Keeping Dance Alive

Danny Grossman treasures the past with new company show

A painting can last for hundreds of years, and a piece of music may be played centuries after its composition, but a dance vanishes even as it's being performed. Yes, there are specialists who can transcribe a dance work with special notation, but even then the work is never preserved in its complexity and nuance.
That's why acclaimed choreographer Danny Grossman devotes so much of his energy to keeping great work of the contemporary dance world alive. For example, as he launches the current season for his company, he presents his own world premiere duet along with two of his own pieces from the past and After Godot by Randy Glynn, last staged in 1995.
"Dance is not recorded by the fact that it is choreographed; it's in the dancer's memory," says Grossman. "Even Martha Graham's early work, they had to get as many of the original dancers together as possible in one room and one would remember one thing, one would remember another," he points out.
"All of my pieces have been filmed in some way, but often from the back of the room," he says. "So it could be done by somebody who had been in it, but it could never be learned by someone who hadn't been in it. They have better cameras these days, but if it's filmed from the back of the room they look like little toothpicks!"
A true visual record on film would need to be made in bright light, and with no costumes, Grossman muses. Ideally, each performer might wear a different colour to help differentiate individual dancers, and the work would be filmed from in front and above. "Ideally, just taping one dance could take a whole year to do it right, and you're lucky if the choreographer is still alive or the dancers who were in the work."
Grossman bemoans that arts funding is so strongly focused on the creation of new work rather than on the preservation of the old. This applies especially in the world of contemporary dance, he believes.
"When you go to the opera and the ballet, you expect to see classics. The Italians of the world own La Traviata, but Verdi's dead. Only after repetition does it go back to the people it was meant for," he says. "I also understand that dance, like music is ephemeral; I understand that too. But in opera they don't monkey with the music, and we don't monkey with modern dance classics," he says.
"Dance is like a snake that eats its own tail; bodies of work are lost. And I don't mean they should just be preserved so that scholars can read about it," he adds. "I think they should be seen so the public can decide what should be preserved."
The public will get its chance with a mix of old and new work when Danny Grossman Dance Company opens its 27th season from November 24 to 28 at the Premiere Dance Theatre at Harbourfront Centre. For tickets, call 416.973.4000 or visit www.dgdance.org.

Publication Date: 2004-11-28
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