by Lauren Warnecke

I was working tech on a show recently and the choreographer presented two pieces of modern dance.  Before the show she gave a brief introduction to each piece, and explained that the first piece was a narrative and the second was a “pure movement” dance.  She encouraged them to find the story within the first dance, while not toiling over the second; just to sit back and relax.  It might be crucial to mention at this point that the audience consisted of 800+ physicists who inherently look for the greater meaning in everything.  This got me thinking about how they might respond to the two pieces, both individually and as a whole experience.

There are conflicting opinions in modern dance with some choreographers gravitating toward stories and themes, and others making “dance for dance’s sake”.  Many do some combination of the two, or abstract their work to the point that any allegorical relevance is beyond comprehension to the naked eye (this is where program notes come in handy).  Some dances may rely on a simple adjective, feeling, or concept to generate the dance, where others may go to the extreme of being full-on story ballets that aren’t ballet.  You might see this in choreographers like Mark Morris, while Trisha Brown runs a tight ship of process-driven, anti-thematic dances consisting of pure movement. [Read more…]