how contemporary is 'contemporary dance' actually?
what they claim as being contemporary is in fact more likely to be old and outdated or having nothing to do with art of dance, not to mention ballet.

dance as an art is supposed to tell a story or be a part of a story and contain a meaning or convey a 'message' so that to affect and excite human souls to provoke 'thinking process'.

this is not the case with so called Contemporary Dance, which deals with form solely and employs artistic meaning and message only when it comes to undermining the very idea of Artistic Meaning itself.

Welcome.

Actually there are no rules as to what dance must be, other than movement. (It doesn't even require music, though most dance pieces are performed to music). Many of George Balanchine's ballets are completely abstract, and no one would say that they aren't dance, let alone not ballet. There's no requirement for story or distinct meaning or a message - meaning is what you take home from watching a piece of dance. I adore Balanchine's 'Symphony in C', but it has no story, no meaning and no message - it's simply a masterpiece of movement to music. It's about patterns, exploring the range of ballet technique and bringing the music to life.

Contemporary or modern dance (the definitions of which can vary and are certainly not fixed by any means) can range from very traditional to highly experimental, and from very old to just choreographed. Newer pieces may use existing themes or movement/step lexicons, but that does not make them outdated or not dance.

I am more a ballet person, myself, but would not begin to dismiss the whole field of modern or contemporary dance. I find Mark Morris one of the most musical choreographers, was fascinated by watching dancers learn gaga and some of the Batsheva repertory... among others. On the other hand, I've really disliked other pieces. But would never consider them outdated or even question that they are dance.

there is rules to everything in this life, especially Art, all the more art of Dance, otherwise we end up in total boredom of a chaos here.


he is a very overrated choreographer, overhyped through numerous advertising campaigns they're so good at in the USA, but i would offer you a real legend of choreography, matched only by Marius Petipa himself, Yuri Grogorovitch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Grigorovich and his brilliant ballet Spartakus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartacus_%28ballet%29 which is the best example of modern dance that no one and nothing came even close.


yes there's requirement for these if we talk about Art not just entertainment.

contemporary
1: happening, existing, living, or coming into being during the same period of time
2 a: simultaneous
2 b: marked by characteristics of the present period : modern, current

So, by the very definition Petipa and Balanchine have nothing to do with this topic.
Balanchine, overrated; Grigorovich, best example of modern dance. Just the same old russian rhetoric.

Required storyline? I have no words for that (that I would be allowed to write here).

3: better than anything before it


let us leave 'russian' out of it all. Grigorovitch has not been excelled by anyone to date in terms of contemporariness, and his ballets Spartakus and Stone Flower and Golden Age and especially Ivan The Terrible do prove this point.

but to divert from him, we can take for example Nizhinsky's Le Sacre Du Printemps (Stravinsky) - try at least to compete with that one, instead of bringing Broadway cabaret into Dance, for mere inability to dance properly.