Members of the Israeli Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company in 'Aide Memoire'. Photographs: Jens Meyer/AP
I was talking to a publisher recently about a book on contemporary dance. The problem was: what to call it. The expression "contemporary dance" was, she said, such a turn-off - so arid, passionless, and redolent of pretension - that no one would ever buy a book with those words on the cover. And "modern dance"? Even worse. The problem was apparently insurmountable.
I canvassed opinion about this, and people agreed with her. One guy said that "modern dance" was a bit like jazz in the Fast Show sketch: a synonym for cranky, roll-necked, nut-cutlet smugness. Another, a dance-writer, said that there was a certain look (strained, glazed, panicked) that she had come to recognise in the eyes of people when she invited them to come to shows she was reviewing, and had concluded that it was the expression "contemporary dance" which freaked them out. And I knew what she meant. It made you think of those deadly shows from the 80s in which the lights came up on two chairs and a woman in black footless tights.
I know that fiddling around with words isn't going to change any preconceived ideas people might have, but can we please all agree to dump the "modern" and "contemporary" prefixes, as every other arts discipline has, and just talk about dance. It might just free everyone's ideas up a bit. And someone might finally write a decent book on the subject.
