Dancing within postmodernism

Abstract

We’re in a dark classroom quietly watching Aborigines dance in an exotic Australian night. They move in brilliant patterns: sudden high jumps of energy, trancing rhythms of instruments we’ve never seen, constantly stomping feet, twisting torsos. We see these moves transferred to a Western dance stage by a Dutch ballet company. Suddenly we don’t like it. The dance has lost something; as if the electrical stage lights have destroyed the exotic feeling of stomping feet. The dance has become too sterile—it seems pointless.