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The War on Dance

8/24/2014

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Underground war has been waged in NYC this summer.  Aboveground, the NYPD has cut back on racial profiling; yet down in the subway system the police have been targeting the greatest of threats to public security…dancers. Yeah, it seems silly to me too.  Also, anyone who doesn’t see that the subway performer crackdown is just another form of racial profiling is delusional—for nearly all of the dancers are black teenage males. This issue has been in the news all summer, and I was thrilled that last Sunday NY Times dance critic Gia Kourlas wrote an article defending the poor dancers.  Now, I’m not saying that there aren’t problems with the subway dance performances—it’s true that sometimes the dancers back-flip onto an unsuspecting passenger’s lap when the train lurches—but to arrest young kids (many of whom are quite gifted) in the middle of exuberant dance passages does not seem to me like the best use of the city’s hardworking cops.  

Admittedly, I am not always enthused by the subway dancers during my daily commute between Brooklyn and Lincoln Center.  But sometimes when I see a talented group on my way to work they remind me of how much fun dancing can be and I’m inspired to go to class or rehearsal. And the dancers always make me conscious of how lucky I am to be able to earn my living by dancing. I’m often blown away by the technical aspects of their work—some of the “untrained” train dancers

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Art vs. Sport

8/5/2014

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Misty Copeland in an Under Armour ad
I almost choked on my coffee earlier this week as I read an article in the New York Times Business section announcing that Misty Copeland was the star of the new Under Armour campaign.  Now, I wasn’t shocked by the fact that Misty was selected to promote the Under Armour product line.  She is a natural choice—a gorgeous dancer with an amazing physique.  (Full disclosure: I’m a huge fan of Misty and I always enjoy her gracious presence in Nancy Bielski’s class at Steps which we both regularly take.)  No, I was stunned by the article’s opening sentence.  “Advertising for Under Armour tends to feature elite athletes competing on fields, but to promote its women’s line the athletic apparel brand has a new commercial starring a nonathlete” writes Andrew Adam Newman. I’m confused; I guess I figured that dancers were considered to be athletes.  Newman goes on to describe how Misty “rises to the tips of her toes, the muscles in her calves as angular as bent elbows, and her bulging quadriceps resembling a soccer player’s.”  Well duh.

The word athlete is defined by the OED as “a skilled performer in sports and physical activities.”  Ballet dancers certainly qualify as athletes within those parameters.  The use of the word performer in the definition is also quite interesting to me. The OED lists the primary definition of “perform” as, “do; execute.” The artistic aspect of the word doesn’t come in until the secondary definition.  Clearly, there is some overlap in terminology between athletes and performers, and anyone who watched the

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    Faye Arthurs
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