Angsty Dancers: You've Got Much More To Offer

If I have one pet peeve while watching a live dance performance, it’s watching the inevitable, the ever-present, the frustrating: Angsty Dancer.

Yep, you know the one. From beginning to end, they express themselves through scrunched eyebrows, pursed lips, breathing that border lines dry heaving, frantic hair grabbing (usually their own), random and desperate sprints downstage followed by passionate arm reaches and dramatically out-of-control falls, with a bit of sobbing sprinkled in to really drive it all home. And by the end, the dancer has yet to explain why. I’m usually left fearing for this dancer’s physical safety and mental stability more than I am caring about their artistic voice.

There’s lots of drama, but little substance.

Forget delving into this performer’s point-of-view; there’s no way to see past the shockingly in-your-face emotional explosion. To put it lightly, this type of performer is overdoing it and we, as an audience, have been given no reason to care about why they are overdoing it. Latching onto the performer’s “message” is nearly impossible- all because I now spend my time questioning the dancer’s sanity. Why does the Angsty Dancer feel the need to be unnecessarily melodramatic while performing? Moreover, do they know it’s unnecessary? My goal: explain to the over-doers that their reasoning is not accomplishing what they think it is.

These emotional disasters really started to disturb me when I last attended the American College Dance Festival held at my own school in Spring 2011. It’s one thing to see drama like this on T.V. It’s another to be sitting ten feet from the performer as you hear their knees painfully crack into the ground due to the fact that they are “so into it” that they flail more than dance. Is this supposed to shock me into thinking their violent thrashing about and over-the-top expressions are profound? Do they think I will never see something like this again? Being at a festival surrounded by college-level performers and choreographers, I expected more than this. Why was this happening so often?

Let’s break it down. Here’s a sample of how my experience as an audience member goes during the described “angsty dance performance”:

In the beginning: I’m intrigued and amused. I’m hopeful that this obviously passionate dancer is going to take me on an energetic journey and show me something inspiring (or at least have a funny point-of-view on melodramas- that would be juicy!).

In the middle: I’m confused and disturbed. It’s been a few minutes now and this dancer is becoming more violent, more impassioned and less tangible to me. I’m being clearly informed that “THIS IS ABOUT ME AND MY EMOTIONAL BAGGAGE”. So why do they even need an audience? Also, I fear for their potential injuries.

Afterwards: I’m disappointed- along with the rest of the audience. We were rooting for them, hoping that they would give us something more complex to latch onto, but alas, our hopes went unfulfilled. The performer is satisfied with this self-indulgence. We are not. We applaud, though, because of his/her obvious “passion” and for doing it “full out with feeling”, as one of my former dance professors would say. This passion is enough for some audience members. But given the choice between two performances, this melodramatic jumble and a piece that stimulates them on more than the emotional level, those same audience members would definitely prefer the latter. Personally, I’m glad the first dancer is impassioned. I’m sad, though, that he/she is not using it to say more.

Maybe the Angsty Dancer thinks “over-the-top” is the only way to get the attention of an audience. The Reality: we’re all in a theater, facing the same direction at the same time all for the purpose of watching you. I assure you that this means we can even pick up on the little things you do. In fact, we encourage the little things because it makes us feel smarter than the person sitting next to us who missed them! The point is, if you got me to the theater, I’m going to watch you. Now it’s time for you to be in the world you created, invite me into it and show me around a bit. And trust me, excessive hair grabbing and audible dry heaving on stage will only divert my attention to the program in my lap.

Maybe the Angsty Dancer thinks the audience will relate, sympathize and “feel their pain”. The Reality: if I’m not your mother, I need a little more enticing in order to care about your emotional break down. As human beings, we don’t want to be bothered with a stranger’s drama. As a dancer and choreographer, I don’t want to see a college dancer go the less-investigated route. As an audience member, I don’t want to be bothered with something I’ve seen a million times on dance T.V. shows. This kind of behavior is immediately off-putting for just about everyone. Wouldn’t it be better to first present yourself in a way that makes me respect you and, therefore, care about you? Otherwise, how can I convince myself that continually trying to invest in learning your world is worth it? Try some more subtlety and even if your audience still can’t relate, they’ll have a better reason to want to.

Maybe the Angsty Dancer doesn’t know that they are an Angsty Dancer. Video tape, video tape, video tape. If you didn’t know you, would you watch you?

Maybe the Angsty Dancer thinks that only an over-emotional performer is really “into it”. The Reality: as emotional beings, it is actually a first instinct to dance with some sort of emotion. By pushing that further, you are not advancing in skill or maturing as a performer. You are, instead, making the same choice over and over again at a more extreme intensity. Also, when a chaotic/dramatic tone is constant throughout the entire performance, it does not remain captivating or surprising. This is not dynamism. Instead, it is just as monotonous as a totally emotionless dance.

Maybe the Angsty Dancer needs to blow off steam caused by their own repressed emotions. The Reality: I’ve never heard of something more selfish. It’s a slap in the face to everyone who wants concert dance to be better treated and better respected.

Here’s a great first step to avoid over-doing it on stage: invite the audience into your world. You wouldn’t invite someone into your house by immediately bombarding them with all your problems before they’ve even stepped through the door. So don’t try that on stage! My biggest problem with all the angst is how it immediately takes me out of the dancer’s work. And I mean, immediately. When the lights come up and I find myself staring at someone breathing heavily (remember, they haven’t even moved), on the verge of tears and suddenly accompanied by an R&B love song, they’ve almost completely lost me. It’s too much- and predictably so. Where’s the mystery? Now they’re job is even harder because I’m not as optimistic about enjoying this. If no original point-of-view on why they’re behaving this way is introduced/developed, or if an explanation seems abandoned by the performer altogether, then I become completely over it. This just means they didn’t even think about us, the audience. This is a cop out. It’s obvious. It’s overdone. It doesn’t make me feel anything but the time and money I’m wasting. I’m not being challenged and I feel insulted. (And if I’m one who is rooting for the success of concert dance, imagine how the audience-member-who-was-dragged-to-the-theater-by-someone-else is feeling.) It does nothing to make dance more desirable to people who have never heard of the “dance world”. It does nothing to inspire dancers as performers. It doesn’t stimulate choreographers to want to create or continue raising the bar that qualifies work as amazing work. It’s time to encourage these performers to raise their own bars.

To all the Angsty Dancers (we’ve all been one at some point): Admit that this is usually an amateur’s work- an easy first choice for performers, requiring little to no investigation or intellectual complexity. If you don’t consider yourself an amateur, then try digging deeper as you go through the rehearsal process; you will find greater satisfaction in the creativity of discovering those second and third choices. You will become a more mature and accessible performer. Plus, you’ll receive much better feedback from…. well, everyone.