I had some trouble understanding the “Fall for Dance” performance at the New York City Center. I guess my confusion is not rooted in this specific performance per se but rather my ignorance of dance performances in general. I am sure that dancing means a lot of different things to different people, especially people who are professionally involved in that art. However, for me, I have always interpreted dancing as a participatory activity rather than an art form to simply be watched and enjoyed. I am not used to simply being an audience member of dance performance. I enjoy dancing to music that I enjoy, occasionally in the privacy of my own home, and occasionally in the company of friends in some sort of party setting. When I hear music that has a great rhythm, the dancing comes out of me naturally. I look at it as a physical outward expression of how the music is moving my soul. It felt weird and awkward for me to sit in an auditorium and watch other people dance. Almost like being at a party and just standing by the punch bowl because you are too shy to get involved yourself. I associate dancing with fun but it just did not feel fun for me to sit there and watch the professionals on stage moving through a choreographed sequence. I could tell that the performers had a lot of talent and must have rehearsed a great many times. I could appreciate the amount of time and work they must have spent, I just did not understand what I was supposed to be receiving from watching the performance. I listen to music because it makes me want to move and because I simply gain pleasure from the sounds, I watch comedy because it makes me laugh, and I watch dance because ___. I was not sure how to fill in that blank. I did find it very interesting, however, that tap dance was almost a form of music in addition to dance. It reminded me of percussive music like a drum circle or something of that sort. I also found it very interesting that in the video we had to watch for class, the main choreographer explained that tap dancing is related to the tradition of blues, an African American music form that I personally enjoy and respect very much. I had not known about this connection and I wonder about how tap was performed in that musical time period of the 1920s through the 1960s. I also wonder if there are any tap dance performances that are performed to blues music. If there are, I definitely would go to see it since I would enjoy the backing music to it and that would probably help me get into and understand the tap artform better. I find that my main issue with watching dance performances is that I do not really enjoy the music that it is being performed to. I will start looking for dance performances to music I like and maybe I will change my mind about it.