Jérôme Bel has a funny view of dance.  His choreography for The Show Must Go On, part of MoMA’s Some sweet day series, left me wondering about the point that Jerome was conveying in this performance.

As the audience waited in a hot room for the show to start, conversations were going on amongst strangers. All of a sudden music started playing; however, there were no dancers coming out on the stage. Everyone looked around confused and hoped that the dancers would come out. About 30 people who were sitting in the audience got up and started walking to the stage. Dancers of different ages, shapes and genders casually dressed as it can get formed a semi-circle and stood as if they are waiting for a bus. The music kept on playing. About five minutes later, every dancer started dancing casually, each in their own style. They looked like any pedestrian you might find on the subway.

Just as I thought they were going to start doing leaps and turns, the dancers stopped and went back to their “waiting for the bus” mode. The music changed to “I like to Move It”; the crowd got excited, but the dancers were still doing nothing. After some time passed, they started dancing provocatively, each in their own style. A woman in her mid-40s caught my attention. She was on her knees pumping out her chest and her behind in a very inappropriate manner. Another other old lady was grabbing her boob and playing with it to the rhythm of the music, making the crowd laugh. I thought this whole scene was very entertaining to watch. Some audience members even started taking videos of the dance.

The performance continued to some classical music and dancers started “dancing” ballet. As a ballet dancer myself, I could clearly tell these people had no training of ballet and were not dancing well. This got some members of the audience confused, while some enjoyed it very much. As the performance was coming to an end, the music stopped and the dancers took out their iPods and started listening to music. Some even went on to singing songs out loud and the audience could see the diversity of their song choices and the emotions the dancers were feeling.

As the show came to an end, I felt very entertained and I gave a round of applause to the dancers. What I interpreted from the show is that no matter what age or size you are, dance can help you express whatever you are feeling inside.

Image source: MoMA