Dance Tv Show Analysis

Dance productions accessibility to the public has changed throughout time. Elaborate stage productions were the only way to watch a dance piece in the past. Due to the increase in technology, dance can be watched on a television screen in the comforts of home. Television dance personalities and productions are vastly popular in todays media. In these shows, we see the showcasing of the artistic form behind the piece presented, introduction of the dancer or dancers, and seeing the final production. Does these dance television shows impact how the public perceives dance as an art form? And if so, how is this impacting the dance world? We can evaluate and analyze how the public perceives dance as an art form through their opinions on the shows

Within some of the contexts of the shows themselves, some opinions believe that the public only understands the most popular styles of dance that’s on television. For example, with widespread styles of hip hop and contemporary styles on shows like So You Think You Can Dance, other styles are being removed from the equation of relevancy. Mandy Moore, a famous dance choreographer, stated her views on the subject by discussing how the public feels that tap is an irrelevant dance style due to the lack of appearances on television. Because of these trends, studios are compensating to teaching more popular dance styles rather than tap, for example, to adapt for this fame (Opene) Also, some dance television shows feature how the dancers learn and become an expressive dancer within a matter of days. Some television shows that contain this are unskilled celebrities dancing on Dancing with the Stars and memorizing a dance piece in days in So You Think You Can Dance. Individuals argue that the public perceives the process of becoming a dancer to be quick and easy. Dance professionals feel that this representation shows an inaccurate representation of becoming a dancer. Specifically, with Dancing with the Stars, Tony Cardinali, a choreographer and studio owner, mentioned how becoming a professional dancer doesn’t take four to five weeks when starting out without prior experience (Bauknecht) Due to the quick timeframe of the shows themselves, the public perceives the perfection of the art of dance to be accomplished in days or a week timespan because of these shows. Others argue that dance is only seen as a source of entertainment, rather than a sense of art through television shows. David Parker, a choreographer at Juilliard, states how dance television shows market dance as only a source of flashy