I remember feeling numb; the legs that once supported me were failing. From my bed in the ICU I looked up at my parents. All I heard was, “She’s awake! How are you feeling?” Maybe it was the Oxycodone, but all I knew was I didn’t want to wake up. Waking up meant feeling an immense pain that would continue to worsen. I told myself to attempt to move my legs. I yearned for the feeling in my legs to return, but for the first time since I had learned to walk, my legs couldn’t move. My world shifted immensely from the moment I left the hospital. I had torn my labrum in both of my hips. Excessive dancing caused bone spurs to form and tear through my ligaments.
As a child I remember dancing more than walking. Dancing seemed to be a hobby until I was about twelve, when it became less of a pastime and more of a lifestyle. Two years later the biggest setback in my career steered me into the operating room. Many sympathized with my injuries, but instead of feeling bad for myself, I started to appreciate everything that I had. Watching my peers grow in the dance studio only made me more anxious for the day that I could join them. My body would start shaking, my mind would imitate their movement and I knew my body wanted to as well. I wanted to throw myself on stage and be healthy enough to feel my body move again, because lying in my bed my soul felt hollow. People tried to shake me down, as if I was already irrelevant. I heard the rumors down the studio halls “there’s no way she’ll dance again” “she can’t even walk and she’s in a wheelchair… she doesn’t count”. That’s how it all started. I felt a self demand to reach a level of skill in which I had already set upon myself and others had set upon me before I could move again.
An extent in which I would look just like my peers again, because that’s all I ever knew. I’ve always felt this metaphysical need to look like or be like someone else in a certain fashion. I know this is an impossible task to achieve because there are no two people alike, and the idea of “perfection” is subjective, but many choreographers hold up a certain standard for their dancers. Looking for the dancers who can execute their movement to their liking, the ones who can do a million pirouettes and can kick their legs to their faces. Skeletons come in all shapes and sizes. Yet I still felt the need of approval, not only from choreographers and my peers but more importantly myself. Looking back at these events, I began to question; How do dancers find their own voice? Why do we so badly search for approval? How can dancers break patterned barriers by being unapologetic? I intend to unpack these questions by researching how individuality can concour conformity, how dancers can feel unapproved, and finding examples of patterns, unison, and idealism asking how they are both present in dance and the world today and in recent history. Andrew Winghart’s Moment of Truth is a dance inspired by the shedding of an individual. “Individuality threatens an environment that demands conformity” (Winghart). In the beginning, there is an exactness in movement, direction, formation, and the patterned seriousness of day to day people.
Vagueness possibly resembling people going to work, which also led me to think of politics. How politicians can be indefinite when presenting themselves to the world. Within the work there are many examples of geometric lines, shapes, patterns and unison. An example would be all the dancers running in place and not going anywhere. Human beings tend to get “stuck” in these routines and patterns because it feels comfortable. You go to work, make your money, go home and do it all over again. The costuming also shows the dancers all in black/dark blue colors. (Everyone looks the same). Though there is a poetic standing of the unknown. In regards to question who will let go of these ideals and “threaten” the demands of conformity.
A single dancer eventually breaks through the set mold and begins to improvise. Performing a cognitive dissonance where our bodies do as they please without this sense of perfection to achieve. She sheds her “skin” and reveals a red colored leotard beneath her black apparel. As if she had no idea it was there until she broke out of the structure everyone was holding still. In Italo Calvino’s Six Memos for the Next Millennium he talks of the human races acceptance of mediocrity, laziness and how we choose convenience over quality. He refers to a pestilence and how we must begin to pay attention to meticulous compositional choices and the modality of detail. Through both of these works I found a relevance within habitual movement. The “comfortability” humans achieve when they just accept life as is. Furthermore, I began to research dance that is strictly based off of unison and the idea of “perfection” and complete unity.
The Radio City Rockettes, a glamorous and precise dance troupe founded in 1925 that took America by storm. “Inspired by the British dance troupe formed by John Tiller (“The Tiller Girls” performed in a 1922 Ziegfeld Follies production), Russell wanted to achieve absolute precision and ultimate uniformity in the movements of the dancers. Originally, a Rockette had to be between 5’2″and 5’6 ½”, but today, she is between 5’6″and 5’10 ½” and has to be proficient in tap, modern, jazz and ballet. Starting with just 16 women, over the years the troupe grew to a line of 36 dancers.” (Rockettes) While reading over the requirements needed in order to become a rockette, this becomes a perfect example of the fidelity within their troupe. To this day you must be a certain height, have a certain body type, must be proficient in picking up exactness through the steps. They must pay attention to the modality of detail. Their bevel placements are differentiated by inches. The quote that stood out most on the website was “Russell wanted to achieve absolute precision and ultimate uniformity in the movements of the dancers.” Absolute precision and ultimate uniformity can also relate back to Andrew Wingharts work where all of the dancers are performing an definiteness in movement, but also the “uniformity” creates another idea of idealism.
One of the first things people say about the Rockettes is that their legs go up to the perfect height, they are all in perfect unison, but how does this also effect the dance world as a whole? Do dancers question if they’re good enough based off of these requirements? Then how does it also relate to the way dancers strive for perfection? The Radio City Rockettes are a quality example of how consistency, conformity, and homogeneity are still relevant in the dance world today, but this impression was also relevant during the Third Reich. In nineteen thirty three till about nineteen forty five Adolf Hitler was spreading Nazism throughout Europe. Hitler wanted to use dance as a form of propaganda and communication for his movement and to help rise to power. He had a fascination with dancers moving in unison with specific timing and having complete absence of mistakes. Modern dance was heavily affected during this period. Rudolf von Laban at the time was considered the leader of modern dance. “Laban’s talent for ensemble choreography and his appeal to the public would have been of great interest to the Nazis, whose desire was to reach, control, and appear to positively influence a large population of people. Laban’s early movement choir choreography was also thematically well positioned to become the Nazi party’s preferred method of mass communication.” (Christine Dickson) The use of Laban’s movement choir was not only to spread Hitler’s ideals, but he desired everyone to look and be the same. Dancing in unison, showing a celebration through togetherness and the entirety of one communal element. By having the dancers look and move identically, the notion was menacing on behalf of the Nazis.
