Yipee, my Huffington Post blog is up! My first piece is a general rumination on the current dance craze on TV — kind of similar to my Explore Dance article, but more personal, from my own experiences as a ballroom dancer and balletomane, and more focused on the popularity in general than critiquing the individual shows. I’ll post there, soon hopefully, about the new dance show on MTV, “America’s Best Dance Crew.” Photo, meh, but at least no moustache, right 😀
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Congrats Tonya on the HuffPo gig.
Not your best writing about dance in my opinion, but what is the actual gig there? Are they giving you the topic are are you writing anything about dance and chose to rant the dance competitions and why they interest you?
You are a danceaholic for sure and have the ability to “get off” on almost all genres of dance which is much to your credit. I suspect that the interest in dance competitions on TV is because most or many people do some form of social dancing and use that as a basis to relate to the dancing on teevee. And Americans seem to be addicted to competition, athletic competitions in particular and then add some celebs and tickle their voyeur gossip bone and they’re there. I don’t see as much artistry as you do in some of these genres, but that’s another discussion.
Personally I find that both figure skating and dance competitions are tending toward the tacky and have increasingly become a caricature of the genre. I used to think Broadway musical comedy was sort of in the middle between camp and art, but haven’t seen anything in ages so I haven’t a clue. My only concern is that the word art is really used for some very lowbrow stuff and I am not being elitist here. Some of the sexy stuff looks more like moves out of a stripper act than it does artistic dance.
Color me cynical. Regardless, Good on you landing on the HuffPost.
How exciting, congrats!!!!
Go get ’em, Tonya!!
Yay! I will link to it in my blog ASAP! I disagree STRONGLY with what SanderO had to say, I definitely think it was a great piece you wrote!
BTW, the little pic is good Tonya.
Ariel, I prefer more analysis about individual performances, which is where I feel Tonya excels. I don’t care for teevee which is really camp and crass to begin with, even when the subject is dance and particularly when they produce “realty” shows and such.
I also prefer dance which is not performed to “win” something but for the sake of “art”. This is a very important backdrop for me when I observe performers. The same applies to figure skating which has lost all its appeal to me because of the competitive aspect.
The mixing of the wonder of :”dance” with the horror of “war” is insane.
What’s with all the competition and winning?
We do need to better ourselves and in a sense compete with ourselves to move along in our development.
And perhaps when there is a position in a production or a company, it is valid to “judge” the applicants by some sort of “competition”. But competition for the sake of competition is really crass. I don’t care for it, but obviously americans love a good battle (about anything)… don’t they?
Thanks you guys 🙂
Excellent article. way to go!!
Tonya, great to see your post in my favorite political blog!
Tonya, congrats on the gig!
The article itself is interesting although I, like SanderO, abhor these competitive TV shows where all you see is bastardized forms of dance.
I do take exception to your bio – neither you nor your endeavors are pathetic!!