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Last month I went and saw/listened to Nils Frahm at St John’s at Hackney Church in London. I like his music a lot — particularly the album Felt — and there was something quite memorable about the intensity of his performance that contrasted with his easy-going manner of engaging with the audience.
At one point in the gig Nils thanked us for staying so quiet (some of his material is pretty subtle), but he encouraged us to not to feel inhibited by the intimacy of the sound: ‘Do whatever you feel like, even come up here and do some expressive dance’.1
The audience, predictably, laughed.
How is that doing expressive dance (perhaps only one slightly better than interpretive dance) is a cheap gag, the line that is assured of getting a laugh?
I’m pretty tired of the apologies that surround the discipline that moves me, that challenges me, that I pursue with all my heart, and that I make a living from. And so, I’d like to be clear (in bold):
I am an interpretive dancer.
Fuck yeah.
I was tempted, and if I had that time again …↩︎