I don’t dance—not really. If I’m at a wedding, and my wife drags me out onto the floor, I’ll do a sort of jumping-from-side-to-side-while-shaking-my-fists-like-an-angry-toddler thing that could be construed as “dancing.” But I’ll be so aware of how stupid I look that any fun I might be having is mitigated by my future embarrassed memories. I also don’t know much about dancing. I’ve never been to the ballet, and I haven’t studied the major choreographers, outside the Hollywood musical pantheon. I prove this anew every time I watch So You Think You Can Dance, and find myself diametrically opposed to the judges’ opinions. There are aspects of footwork and line and carriage to competitive dancing that I’m just not clued-in enough to notice.
And yet there’s something about the sight of people in motion—especially if they’re in motion in unison—that I find touching. I’m sure everyone’s seen the viral video of the wedding party that danced their way down the aisle in Saint Paul, Minnesota. (I won’t post it because I know everyone’s probably sick of it, but here’s the link.) I’ve read all kinds of complaints about this video: that it’s ironic they’re dancing to the music of girlfriend-beater Chris Brown; that they’re lousy dancers to boot; and that now every theater geek with a fiancée and a Flip camera is going to feel obliged to share their creativity with the world. But I have to confess: the first time I watched that video, it choked me up. Something about the combination of tentativeness and gusto on the part of the wedding party got to me. I can only imagine what it must’ve been like to have been sitting in the congregation, witnessing a little piece of everyday magic. (It helped that the party kept it short; if they’d gone on for 10 minutes, the magic would dissipate.)
The day after I watched that video, legendary avant-garde choreographer Merce Cunningham—a man who believed heartily in randomness, accidents, and everyday magic—died at the age of 90. The day after that, I was sorting my DVD shelf when I came across Split Sides, a DVD of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company performing to original scores by Sigur Ros and Radiohead. The disc had been released earlier this year, and was sent to me most likely because of the music connection; I may even have requested it, to cover in our intermittent “Visual Audio” column. But I’d never gotten around to watching the DVD, and it seemed appropriate to remedy that this past weekend.
Split Sides is an interesting project, for which two scores, two backdrops, two sets of costumes and two pieces of choreography were prepared, with the order for each chosen randomly prior to the performance. There were 32 conceivable combinations an audience could see on any given night; and the DVD contains four of them. Cunningham's emphasis on synchronicity extends to the Radiohead and Sigur Ros music, which is full of random-sounding clicks, gurgles, sparks, buzz and twinkle; and to the dancing, which at times looks like a troupe doing warm-up exercises, until they suddenly fall into step for a few brief, glorious seconds. The whole piece is mesmerizing, as it moves rapidly and fitfully from one idea to the next, rarely “completing” any one thought. And yet the fragmentary approach never frustrated me, because I became entranced by the dancers’ individual gestures, and how they periodically interlocked.
Because I’m a hopeless fantasist, I can’t help but wonder what life would be like for someone in the Merce Cunningham troupe, or in any of the other modern dance ensembles scattered around the world. What's the tryout process like? How do rehearsals go? Are the directors and choreographers looking for the best dancers, or for dancers committed enough to the avant-garde not to question what must be some strange instructions? (“Everyone stay in time, but not together!”) I know that modern dance—or Broadway or ballroom, for that matter—is a different discipline than ballet, an artform that often requires a kind of maniacal, life-consuming devotion. (Or at least that’s what I’ve been led to believe by documentaries like Ballerina, which shows little Russian girls entering the dance combine before they reach double digits in age.) Other forms of dance seem a little more open to come-and-go, although any person I’ve ever met who’s danced on stage—be it in school, a class, or in an actual troupe—has remained remarkably passionate about the art, even when they're not practicing it.
One of the things I like about So You Think You Can Dance—articulated well by my wife last week—is that the judges and performers alike present themselves as enthusiasts, eager to share their love for the infinite varieties of dance, be it modern or hip-hop or quickstep or Bollywood. Producer Nigel Lythgoe even took time out of last week’s broadcast to say a few words about the passing of Cunningham. It’s a romantic notion to me, this idea of dance aficionados as one big but well-connected family, who all know and admire each other, whether they be stepping on-stage for their first audition or running a world-renowned troupe. One of the best movies ever made about dancing—Robert Altman’s The Company—celebrates this notion of the dance community as a big family, gathering regularly to delight each other with what they can do. Like a lot of Altman’s great films, The Company is about inviting individuals to show their talents, and then placing those individuals into a larger context.
If I had to distill what I find so intriguing about dancing and dancers, it’s just that idea that a single person’s remarkable skill—along with their individual spirit, bursting to be expressed—can be put in service of a collective effort. So You Think You Can Dance begins every episode with the introduction of the contestants, each doing a short “wow” move for the camera. But I like it better when Cat Deeley says, “These are the girls, and these are the guys,” and each group moves towards the front of the stage all at once, their swagger intensified because they’ve just become part of something larger than themselves.