In Dance We Do, Ntozake Shange interviews Halifu Osumare, who says dance is:
“visualized text. People don’t think of dance as text, because they are thinking about the written word. I’m a writer and I understand the two medias, but dance is like a text to me. It’s just like the written word, and I think that as we grow as a society, we have to become more literate in being able to read the body.”
In many ways, I agree. A dancer friend and I recently compared the submission process for creative writing with the process of auditioning for dance events. Both involve rejection of art that you’ve poured your soul into, and acceptance is sometimes the only way non-artists will take you seriously as an artist. (Publish or perish, as they say. Perhaps also perform or perish.)
In terms of practice, I think reading bodies is similar to reading texts. A creative writing exercise about voice that I’ve recommended involves reading texts by other authors and imitating their different voices. In order to mimic writers, you have to learn the nuances of their syntax and diction, as well as other grammatical, literary, and rhetorical devices. To learn choreography or dance combinations, dancers mimic the choreographer/teacher. You have to understand the nuances of their movement—where their limbs are, which body parts move together or separately, how to transition between shapes, the relationship to music, and so on. You also have to understand the nuances of how your body moves—how to produce a movement, shape, transition, etc, in your limbs, which are probably different proportions than the people you are imitating. You have to read your body, as well as read their body.
Furthermore, technique in dance can be compared to the craft of writing. Dance technique involves expanding and refining: movement vocabulary, musicality, storytelling, emoting, and more skills in your body. To become a more skillful writer, you expand and refine similar things: vocabulary, musicality (of the poetic line or prose passage), how you tell stories, how characters or the writer express their emotions, and more, but on the page. And both writers and dancers who stop learning about and studying their art, will not grow as artists.
I also disagree with Halifu Osumare’s assertion that dance and writing are the same. Many writers do not read other people’s writings. They simply believe that they have something to say. Dancers, on the other hand, generally love to watch dance. My teachers have told me that when you’re injured, you can still retain dance knowledge by watching dancers. Dance can be taught without language, simply by having dancers watch and imitate teachers. Your ability to see and understand a movement improves the more you look at the movement. We watch videos over and over to learn the choreo or the trick.
Advances in video recording technology—that is, every cell phone having a decent camera—have dramatically changed how dance is transmitted. There are several different notational systems for dance, including audio description of dance for people who have limited or no vision. I still keep a handwritten dance journal where I record my experiences of movement and what I practice, but a written record of dance choreography was once used like a musical score. Dancers had to be able to read the written notation in order to teach it. The only other option was a direct line of knowledge transmission—where a teacher who knows the choreography continually passes it down to students, who then teach it to the next generation, and so on.
How we read the written word has also been changed by technology. Some people only consume writing in smaller chunks, on social media, now that these technologies exist. Writers lament how some people only read microblogs rather than long books. Similarly, some dancers lament how dance is edited for social media. Clips of tricks or other impressive moves (audiences love splits) are cut together, and the transitions between them are lost. Some dancers will only watch short clips of dance, rather than full performances. Time limits on social media dance posts can be compared to the bite-sized clips of writing that social media allows for and promotes.
Becoming more literate in reading the body comes from watching uncut dance sequences, rehearsals, and even fails. This linked video is a sequence that includes the (butterfly) shape in the above picture. Longer form videos show where movements originate in the body, how movements can take on different qualities, how movements melt together, and more. Most social media is superficial—a highlight reel—and will not offer deep insight into the body’s movements. You have to do deep dives for knowledge, in both dance and writing, to improve as readers of texts.