tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/choreographer-25303/articlesChoreographer – The Conversation2021-07-23T12:13:47Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1642152021-07-23T12:13:47Z2021-07-23T12:13:47ZThere’s a long history of dances being pilfered for profit – and TikTok is the latest battleground<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/412518/original/file-20210721-23-li92vi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1623%2C9%2C4097%2C2623&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Laying claim to a dance isn't as straightforward as doing the same for a poem.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/multiple-exposure-of-sports-man-moving-royalty-free-image/470344691?adppopup=true">Tara Moore via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In January 2020, 14-year-old Jalaiah Harmon created what would become one of the biggest viral dance sensations on TikTok. </p>
<p>But few users knew that Harmon, who is Black, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoHadI8gEmA">invented the dance</a>, which she dubbed the Renegade – at least not until a month later, when <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/13/style/the-original-renegade.html">The New York Times drew attention to her case</a>. That’s because a TikTok user had copied the dance, and it was that TikToker’s rendition that went viral. </p>
<p>Because Harmon didn’t get credit, she wasn’t able to reap the benefits of more views and followers, which, in turn, could have led to collaborations and sponsorships.</p>
<p>Harmon is only the latest in a long list of women and people of color whose choreography and dance work have been pilfered for profit – a story that dates back to <a href="https://www.britannica.com/art/jazz-dance">the origins of jazz dance</a> in the 19th and early 20th centuries.</p>
<p>But these days, TikTok is the battleground – and it isn’t just Harmon who’s had her work lifted. In June 2021 several popular Black creators were so fed up with having their dances stolen or not credited that they decided to join forces and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/25/style/black-tiktok-strike.html">go on strike</a>, refusing to post new dance content to bring attention to the issue.</p>
<h2>Choreographers fight for royalties</h2>
<p>Laying claim to a dance isn’t as straightforward as, say, a poet saying they have exclusive rights to a poem they’ve written.</p>
<p>Designed to protect “intangible cultural goods,” copyright, according to the U.S. Copyright Office, gives “<a href="https://copyright.gov/title17/92preface.html">Authors and Inventors the exclusive right to their respective Writings and Discoveries</a>.” </p>
<p>Established in the hopes of rewarding innovation and promoting progress, the first U.S. copyright laws, which were <a href="http://cardozolawreview.com/copyrighting-the-quotidian-an-analysis-of-copyright-law-for-postmodern-choreographers/">established in 1787 and 1790</a> and based on statutes from Britain, didn’t grant rights to artists and dancers. Only writers were protected. </p>
<p>In fact, the very concept of owning choreography <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/dance-research-journal/article/abs/you-stole-my-work-and-you-stole-it-poorly-choreography-copyright-and-the-problem-of-inexpert-iterations/12F6BA731374AE12688A4B86325FE317">didn’t exist until the 20th century</a> when dancers started to lay claim to their work in court.</p>
<p>In 1909, an Indian dancer named Mohammed Ismail <a href="https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199360369.001.0001/acprof-9780199360369-chapter-2">tried to sue white dancer Ruth St. Denis</a>, claiming he was the originator of one of St. Denis’ “Oriental” dances. In 1926, African-American blues singer <a href="https://www.streetswing.com/histmain/z3blkbtm.htm">Alberta Hunter</a> claimed she held the copyright to the popular dance <a href="https://www.britannica.com/art/black-bottom">the Black Bottom</a>, an African American social dance. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">George White’s Black Bottom became a national sensation.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Hunter <a href="https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199360369.001.0001/acprof-9780199360369">performed the Black Bottom</a> in front a white audience in 1925. A year later, the dance appeared in George White’s revue “<a href="https://www.pbs.org/wnet/broadway/stars/george-white/">Scandals</a>,” which ignited the Black Bottom dance craze.</p>
<p>However, little came of Ismail and Hunter’s efforts. <a href="https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199360369.001.0001/acprof-9780199360369">More attempts would follow</a>. In 1963, performer <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/faith-broadway-bugler-and-9-time-candidate-for-dc-mayor-dies-at-96/2020/04/13/b2725c92-7c3d-11ea-a130-df573469f094_story.html">Faith Dane</a> sued M&H Company for royalties for her choreography in “Gypsy” and lost. In the 1950s and 1960s, choreographer <a href="https://www.abt.org/people/agnes-de-mille/">Agnes de Mille</a> advocated for copyrights specific to choreography because she got very limited royalties for her work on the hit musical “Oklahoma!”</p>
<p>It wasn’t until 1976 that copyright protection <a href="https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ52.pdf">was updated to specifically include</a> choreographic works.</p>
<h2>A delicate dance with copyright</h2>
<p>But this hasn’t exactly led to a windfall of royalties for choreographers.</p>
<p>Congress <a href="https://www.newmediarights.org/business_models/artist/ii_what_can_and_can%E2%80%99t_be_copyrighted">has established four guidelines</a> to determine whether a work can be granted copyright protection: originality, fixation, idea versus expression and functionality. </p>
<p>In choreography, it’s the fixed “expression” that’s being protected, not the “idea” behind it. This is why New York City Ballet can copyright their choreographed version of “The Nutcracker,” but other artists can create their own versions or expressions of the story as plays, storybooks or choreographed dance.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/dance-research-journal/article/abs/you-stole-my-work-and-you-stole-it-poorly-choreography-copyright-and-the-problem-of-inexpert-iterations/12F6BA731374AE12688A4B86325FE317">Artists and scholars still debate</a> what, exactly, it is that a dancer or choreographer is trying to claim as their own. Is it the dance as a work of art, the choreography or the specific performance? </p>
<p>So while creators can apply to register the recorded expression of their idea with the government, many choreographers – perhaps due to so many gray areas in what is eligible for copyright – still don’t realize that they they have something of value that can or should be protected.</p>
<p>George Balanchine, the founding artistic director of New York City Ballet, had a heart attack in 1978. But he didn’t draw up a will until he was told the dozens of dances he created would <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/magazine/08cunningham-t.html">generate licensing income</a> that would go to next of kin unless he directed otherwise.</p>
<h2>When pop culture pulls from avant-garde</h2>
<p>Avant-garde artist Anna Teresa De Keersmaeker’s brief spat with Beyoncé illustrates the tricky nature of determining what constitutes copyright infringement or plagiarism. </p>
<p>In 2011, De Keersmaeker <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/dance-research-journal/article/abs/you-stole-my-work-and-you-stole-it-poorly-choreography-copyright-and-the-problem-of-inexpert-iterations/12F6BA731374AE12688A4B86325FE317">claimed that Beyoncé</a>, in her music video “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XY3AvVgDns">Countdown</a>,” had plagiarized De Keersmaeker’s dances from two different works – “Rosas danst Rosas” and “Achterland” – without giving her credit.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Anna De Keersmaeker’s ‘Rosas danst Rosas.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Both artists made public statements acknowledging what happened. It seems that though a substantial amount of De Keermaeker’s movement was transposed into “Countdown,” it was also transformed – from a white, elite avant-garde setting to a Black pop culture setting. A case could be made for fair use, the <a href="https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/more-info.html">doctrine</a> that permits the unlicensed use of copyright-protected works in certain circumstances. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Beyoncé’s ‘Countdown.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Nonetheless, this episode illustrates the gray areas of what is protected by copyright. Does performing someone else’s dance movements in a new setting – for an audience who may not have any connection or knowledge of its origins – make it OK? Does this make it a new work? </p>
<p>Copyright protection was devised primarily to promote progress. The thinking went that if authors and artist were given control of their work they would create more original work, earn a living from it and continue creating.</p>
<p>But the incentive for progress can also exist outside of copyright protection. This is what dancer-turned-lawyer Jessica Goudreault argued <a href="http://cardozolawreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/GOUDREAULT.39.2.pdf">in a 2018 article for the Cardozo Law Review</a>.</p>
<p>She writes that for some dance styles “the field might never evolve without the opportunity to copy,” which “sustains and encourages innovation.” </p>
<p>I would argue that this applies to the dances on TikTok. Without the ability for users to freely imitate the dances, those moves wouldn’t go viral. The creators of the dances would not get their moment in the sun – however brief it is in social media – and other creators might be less inspired to innovate if they didn’t have the examples of those who came before them. </p>
<p>[<em>Over 106,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletter to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=100Ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p>
<h2>Can copyright protection even work for TikTok?</h2>
<p>If TikTokers and choreographers are looking to license a new dance, should they rely solely on the copyright system and all its restrictions? Or is there another way to get credit and promote innovation in dance? </p>
<p>When dance videos are posted to the web, they are, by default, protected under copyright. In theory, this should prevent dancers from having their work used by others without permission.</p>
<p>In reality, it is often difficult to know who made it first and what constitutes fair use. When does doing some dance steps turn them into a new dance piece? Furthermore, discovering the original author or authors of a dance isn’t easy.</p>
<p>That’s because unlike posts on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, <a href="http://www.vox.com/the-goods/2020/2/4/21112444/renegade-tiktok-song-dance">TikTok posts aren’t time-stamped</a>. Posts appear in a user’s feed in order of popularity, not chronologically. Identifying who posted the content first is tricky.</p>
<p>I would suggest that common law copyright is not the right solution here – and that the principles of <a href="https://opensource.org/osd">Open Source</a> might better serve creators. </p>
<p>Open Source, a social movement by computer programmers, is underpinned by licensing criteria that ensures integrity of authorship, among other principles. Open-source licensing could resolve the issue of the correct people receiving credit for their works. This could take the form of an Open-source license – which has yet to be clearly laid out for dance works – or a <a href="https://creativecommons.org/">Creative Commons</a> license with a “CC-BY” designation that requires attribution, but leaves space for copying, adjusting, remixing and innovation. For this to happen, TikTok would need to add a time and date stamp, in addition to a license preference feature.</p>
<p>Perhaps <a href="https://www.sydnielmosley.com/">honoring legacies and influences</a> by naming where something came from can begin to heal the damage that’s taken place over the years to people of color and other choreographers who’ve had their work cribbed with nary an acknowledgment or thanks.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/164215/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jill Vasbinder does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In choreography, the gray areas of copyright law make it difficult to determine what constitutes copyright infringement or plagiarism.Jill Vasbinder, Senior Lecturer in Dance, University of Maryland, Baltimore CountyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1329782020-03-17T18:49:40Z2020-03-17T18:49:40ZHidden women of history: Sonia Revid created public health ballet at the height of ‘dance fever’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319773/original/file-20200311-116270-1brmey.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=18%2C11%2C801%2C1112&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://search.slv.vic.gov.au/primo-explore/fulldisplay?docid=SLV_VOYAGER1640108&vid=MAIN&search_scope=Everything&tab=default_tab&lang=en_US&context=L">Dickenson-Monteith/The Australian Performing Arts Collection</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Today’s latest medical advice is to wash our hands to the chorus of songs from the likes of <a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/music/story/2020-03-03/coronavirus-hand-washing-20-seconds-happy-birthday-10-songs">Lizzo, Gloria Gaynor or Beyoncé</a>. This is to mitigate the boredom of washing to Happy Birthday … twice! </p>
<p>Public health strategies have been linked to popular culture before. In the 1930s, it was modern dance that taught Melburnians how to perform personal hygiene. </p>
<p>Dance classes were so popular the Sun News Pictorial reported: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Doctors, Barristers, other professional men are learning or relearning dance, and there are busy classes for business and married girls, tiny toddlers, and even mothers of families, and social heavyweights.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>One dance instructor, Russian immigrant Sonia Revid, specialised in the instruction of hygiene through movement. </p>
<p>Revid choreographed and performed ballets that taught audiences how to brush their teeth. She also published a pamphlet outlining the importance of personal hygiene. The City of Melbourne’s medical officer, John Dale, publicly praised Revid’s efforts and parents were advised to enrol their children in her classes. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/320068/original/file-20200312-15001-wpjdbd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/320068/original/file-20200312-15001-wpjdbd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/320068/original/file-20200312-15001-wpjdbd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=929&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320068/original/file-20200312-15001-wpjdbd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=929&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320068/original/file-20200312-15001-wpjdbd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=929&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320068/original/file-20200312-15001-wpjdbd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1167&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320068/original/file-20200312-15001-wpjdbd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1167&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/320068/original/file-20200312-15001-wpjdbd.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1167&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Revid in full flight, circa 1935.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://collections.artscentremelbourne.com.au/#details=ecatalogue.191902">Rosa Ribush Collection/Australian Performing Arts Collection</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Body and soul</h2>
<p>Revid had opened her dance studio in Collins Street, Melbourne, in 1933, a year after her arrival in Australia. </p>
<p>The Sonia Revid School for Art Dance and Body Culture was promoted as ensuring “physical well-being and lasting health” and provided “lessons to correct specific physical defects, such as obesity, flat feet, unshapely hands, self-consciousness and shyness”.</p>
<p>By 1936, Revid was promoting her method as not only a way to stay fit and healthy but also as means of acquiring a “consciousness of cleanliness”. </p>
<p>Revid asserted the capabilities of her practice based on the evidence of a medico-social experiment she conducted on a group of poor children in 1935. Revid wanted to see whether poor children who lived in the then “slums” of Fitzroy could learn to distinguish between hygienic and unhygienic practices through dance education. </p>
<p>Poor hygiene had been associated with a lack of social responsibility and immorality and so Revid’s published pamphlet asked through metaphor: Do Slum Children Distinguish Light From Dark?</p>
<p>From her observations, Revid <a href="https://viewer.slv.vic.gov.au/?entity=IE5149955&file=FL17214593&mode=browse">concluded</a> modern dance had a cleansing capacity – performing a sort of physical and spiritual bath. Not only did it teach children how to identify hygienic and unhygienic practices, she wrote, but imparted a more hygienic constitution.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">In recent years, ballet has returned to vogue as a tool for everyday fitness.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Don’t forget to smile</h2>
<p>Emboldened by her belief in the hygienic potential of dance, Revid began to include ballets with public health messages in her performance repertoire. </p>
<p>Her 1938 ballet, Little Fool and Her Adventures, instructed audiences how to brush their teeth correctly and portrayed the painful consequences of poor dental hygiene. </p>
<p>The ballet was first performed at the University of Melbourne’s Union House Theatre and later at school halls such as at Melbourne Church of England Girls Grammar School, now Melbourne Girls Grammar. It was performed in four parts. Part one was an introduction to the protagonist, Little Fool, and to the themes of the ballet. </p>
<p>Little Fool Has a Toothache, the second section, told of the pain associated with dental decay. It was dramatically enhanced by a thumping musical score by the French composer, Charles Gounod, titled <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pOXhAF7L0I">Funeral March of a Marionette</a>. The score alluded to the serious medical consequences of poor dental hygiene. Audiences reported its repetitive rhythm reminded them of the thumping pain of a sensitive nerve.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The score has since become familiar as theme music for the television program Alfred Hitchcock Presents.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The ballet’s climax was in part three: The Toothache Leaves a Mark on Little Fool – She imagines she is pursued by evil spirits. This section was ominously danced to Camille Saint-Saëns’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyknBTm_YyM">Danse Macabre</a> (known in English as Dance of Death). The choreography showed Little Fool overcome by delirium. </p>
<p>Revid’s ballet concluded with a positive message of calm vigilance. Little Fool overcame her sore tooth and departed the stage to a lively and uplifting tune. </p>
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sonia Revid strikes a pose, circa 1931-47.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photograph by Andre, Melbourne/Australian Performing Arts Collection, Arts Centre Melbourne</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Lessons today</h2>
<p>Little Fool remained in Revid’s repertoire for many years, providing hygienic instruction and a cautionary public health warning to all who saw it. </p>
<p>Revid’s dance classes and her performances taught the importance of daily hygiene and kept the community informed of best practices through the fluctuating realities of Melbourne’s public health. </p>
<p>With advances in medicine and technology, such as vaccines, we often take the basics for granted, losing sight of the importance of thorough handwashing until a global pandemic reminds us of its preventive power.</p>
<p>Although hygienic instruction hasn’t been a part of popular artistic culture for a while, in 2020 Beyoncé and <a href="https://www.pedestrian.tv/entertainment/lizzo-coronavirus-meditation/">Lizzo</a> are taking matters into their own clean hands.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/132978/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Averyl Gaylor received funding from the Australian Government's Research Training Program for this research. </span></em></p>In the 1930s, it was modern dance that taught Melburnians how to perform personal hygiene. There are still lessons to be learnt from this history and the legacy of Sonia Revid.Averyl Gaylor, PhD Candidate in History and Manager, Centre for Health, Law and Society at La Trobe Law School, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/855552017-10-17T12:01:16Z2017-10-17T12:01:16ZEngineers could learn a lot from dance when designing urban transport<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190618/original/file-20171017-30390-119xidy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">HelloRF Zcool/Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There is little more important for the sustainability of cities than the ways we move around them. With transportation estimated to account for <a href="http://www.iea.org/media/statistics/Energy_and_CO2_Emissions_in_the_OECD.pdf">30% of energy consumption</a> across the majority of the world’s most developed nations, reducing the necessity for energy-reliant vehicles is fundamental to addressing the environmental impact of mobility.</p>
<p>But as cities become the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-worlds-urban-population-is-growing-so-how-can-cities-plan-for-migrants-49931">predominant habitat</a> for most people in the world, it is important to think about other kinds of sustainability too. The ways we travel impact our physical and mental health, our social lives, our access to work and culture, and the air we breathe. Engineers are tasked with changing how we travel round cities through urban design, but the engineering industry still rests on the assumptions that led to the creation of the energy-consuming transport systems we have now: the emphasis placed solely on efficiency, speed, and quantitative data. We need new approaches in order to help engineers create the radical changes needed to make it healthier, more enjoyable, and less environmentally damaging to move around cities.</p>
<p>And my colleagues and I think that dance might hold some of the answers. That is not to suggest everyone should dance their way to work, however healthy and happy it might make us. But rather that the techniques used by choreographers to experiment with and design movement in dance could offer engineers with tools to stimulate new ideas in city-making. To test this out, <a href="https://www.cityleadership.net/choreographing-the-city">a project</a> led by Ellie Cosgrave at UCL is bringing planners and engineers designing systems for urban mobility together with choreographers to see <a href="https://www.cityleadership.net/">how their practices could enrich one another</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189818/original/file-20171011-9801-xa3211.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189818/original/file-20171011-9801-xa3211.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189818/original/file-20171011-9801-xa3211.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189818/original/file-20171011-9801-xa3211.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189818/original/file-20171011-9801-xa3211.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189818/original/file-20171011-9801-xa3211.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189818/original/file-20171011-9801-xa3211.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ellie Cosgrave with Scatter, The Place’s adult dance company.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hayley Madden</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>From reality to blueprint</h2>
<p>Sociological theory about the nature of work can help us to understand why choreography might help. <a href="http://www.lse.ac.uk/sociology/whoswho/academic/sennett.aspx">Richard Sennett</a>, an influential urbanist and sociologist who transformed ideas about the way cities are made, <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=NgKVc2mtiLsC&dq">argues</a> that urban design (including, we would argue, engineering and planning as much as it does architecture) has suffered from a severance between mind and body since the advent of the architectural blueprint. </p>
<p>Whereas the medieval builder improvised and adapted construction through their intimate knowledge of materials and embodied experience of the conditions in a site, building designs are now conceived and stored in media technologies that detach the designer from the physical and social realities they are creating. The “disembodied design practices” created by these technologies are essential for managing the technical complexity of the modern city. But they simplify reality in the process.</p>
<p>To illustrate, Sennett discusses the Peachtree Center in Atlanta, a development emblematic of the modernist approach to urban planning prevalent in the 1970s. Peachtree created a grid of streets and towers intended as a new pedestrian-friendly downtown for Atlanta. This, according to Sennett, failed because its designers had invested too much faith in computer aided design to tell them how it would operate.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190598/original/file-20171017-30394-1emn9ao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190598/original/file-20171017-30394-1emn9ao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190598/original/file-20171017-30394-1emn9ao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190598/original/file-20171017-30394-1emn9ao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190598/original/file-20171017-30394-1emn9ao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190598/original/file-20171017-30394-1emn9ao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190598/original/file-20171017-30394-1emn9ao.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Peachtree Center, Georgia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Peachtree-center.jpg">Connor.carey</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>They didn’t understand that purpose-built street cafes could not operate in the hot sun without the awnings common in older buildings, and would need energy-consuming air conditioning instead, or that its giant car park would feel so desolate as to put people off from getting out of their cars. What seems entirely predictable and controllable on screen has unexpected results when translated into reality.</p>
<p>The same is true in transport engineering, which uses models to predict and shape the way people move through the city. Again, these models are necessary, but they are built on specific worldviews in which certain assumed forms of efficiency and safety are privileged over other experiences of the city. Designs that seem logical in models appear counter-intuitive in the embodied experience of their users. </p>
<p>The guard rails that will be familiar to anyone having attempted to cross a British road, for example, were an engineering solution to pedestrian safety based on models that prioritise the smooth flow of traffic, guiding pedestrians to specific crossing points and slowing them down through staggered access points. In doing so they make crossings feel longer, introducing <a href="http://www.civicvoice.org.uk/uploads/files/Briefing_note_4_Guard_rails_-_Final.pdf">psychological barriers</a> greatly impacting those that are the least mobile, and encouraging some others to make dangerous crossings to get around them. These barriers don’t just make it harder to cross the road, they sever communities and decrease opportunities for healthy transport. As a result, <a href="http://content.tfl.gov.uk/Item09-Guardrail-Removal-Programme.pdf">many are now being removed</a>, causing disruption, cost, and waste. </p>
<p>If their designers had the tools to think with their bodies, and imagine how these barriers would feel, could there have been a better solution in the first place? We think so. In order to bring about fundamental changes to the ways we use our cities, engineering will need to develop a richer understanding of what motivates people to move in certain ways, and how it affects them.</p>
<h2>Dancing through cities</h2>
<p>Choreography may not seem an obvious choice for tackling this problem. Yet it shares the aim of designing patterns of movement within spatial constraints. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190599/original/file-20171017-30379-90nsdy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190599/original/file-20171017-30379-90nsdy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/190599/original/file-20171017-30379-90nsdy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190599/original/file-20171017-30379-90nsdy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190599/original/file-20171017-30379-90nsdy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=914&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190599/original/file-20171017-30379-90nsdy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1149&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190599/original/file-20171017-30379-90nsdy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1149&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/190599/original/file-20171017-30379-90nsdy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1149&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dance notation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Menuet_d%27Exaudet.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Choreography is an embodied art form developed almost entirely through instant feedback between improvisation of ideas with the body, and tactile feedback from those ideas. It uses models and forms of notation to plan movements that dancers will make, with qualitative as well as quantitative information. Choreographers have an extremely rich understanding of the psychological, aesthetic, and physical implications of different ways of moving. </p>
<p>Observing the choreographer <a href="http://waynemcgregor.com/">Wayne McGregor</a>, cognitive scientist David Kirsh described how he “<a href="http://adrenaline.ucsd.edu/Kirsh/Articles/Interaction/thinkingwithbody.pdf">thinks with the body</a>”. Kirsh argues that by using the body to simulate outcomes, McGregor is able to imagine solutions that would not be possible using purely abstract thought. This kind of embodied knowledge is given great value in many realms of expertise, but currently has no place in formal engineering design processes.</p>
<p>The value of all this for engineering is currently hypothetical. But what if transport engineers were to improvise design solutions and get instant feedback about how they would work from their own embodied experience? What if they could model designs at full scale in the way choreographers experiment with groups of dancers? What if they designed for emotional as well as functional effects? </p>
<p>By comparing the techniques and worldviews of choreography and engineering, <a href="http://www.ucl.ac.uk/steapp/research/projects/choreographing-the-city">we aim to find out</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85555/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Bingham-Hall is a research assistant for the Choreographing the City research project at UCL STEaPP, which is funded by the EPSRC via the Liveable Cities research grant. He also works for Theatrum Mundi, an independent research centre founded by Professor Richard Sennett. </span></em></p>Choreographers could offer engineers tools to stimulate new ideas in city-making.John Bingham-Hall, Researcher in Urban Design and Culture, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/584172016-05-01T19:57:54Z2016-05-01T19:57:54ZWriting movement: why dance criticism matters<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/120309/original/image-20160427-30946-731c1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Chloe Chignell's dance piece Deep Shine in the 2016 Keir Choreographic awards.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gregory Lorenzutti</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Internationally, dance criticism has an illustrious literary past. Writers such as <a href="http://www.britannica.com/biography/Paul-Valery">Paul Valery</a>, TS Eliot, and Edwin Denby, amongst others, have all written on dance performance. </p>
<p>Denby, a <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/edwin-denby">poet and acclaimed dance critic</a> for The New York Herald Tribune in the early 1940s, influenced Deborah Jowitt’s decision to embark on a career in dance criticism as far back as the early 1950s. Jowitt is particularly renowned and revered for her long service as dance critic for the New York <a href="http://www.villagevoice.com/">Village Voice</a>, starting in 1967.</p>
<p>At The Voice, like <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-return-of-arlene-croce">Arlene Croce at The New Yorker</a>, Jowitt was allocated an amount of space for her reviews undreamt of in any Australian newspaper. There, she was able to develop a sensibility for dance, educated by the work she saw, and to refine her criticism as a distinct form of literature. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/120304/original/image-20160427-30970-1u2trl5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/120304/original/image-20160427-30970-1u2trl5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/120304/original/image-20160427-30970-1u2trl5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120304/original/image-20160427-30970-1u2trl5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120304/original/image-20160427-30970-1u2trl5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120304/original/image-20160427-30970-1u2trl5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120304/original/image-20160427-30970-1u2trl5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120304/original/image-20160427-30970-1u2trl5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Deborah Jowitt.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Supplied.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Jowitt is in Australia this week as an invited contributor to the wider program surrounding the second <a href="http://keirfoundation.org/project/keir-choreographic-award-2016/">Keir choreographic awards</a> (the first having taken place in 2014). The finals of the award will be judged at Carriageworks in Sydney this week.</p>
<p>Jowitt was, and remains, committed to writing about the dance aspect of dance performance: how it communicates through the materials of movement, the nuances of style, and the way these are handled by the performers. In her review At home in the body (1977) Jowitt wrote of a performance by the widely influential dancer Simone Forti that it felt as though you had,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>all the time in the world…Once, she took her right hand off the floor, and, as if her weight had been equally distributed between four points, acknowledged the sudden imbalance by toppling over. You could say that not much happened; or you could say that within a few concrete actions, everything happened. </p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/120301/original/image-20160427-30973-9rp8qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/120301/original/image-20160427-30973-9rp8qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/120301/original/image-20160427-30973-9rp8qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120301/original/image-20160427-30973-9rp8qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120301/original/image-20160427-30973-9rp8qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120301/original/image-20160427-30973-9rp8qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120301/original/image-20160427-30973-9rp8qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120301/original/image-20160427-30973-9rp8qu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Alice Heyward, Before The Fact, Keir Awards 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gregory Lorenzutti</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There is no ready-made language for describing the effects on a viewer of dancing itself – whatever the style of that dancing. Even well known dance critics internationally, such as Cyril Beaumont, who wrote for The Sunday Times, regularly failed to say anything much about the dancing in their reviews, concentrating instead on other aspects of the production.</p>
<p>The so-called “descriptive” approach developed by Jowitt has influenced later generations of critics to describe what it was like to be there – as a witness to the qualities and effects of a dance’s dancing.</p>
<p>Jowitt’s distinctive style also encoded an ethic of reviewing that was generous, intimate, avowedly subjective, and “not in the business of rating and ranking”. This didn’t mean that she was never critical: rather she was incisive.</p>
<p>Her reviews stand as important documents for the archive of dance history: Jowitt was there at the first revivals of <a href="http://marthagraham.org/about-us/our-history/">Martha Graham</a>’s early 20th century works; she became interested in writing at the same time <a href="http://www.mercecunningham.org/merce-cunningham/">Merce Cunningham</a> was founding his company. </p>
<p>She has witnessed the development of the oeuvres of several generations of American choreographic artists and dancers and has become familiar with countless works through multiple viewings and casts over decades – something that any music critic, for example, would take for granted but which is rare in dance. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
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<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sarah Aiken, (tools for personal experience), Keir Awards 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gregory Lorenzutti</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Dance performances are too often seen as a series of “one-offs”, without knowledge of their relation to a whole historical field of works and processes. A dedicated and informed reviewer can help an audience to both remember what a work was like, in its sensuous particularity, and to place the performance they have seen within a context of other works. </p>
<p>The reviewer can convey something of the work’s lineage. Most fundamentally, perhaps, an informed review is an indication that the work should be taken seriously.</p>
<p>As Richard Watts <a href="http://performing.artshub.com.au/news-article/features/performing-arts/richard-watts/why-we-need-dance-criticism-251124">pointed out recently in ArtsHub</a>, substantial reviewing is crucial to the development of a discerning public, which in turn supports the artform. </p>
<p>The Australian print media has largely failed to recognise this. All the more should we acknowledge the efforts of some long-standing and former dance reviewers around the country, including <a href="http://ausdance.org.au/contributors/details/jill-sykes">Jill Sykes</a> and Mary Emery in Sydney, particularly at a time when Melbourne dancers were suffering the reviews of The Age’s Neil Jillet.</p>
<p>In an optimistic turn, online forums and the Australia Council funded <a href="http://www.realtimearts.net/">Realtime</a> are now providing a much needed opening for writers on the arts to develop their reviewing approaches and languages. </p>
<p>Jowitt’s visit for the Keir program will include her conducting a week-long dance writing seminar at Melbourne’s Dancehouse. We may see a much needed revitalisation of the dance critic’s craft.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58417/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sally Gardner has received numerous Australia Council grants for travel, dance creation and production. She is co-editor of the occasional publication Writings on Dance, which has been supported by Arts Victoria and the Australia Council. </span></em></p>Legendary critic Deborah Jowitt’s visit to Australia for the Keir choreographic awards is focussing attention on the paucity of our dance criticism. Yet informed reviews are vital to the health of an art form.Sally May Gardner, Senior Lecturer, Dance, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/554662016-03-01T04:28:30Z2016-03-01T04:28:30ZAfrican dance festival that’s been one step ahead through the decades<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113215/original/image-20160229-4087-18ffnpr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Tribhangi Dance Company performs Circles and Squares at the South African Dance Umbrella in Johannesburg.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/John Hogg</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s always been easy to coin a “lucky packet” metaphor around the <a href="http://www.danceforumsouthafrica.co.za/">Dance Umbrella</a>, Johannesburg’s unique contemporary dance festival. It’s often pot luck for an audience where “sweets” – as a quality yardstick – get mixed with “sours”. This is as it should be for the discipline, which is arguably one of the most difficult for a lay audience to watch.</p>
<p>But after nearly three decades of existence, the festival has become an institution about much more than being critically fêted.</p>
<p>Similar to classical or traditional dance, <a href="http://www.contemporary-dance.org/">contemporary dance</a> has its own nonverbal language, which is not immediately accessible to everyone. Similar to theatre, it can draw in a range of elements such as lighting and sound to uplift or lend it nuance. Similar to visual art, it has the power to take on political issues and shock an audience into awareness. Blending all of these tools, it remains a field of art that fits with some difficulty into the unconditional love of a fan base. </p>
<p>But if you turn from looking at the stage to looking at the audience in any given Dance Umbrella work, you would be hard-pressed to believe this. Not only has Dance Umbrella grown dance, it has grown an audience.</p>
<h2>Physical expression</h2>
<p>It was coined as a platform for contemporary dance in Johannesburg by dance critics Marilyn Jenkins and Adrienne Sichel in conversation with Vita Promotions. Dance Umbrella debuted in 1989, showcasing the work of <a href="http://www.danceforumsouthafrica.co.za/history-of-dance-umbrella.html">just 14 choreographers</a>. It has since ticked all the proverbial boxes in terms of not only attempting to shape an audience but in giving extraordinary levels of physical expression validity and currency.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113217/original/image-20160229-4066-1shulza.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113217/original/image-20160229-4066-1shulza.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=825&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113217/original/image-20160229-4066-1shulza.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=825&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113217/original/image-20160229-4066-1shulza.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=825&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113217/original/image-20160229-4066-1shulza.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1037&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113217/original/image-20160229-4066-1shulza.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1037&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113217/original/image-20160229-4066-1shulza.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1037&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">South African artist Steven Cohen has always pushed the boundaries.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA</span></span>
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<p>One need not think beyond performance artist/contemporary dancer <a href="http://www.stevenson.info/artists/cohen.html">Steven Cohen</a>. Over the years he has taken the festival by storm with his outrageous and oft impromptu gestures engaging with sexuality, xenophobia and hatred head on. Cohen has done so in a manner that made it difficult for audience members or even dance administrators to side-step.</p>
<p>Dance Umbrella in 2008 featured French choreographer Dominique Boivin’s Transports <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auVy2_dnZtE">Exceptionnels</a>, which was staged on the Johannesburg Market Theatre’s parking lot. It anthropomorphosised a trench digger that “danced” to the sound of <a href="http://www.biography.com/people/maria-callas-9235435">Maria Callas’</a> voice – one of those unforgettable moments that made you open your heart to what contemporary dance is or can do.</p>
<h2>Dance firebrands</h2>
<p>The notion of “undance” was coined by choreographers of the ilk of <a href="http://eludanceco.org/portfolios/02/">Elu</a>. The audience’s role was challenged by mavericks such as <a href="http://www.robynorlin.com/about.htm">Robyn Orlin</a>, one of Dance Umbrella’s founding choreographic firebrands. From year one, Dance Umbrella enabled contemporary dance to be rich with as yet undreamed of possibilities. Effectively on several levels, the discipline became a catch-all.</p>
<p>But in juxtaposition with a stretching and a shattering of the envelope in which dance used to be able to sit comfortably, the role of Dance Umbrella was about opening doors that creative young South Africans didn’t even know existed. The time, in 1988, was ripe for a festival specialising in what contemporary dance could be in Johannesburg. </p>
<p>Many of apartheid’s punitive and violent regulations were collapsing from within. South Africa was still reeling from a <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/topic/state-emergency-south-africa-1960-and-1980s">State of Emergency</a> and its society was ripe to start re-identifying itself.</p>
<p>Moving Into Dance <a href="http://www.midance.co.za/">Mophatong</a>, the Newtown-based dance company established by dancer-choreographer <a href="http://www.midance.co.za/dance-company/management-administration/">Sylvia Glasser</a> who enjoyed an interest in ethnodance, was then ten years old. It was rapidly developing as a multiracial platform: the first of its kind in the country when it was technically still illegal to host black and white dancers on the same stage together. It was both melting pot and incubator for new dance blood.</p>
<h2>Astonishing achievement</h2>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113218/original/image-20160229-4110-1r04tph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/113218/original/image-20160229-4110-1r04tph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113218/original/image-20160229-4110-1r04tph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113218/original/image-20160229-4110-1r04tph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=916&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113218/original/image-20160229-4110-1r04tph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1151&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113218/original/image-20160229-4110-1r04tph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1151&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/113218/original/image-20160229-4110-1r04tph.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1151&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">South African dancer Sonia Radebe performing at the Dance Umbrella.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/John Hogg</span></span>
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<p>Fast forward 28 years, and a broad overview on what Dance Umbrella is and what it has achieved, is astonishing. Glasser recently immigrated to Australia, having retired from Moving Into Dance. She leaves in her wake choreographers such as <a href="http://www.vuyani.co.za/gregmaqoma.html">Gregory Maqoma</a>, <a href="http://www.dancewebeurope.net/index.php?id=32&detail=88">Boyzie Cekwana</a>, <a href="http://www.dance.uct.ac.za/dnc/confluen/confluences2015/overview">Vincent Mantsoe</a>, <a href="http://www.sowetanlive.co.za/entertainment/2014/09/06/mashigo-s-latest-piece-keeps-audiences-on-their-toes">Portia Mashigo</a>, <a href="http://www.artlink.co.za/news_article.htm?contentID=29401">Moeketsi Koena</a>, <a href="http://www.openlab-southafrica.co.za/Sonia.html">Sonia Radebe</a>, <a href="https://robynsassenmyview.wordpress.com/">Sunnyboy Motau</a>, <a href="http://200ysa.mg.co.za/2013/fana-tshabalala/">Fana Tshabalala</a> and many others, whose lives she touched and focused significantly. Most of them are internationally respected today.</p>
<p>But it would not be accurate to focus on MIDM only. While it was the first dance company to open its doors in Johannesburg in 1978, its existence enabled other dance companies in the city. These include PJ Sabbagha’s <a href="http://forgottenangle.co.za/">Forgotten Angle Theatre Collaborative</a> (established in 1995), Martin Schönberg’s <a href="http://www.artlink.co.za/news_article.htm?contentID=21157">Ballet Theatre Afrikan</a> (1996-2009), Jayesperi Moopen’s <a href="http://www.tribhangi.co.za/">Tribhangi</a> (established in 1988) and Maqoma’s <a href="http://vuyani.co.za/vdt/">Vuyani Dance Theatre Project</a> (established in 1999). Each of these companies has in turn generated new approaches to the discipline and new performers and choreographers.</p>
<p>More than all the critical success and collaborative energy Dance Umbrella generates, is the kind of audiences that traditionally each February, when the festival takes place, fill its venues. </p>
<p>Old, young, black and white, the consistently full houses represent South African’s society’s spectrum. Not necessarily comprehensively dance-savvy, it’s an audience with a buzzing curiosity. And long may they continue to be seduced by Dance Umbrella as it feeds contemporary dance’s relevance.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/55466/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robyn Sassen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>South Africa’s foremost contemporary dance festival is celebrating its 28th birthday in 2016. It has remained relevant, vital and – despite the format’s esoteric nature – hugely popular.Robyn Sassen, Research Fellow, African Art Centre, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.