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Being a visual artist, I’ve been asked several times to consider the definition of art as opposed to “non-art”.  At the same time, this question can be asked for other forms of art such as music and dance. As I’m watching “Superstars of Dance” on TV at the moment – yes, excuse me for being a dance TV fan – I feel that it is completely irksome when the judges decide to give certain teams a lower score, as they have defined their performance as “not dance”.

“Superstars of Dance” is another dance show created by Simon Fuller and Nigel Lythgoe, mostly reknowned for their roles as judges in “American Idol” and “So You Think You Can Dance”. The show brings dancers from eight nations together to compete in a contest that would display the culture and dance of each country. As well, each nation must provide a judge for the competition. These judges are usually professional dancers - including a Buddhist monk who is a master at the reknowned Shaolin Temple in China - and are responsible for giving scores out of ten for each performance. To prevent favouritism, judges are not allowed to give scores for performances done by their own country.

However, the multicultural aspect of the competition comes with several complications. It’s obvious that the public in a majority of countries would recognize certain dance styles such as tango or ballet. However, what do you do when you have to judge a performance in the style of a Zulu Warrior Dance? If you weren’t familiar with the style then technique can’t be much of a factor. Nevertheless, you could still judge on how the performance made you feel, or its entertainment value. But let’s take a look at this case (among many others similar in situation)…

For a duet performance, the Chinese team sent two dancers who did the unusual genre of dancing labeled as acrobatic ballet (pictured above). In this style, the female dancer stands upon the shoulders of the male dancers and perform several ballet movements such as tendus and attitudes. The male dancer below is stationary at certain times and moves at others. This is a very unique dance style… but their scores? Generally 7/10, which is considered rather low. The judge’s justification? They claimed that there was “lack of dance content” or that “there wasn’t much dancing.”

I’m sorry, but I feel that that is an extremely pretentious answer. Not only that, but this answer deeply affects the competition, since the judges consequently give lower scores to unfamiliar and culturally unique dance styles, especially those whose culture is not very well known around the world, such as India or South Africa.

Nevertheless, I also understand that the judges are dancers themselves, but I do question whether, even as professionals, they have the authority to decide a performance qualifies as dance?

Take Capoeira for example, a dance form that was supposedly a disguised form of martial arts practiced by slaves brought to Brazil. Here, the lines between martial arts and dance are blurred. As a result, the definition of dance as an art form is not as cut and dry and one would think. Therefore, is it completely fair when a judge gives a lower score to someone doing an Argentinian Gaucho Dance and then justifying their score with something along the lines of “that wasn’t dance”?

In other words, judges, until you have a clear definition of what “dance” or “dance content” is, please don’t use that as justification for your score. I will also be selfish and demand that all dancers of the world challenge the very boundaries of their art form as the Dadaists challenged the definition of visual arts. Honestly, if Marcel Duchamp can flip a urinal upside-down and call that art, then I can start writhing on the floor like an epileptic, and have the right to call that dance. It wouldn’t be pretty, although I can’t say that it’s not entertaining…

Picture taken from here.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 8th, 2009 at 9:58 pm and is filed under Arts, Entertainment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.