Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Presentation vs. Representation

There are two different kinds of dancers, one is representational the other one is presentational.Which one is me? I'll get to that later. Presentational; these are the dancers you mostly see on tv, the best example is "So you think you can dance". These dancers mostly called themselves "Competition Dancers". Their characteristics are most likely to impress the viewers with their abilities, they are crowd pleasers. Representational; these are the dancers who don't care about what they can do, they merely want to represent something or somebody or themselves, it talks and communicate to people, some are political, etc.

I think I'm kinda both. I prefer to represent or a combination of both but most choreographers will use me to execute exuberant movement on stage just because I can. This happens to me most of the time and sometimes I feel like I didn't do anything meaningful if I just did a somersault. Believe it or not, the loudest applaud I have ever received was when I did a simple charismatic and charming dance, nothing was hard about it, the movement speaks for itself and I didn't have to act. Whenever I get to do a presentational dance it oblige me to show-off and because of that you have the pressure of doing everything perfectly and this leads to frustration, depression, insecurity,jealousy and sometimes quitting for some dancers.

Which one is better? it all depends on the viewer, in my experience most dance critics hate that you show-off or when you are so enamored with your ability, this is because they've seen it all and they probably have seen better ones.


No comments: