Spencer Dennis Movement

“Dance is all about tricks now” - long read below
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I have been hearing and seeing this sentiment a lot recently. As a dancer with a focus on skill building and virtuosity…it’s frustrating. A few years ago I wrote a short note to myself about how I “always wanted to be a giraffe”. My body lacked the fundamental frame of a ballet dancer or of a technical contemporary dancer. I started dance a smidge late, first getting into street dance before finding my way to commercial training and later concert training around the age of 14 and 22 respectively. It took nearly a decade from that starting point for me to arrive at a place where I started feeling confident expressing my version of skill and virtuosity.
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On the other hand I do understand the sentiment because I’ve been there. Here is how I see it today.
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Fantastic, beautiful, wonderful dancing is happening in cities all over the United States but it is given a marginal platform, marginal focus, and marginal attention. I feel this is because it’s being created and shared by folks who have been pushed into the margins. It is being created by people who don’t fit the mold of those who control and those who consume social media or television. If your curiosity isn’t satisfied by what is happening on social media or television, I implore you, please seek out local dance. Go to the community college dance class, go to the show in a random backyard, go dance publicly in a park with a Bluetooth speaker and have a conversation with someone who stops to watch.
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I spent years forcing myself into a mold with intention. It was tough, but at the same time it was a privilege, a privilege afforded to me by others. Not everyone has those privileges. I think it’s up to us to seek those artists out and prop them up. Social media and television are for quick hits of dopamine and distraction, the dancing shared here will most often appeal to those sensibilities. Rather than trying to tear down a system (and artists) that design with this explicit purpose, I think we should work to seek out those who are not favored by these platforms and prop them up in their communities of practice.

(Cont. in comments)
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