Fall For Dance Reaction

I have never been particularly keen on modern dance. While I occasionally manage to find pockets of beauty within (what for me is) otherwise confusing and fragmented movement, for the most part I try to avoid the genre. I approached the Fall for Dance performance with this outlook, unfairly expecting to be bored, annoyed and altogether disappointed.

After the first company “danced” I was certain my negative predictions were accurate. For what felt like forty-five minutes I sat transfixed by the ridiculous performance before me. Men and woman in white unitards leaped around the stage, as though participating in an awful game of charades. The “music” sounded like a combination of monkey howls and minimalist trance. Half of the time I wanted to laugh (which would’ve been wildly inappropriate, so I refrained from doing so) and the rest of the time I wanted to walk out. When the dance was finally over and a solid portion of the audience gave the performers a standing ovation I was completely discombobulated.

My mind understood the amount of time and effort required to stage such a presentation, but my eyes and my ears were exhausted and unsympathetic.

All this being said, I was genuinely shocked when the second performance began and was awesome. The dancers were wild and youthful, their movements were fast and the music was fun- the complete opposite of the previous soundtrack. Furthermore the set was shorter, which allowed every action to feel new and kept the audience watching, and laughing.

My opinions of the final two groups were mixed. The third dance was fascinating but I felt that the dancing “leader” wasn’t ideal for the position. I now know she is a world renowned teacher of that type of dance but I still think that the job of a teacher is to give her students the center stage, especially if it’s clear that the students have the ability to be significantly more captivating.

The last dance group was most similar to other troops I’ve seen. In these sorts of dances I recognize the incredible technical skill of the dancers but don’t really find the actual style to my liking. Nevertheless the dancers themselves would certainly fall under the category of polished, and impressive.

My vision of modern dance hasn’t really changed, but it has been slightly expanded. I suppose that it, like many other categories, does in fact have a little something for everyone (emphasis on the little). I would be interested in seeing another scattering of performances to see what other gems might appeal to my taste. I do not, however, plan to frequent modern dance recitals and continue to prefer other areas of dance to this one.