Five Ways of Dancing That Get in the Way of Dance

In every art there are perils of exposure which mar it by getting in the way of its full flowering, its dharma . In this chapter, the author focuses on the errors of judgment, rather, that may insinuate themselves quite unconsciously and as it were innocently, into any artist’s mature and serious practice. The first flaw is that of ostentatious technique, in which an experienced and able dancer flaunts her technical skill at the expense of the underlying design which the technique has been invented to reveal. The second flaw is that of the inadvertent revealing of devices, which is like the illusionist’s exposure of his own tricks. The third flaw is that of excessive vocabulary through the misuse of which the dance is rendered disproportionately gorgeous in its grandiloquence or ‘wordiness.’ The fourth flaw is that of blatant authorial intrusion. The fifth flaw is that of over-insistence on personal style.