Looking forward, I'm planning to shift my focus more towards the way dance can be a means of inclusion. I believe that overall, this is a good, safe realm, and will try to reflect that more in my writing. Join me on my continued journey!

Performance vs. Competition

Like many children, I began dancing at a young age, but I continued past creative movement classes and transitioned to a structured ballet studio in Elementary School. I continued dancing throughout most of my school years, taking classes primarily in ballet with modern added for diversity of technique. Based on my foundation, I have always personally viewed dance from an artistic perspective, as a form of art – not something that should be subjected to judgment, since there is no objective measure. In a typical performance, audience members can form individual opinions, based on what they know about a piece and sometimes in discussion with other patrons, but this should not influence the dancers.

The typical performance structure features choreographed pieces that have been set for the dancers, in styles which the dancers have training in. This allows deeper development into a style of dance, and oversight in choreography – one artistic vision that typically stays steady throughout a work.

With competition shows on TV, the exploitation of artistry and performance seems to go a step further. No matter what their background is in, the contestants are trained in a few steps of an unfamiliar style, coached until they will look good enough for the contest, but never having a full repertoire. This leads to mismatched groups of people, and the line-ups may not be the best qualifies in certain styles. While the tactic of seeing how individuals do at adapting to new skills is interesting, it is arguably not the best way to find the best dancer overall, or certainly not the best in any one individual category.