Philosophical debate

[bethlakshmi]

I'm not usually this esoteric, but what the heck. mermaidlady's concerns about her own dancing mojo, have me begging the question - "what is a good dancer?", and the corallary "what makes a GREAT dancer". Theoretically a great dancer is a good dancer plus more of same? But what is same?

I think it ends at an individual choice. A good dancer is someone you like watching - she/he is good for you, the audience. Collectively, I guess, a good dancer is someone most people like watching. A great dancer is a dancer even more (than most) people like watching, and/or someone most people like watching even more than they like "good" dancers? But that's awfully subjective, non?

In a particular style, there may be specific things you must do to be good. For Indian that would include:
- ability to hit beat with movement
- ability to do hand gestures in a precise, codified way
- ability to control hands, arms, feet, legs, head, and eyes simultaneously and continuously
- a certain breadth and depth of familiarity with the core practice exercises
- a certain precise posture


Some of these can be abstracted:
- able to hit movements on cue
- isolation of some flavor
- control of speed and sharpness of movement
- flexibility
- posture
- control of all the limbs

Those are technical aspects. But there's a reason we don't make dancing robots. There's something more, something soulful about dance, something that even the most precise dancer must bring to the table to be better than "average". Different dance forms use different aspects of it. Indian is slightly abstracted - not a true one-on-one with the audience. Middle Eastern is more flirtateous - some directed connection. Burlesque is even more direct - right there, reaching out and touching the audience, and pulling them into your world. But, even couples dance has some flavor - though not audience directed - of just thoroughly enjoying the dance.

There's also aspects that don't immediately hit you - use of costume. A dancer using her costume well (tribal vs. cabaret costuming comes to mind) will be more striking than one who does not. Sally Rand comes to mind.

Similarly - whether this is dancer or choreographer depends on structure of performance - the ability to make a dance that suits the music it is set to. There has to be some connection there. It can be as direct as a number in a musical - where the dancers act out the words - or as ephemeral as a drum solo - where the dancer simply moves joyfully and precisely to the drum beats... but it's there. A slithery dance to a drum solo would be wierd.

The Abhinaya Darpana verse often danced as a slokum calls out these aspects:
- aangikum - the body
- vaachikum - the words/the song
- aaharyum - the costuming
- satrikum - the soul

But it's not always and equally balanced set of criteria. And it's probably only one way of judging what is a "good" dance or dancer.

What are your thoughts on this? I know I'm not the only dance geek out there who's spent hours after a show pondering why she liked best the dancers she liked best...