For those of us who have seen a wide variety of dance, or even -gasp- studied different forms and perceptions in school, the question of gender in dance is an inescapable one. As dance is an art form done using the body, with the body, created for the body - the BODY surely holds a great deal of power. Bodies have genders, thus a choreographer (depending on the dance form, of course) has the opportunity to ignore the gender, work against it, or use it to their advantage.
Back when good ol' Louis XIV was making ballet the newest trend, only males (including himself) were allowed to dance. Hundreds of years later and the word "ballet" conjures and instant image of the stick-thin, tu-tu-clad, ballerina: a female, most often dancing a super-feminized role, an ethereal, supernatural beauty, the object of one's affection.
As I spent Thursday night sitting in St. Marks Church, watching an evening of modern dance (This or That curated by choreographer Nina Winthrop), I couldn't help but jot down in my notebook words like, neutral, genderless, not man/not woman but person and person, costumes? vs. clothes?, assumptions, moving duo as I watched "Between You and Me" (choreographed by Joanna Kotze in collaboration with Francis Stansky. In this piece the two dancers are one male and one female, but it occurs to me as I watch the elegance of the clearly un-gender-biased movement turn my initial image of them ("the guy" and "the girl") when they enter the space into an image of these bodies. I don't see their faces anymore, her long limbs, his muscles, when she moves one hand after the other down his arm, feeling it, in isn't sexually suggestive. They have reached a state beyond the stereotypes tied with their genders, transcended through the movement, to a more pure state of person. It was an incredible visual experience for me, yet another reminder of the power of movement and the moving body...and, for all those choreographers out there, the power they have to control and portray with their movement choices...
For my review of This and That please check out: NY Dance Examiner
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