Inside the Dancer’s Art. Rose Eichenbaum

Pictures, like dancers, do not speak in words. They call upon one’s intuition rather than one’s intellect, enriching our ability to see and to understand through seeing. Martha Graham used to tell a story of her father’s admonition to her as a child that words can lie, but he would know the truth by her movements. Whether apocryphal or not, the point is clear: there is a higher knowing than words can provide. All visual artists know this; in fact they can’t help it.

Rose’s pictures of dancers reveal the most touching thing there is to know about them—their humanity. Her keen view takes us past the pretty lines and the illusions of ease and beauty (though that is there as well) as her photos guide our eyes to intuit a more intimate knowledge of the subject, a view of something more vulnerable than hard bodies and perfect arabesques. If you are her subject, as I have been several times, steady your nerves, relax, and give up the pretense. You will be revealed. Her psychologically inclined eye through her camera seeks to show who you are, like it or not.

Lar Lubovitch

Introduction

The legendary choreographer Martha Graham described those who possess an irrepressible inner force to move, stretch, run, and jump as being “doomed to dance.” I have met many dancers who fit that description.

After a thirty-year performance career, Nancy Colahan told me, “I am, and always will be a dancer. Every cell in my body is primed to be so.” Michele Simmons, an Alvin Ailey dancer who was later sidelined by multiple sclerosis and confined to a wheelchair, insisted to the end of her life, “My identity as a dancer will never, ever, ever, ever be taken from me. It’s who I am.”

In the words of Desmond Richardson, one of the greatest dancers of his generation, “I define dance as life—using your life experience to express yourself through your art.” Top-rated national competitive break-dancer, Trinity (Nicole Whitaker) put it simply, “Dance means everything. I’d die without it.”

Performance is how these individuals express who they are at the core. Tap dancer Jason Samuels Smith told me, “I am my most honest when I’m dancing. No one can own my thoughts, or my actions, or tell me how to feel.”

Spanish dancer Carmela Greco, daughter of the late flamenco star, José Greco, described dance as therapeutic: “Before every performance I feel a huge emotional weight—the weight of my life. But once I begin to move, the weight lightens and lifts away.”

The dancer’s art requires dedication, discipline, and sacrifice. Russian-trained ballerina Natalia Makarova explained how she had to tame her body in her quest to reach the top. “One must work the body like a racehorse. Rein her in and bring her under control. When she rebels, you must conquer her, become her master to bring body and mind into harmony.”

I asked former Broadway dancer and ballet choreographer Eliot Feld, “What is the payoff for all the sacrifices you’ve made for your art?” He replied, “I’ve learned that it’s unreasonable to expect rewards simply because you have given everything to make your dances. It’s a one-way street. The dances that you make owe you nothing. You owe them everything!”

Film star Shirley MacLaine, who performed on Broadway in Bob Fosse’s The Pajama Game, described dancers as “artistic soldiers” who “will do anything they’re asked.” The dancer’s job is to entertain, engage, and uplift an audience—and with that comes the responsibility to deliver one’s best performance.

Carmen de Lavallade, who for decades has mesmerized audiences with her beauty and talent, confessed, “You spend your entire life trying to elevate an audience to another level. You also spend your entire life afraid you might not.” As Tony Award winner Chita Rivera put it, “All I’ve ever wanted was to touch that one person out there in the dark.”

And yet, for all the training, long hours and, in most cases, low pay, dancers rarely know how much their performances truly affect an audience. Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater star Matthew Rushing explained, “Even though you receive applause, you usually don’t know how your dancing affects people. But when someone comes up to you after a performance with tears in their eyes and says, ‘You touched my spirit, you touched my soul,’ that’s when you know you’ve made a difference.”

New York City Ballet’s principal dancer Tiler Peck pondered, “What do I look like when I’m dancing? I really don’t know. I know what I feel like when my arms are doing this or when I’m in the air. But if I were someone sitting in the audience looking at me—what would they be seeing? Would they be able to read my thoughts and feel my emotions?”

Yuriko, the legendary Martha Graham dancer, asserted that the dancer’s art should be used as a tool for political awareness and as a force for social good. “Look at what’s happening in our world, in our century. Use your imagination and the human body to demonstrate life and the human condition.” Tap dancer Mark Mendonca agreed: “Dance is how I connect with the power we all have to change the world.”

Dance

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