel for donations in order to survive in the dance world is both tiresome and humiliating, and dancers need to rethink their strategies.
He cites dance’s having “nothing tangible to sell” as the issue. His solution? Get acquainted and work within our capitalist value system, and be “rigorous about making art that teems with value.” Okay — not helpful. How does one inject value into this thing that they are creating? Wait, but actually — aren’t we already making something valuable? Aren’t the stories and emotions and ideas that we have learned to communicate with our bodies valuable?
And then I realized something. The more pressing issue underlying dance’s constant struggles is not dance itself, but instead that capitalist value system that actively distances itself from humanness in its quest for quick profits and instant gratification. Ours is a society that has no interest in dance, the most human artform. Thus a rant and rave of my own begins.
There are a few ways to define “value.” Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary’s first definition is “the monetary worth of something: MARKET PRICE.” The fourth is “something (such as a principle or quality) intrinsically valuable or desirable.” Dictionary definitions are organized based on their commonality. Clearly, based on this hierarchy in “value” definitions, we are more invested in one type of value over the other.
Dorfman opines, “I actually dislike the term ‘artist,’ as it strikes me as pretentious too much of the time. Let’s think of ourselves more as artisans who are literally creating ‘things’ (albeit ethereal) for people to take home with them—in their hearts, in their memories.” Well. Uh. Not sure how creating “things” is better than emulating ideas and emotions — oh wait. It’s because things are more marketable.
But dance, as it is, unfortunately cannot be possessed, only felt. To change it so that it becomes a thing you can take home would be to change the art. And yet, he says not to make Instagrammable content but to make something of lasting substance. But doesn’t he know that this system of consumption that he wants us to embrace encourages people to churn out content regardless of quality? Not the lasting stuff that “will elevate our country’s cultural fabric.”
Dorfman vacillates between assertions of dance’s intrinsic value and suggestions as to how to redefine it to appeal to capitalist values. To be fair, his contradictions are understandable. We are already entrenched in this system after all, and it’s completely reasonable to want to try and make it work. People need to make a living. But these contradictions reveal that capitalist consumption and dance as an artform just aren’t as compatible as we may want them to be.
Profit. That’s what it’s all about in the U.S. Do I need to reach for stats to support that statement? Massive corporations’ profits apparently make us big and strong, so we can reach further as a people reach toward what, I don’t know). Reaching is good and important, but I think we’ve been reaching in the wrong direction.
A lot of the “progress” we’re making on the frontier of human abilities, for example, seems to dull what makes us human. They’re just shortcuts. Social media is a shortcut for human interaction, and it’s encouraging many of us to prioritize virtual affirmations over engaging with people personally. AI? Maybe not the can of worms I want to open, but it is essential to note the huge popularity of AI-generated art that steals from artists in order to spit out literally derivative work for our entertainment.
Maybe we need to stop this type of reaching altogether, and try to remember what it feels like to be human instead of constantly trying to optimize humanness. I understand that this isn’t an appealing alternative — it is painful to look in the mirror and acknowledge that you are alive and living in a world that can hurt you.
To me, watching dance is a similar experience. In looking at another human, looking at someone’s body move, you inevitably become painfully aware of that person’s existence. There is nothing to hide behind. Not text on a page, not an instrument, not a character. There is no avoiding humanity in that interaction, not when you’re watching their chests heave despite their elegance, hearing labored breaths and the thud of their bones on the ground and the smack of their skin against one another as they collide, seeing the sweat, maybe even smelling it.
Even in the most polished and pristine ballets, there is no such thing as a perfect body; you can see every line of your mortality in muscled legs under that stage lighting. They’re strong, but they are most definitely fallible — if you look closely, you can see them quiver as they balance precariously on their toes. You see that we have these mortal bodies and no way out.
It is fucking hard to watch dance. This difficulty speaks to the way we deliberately bury our humanity, or at least how this profit-prioritizing system we live in encourages us to. Everything we look at needs to be better. It cannot just be. But when you watch dance, what you see is what it is. It can’t be airbrushed, optimized or hacked.
No matter how much any of us may try to rebrand and sell dance, Mr. Dorfman, people do not want memories to take home in their hearts, as you say — our hearts are shriveling up. We’re not doing dance wrong, capitalism urges us to do life wrong. Dance should be the most accessible artform because it emulates emotions with bodies, and I think we all have both of those.
Emotions and bodies should be easily accessible. There is something seriously wrong when humans do not want to feel. Don’t change dance. Change what people want; change how people want to live. The way forward is to pick our heads up and make ourselves look at the beauty and hurt in this mortal plane, even if (especially if) it makes you feel shitty, instead of reaching for a quick technological fix.
Don’t let the corporations in power think we can be so easily sedated. We need to, as a society, let ourselves feel the pain of this reality collectively. Look at each other, and see that we are all screwed! And then we can start to fix it. The value of knowing ourselves as humans and communicating our findings with one another cannot be underestimated.
I feel compelled to stress that I do not at all believe that David Dorfman and his opinion piece is part of the problem, or that his heart is in the wrong place. Like all of us dancers, he just wants his art to be recognized for what it is and wants the art as a whole to thrive.
He closes with the following: “If we reshape value, we’re letting the world know that we add value to it—we are value. As I say to the dancers in my company and the students I teach: ‘Movement is necessary.’”
Though he introduces the concept of reshaping value with that last remark after prioritizing capitalist strategizing for the entirety of his piece, ultimately, he does understand that dance fulfills that fourth dictionary definition of value: It has intrinsic importance. It doesn’t matter what society teaches us is valuable. Dance’s value is inherent and cannot be eclipsed — it will always be there for anyone willing to look. Art — especially dance — is the final bastion of humanity against the numbing decay of capitalism.