Tips to truly enjoy a dance show

Anybody with a body can enjoy a dance performance, said UNM professor Mary Anne Santos Newhall.

Newhall, professor of dance criticism, said people may be disappointed if they search for a narrative in the show, like in a theatre production. However, she said the performance can be enjoyed on a physical, cellular level.

“They can be looking for meaning when maybe they should just sit back and enjoy the way the dancers are using space and time and energy,” she said.

Dance Appreciation Professor Melissa Harden said this technique is useful when watching live dance because the energy flowing between the audience and dancers is felt and is not physically tangible.

“Dance is one of the most fleeting of the art forms,” she said.
“Even when you see it on video, it’s not the same … Being in the middle of the sound and the movement and the energy that the dancers and the audience kind of put back and forth to each other is a really magical moment.”

For those who need to go beyond feeling and actually understand a piece, there are a few ways to experience a dance performance.
Newhall said each genre has its own history, which lends meaning to the performance. For instance, modern dance was a reaction to what was popular at that time.

“Dance is its own language, and just because it doesn’t use words doesn’t mean it’s not an expression, but that expression may not be a story,” she said.

Dancers use their bodies, space and time to create meaning, Newhall said. By considering how dancers use these tools, audience members can identify key moments in the performance, such as the change in pace or mood, Harden said.

Most people, when watching, can look for “the nuances of the movement, moments where there’s stillness, where there’s human connection between the people on stage, where the energy is right, where it’s exciting or really touches emotionally,” Harden said.

Harden said when people don’t enjoy a performance, it may be that they did not connect with it on a personal level. Rather than stopping at “I didn’t like it,” she said viewers can describe the dance to understand how they relate to the performance and therefore why they didn’t enjoy it.

“One of the things it does is give an audience member the opportunity to draw their own conclusions, their own meaning, to bring in their own abstract views of the world, their life and themselves,” Harden said. “Other people enjoy dance purely as entertainment.”