I've heard it around, but never as much as recently. There is a lack of risk going round, and choreography is suffering for it. So what if the political tendency is towards security, lockdown, safety, the thrill of art is that it can show us a different truth.
"It is not just new work that we need; it is work that has genius and resonance. It is up to the people who are in the positions of power to discover the new talents and bring them into a bigger scale and take risks. We need to be more daring, and OK, maybe we fail. Maybe it won't sell. But does everything we have to put on necessarily have to sell?"
So says extraordinary ballet dancer Carlos Acosta in 'Dance must be more daring' in The Telegraph June 23 2007.
Equally, the recent Vancity report The power of the arts in Vancouver: Creating a great city (by Pier Luigi Sacco) alludes to the fact risk is essential for the growth of artists, economies and cities. If we don't risk we lose.
In spite of the popular cultural concerns with fear and terror, all aspects of dance arts require a rigorous return to risk for the ongoing development of the form.
1 comment:
The need to embrace risk is, arguably, common to most of Western Civ. In an era that actively markets fear in virtually all venues of life, there is a continuous struggle between performers/artists/artisans and their audience(s), promoters, funders, enthusiasts, customers where the "known" is acceptable; the unknown is foreign - it may be different, dangerous, challenging - and we have learned to avoid different, dangerous, challenging.
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