Date posted: September 1, 2005

The Evolution of Dance in Four Stages

We can distinguish four stages in the emergence of dance as an artfrom:

1. People play. They wrestle. They run. They fall. They compete. They have fun.

2. Some people watch from the sidelines. They form a circle. Some sit down. They clap their hands and yell to express their enthusiasm. Some people who are better and more capable performers hone their skills to win the admiration of those who watch and of other performers.

3. Dedicated venues emerge where some people perform and others come to watch.

4. Internal differentiation. Performers position themselves relative to other performers past and present.

Proof 1: The history of dance in the 19th and 20th century. Petipa, Fokine, Nijinski, Massine, Balanchine, Wigman, Graham, Cunningham, Childs, Brown, Forsythe, Bausch. A list of names a constant branching off. At first dance companies performed in the same theatres as theatre and opera companies. The late 20th century saw the emergence of dedicated venues for dance (Lucent Dance Theatre in The Hague, Tanzquartier Vienna, Tanzhaus NRW and others) as well as dance festivals (Montpellier, Jacob's Pillow, Impuls Tanz, Tanz Im August, Julidans, Holland Dance Festival etc.).

Proof 2: The history of breakdance, skate boarding, krumpin' and parkours. Evolution in the span of less than a few years. Some people dance in the street. They're having some fun on their own climbing buildings. They attract the attention of others. The best performers vie for appearances in commercials, music videos and movies. Friends become rivals when there's an audience at stake. It is NOT money that corrupts. Money is only one form of expression of the value attached to an object or event. The break-up of the Zephyr team (see: Dogtown and Z-Boys). The rivalry in the Los Angeles krumpin' scene (see: Rize). The rivalry as to who invented parkour (TF1 documentary). In the meantime the art form proliferates as new elements are brought in and combined. Parkour + martial arts. Krumpin' + ballet + modern dance + ... .