He is not wrong. But he has forgotten the point of art: the process.
Yes, performing art is brief, a minute in the spotlight, a five minute solo (which by the way, is a long time to dance), the infamous walk on part. All the audience sees is a polished performance, as if the artists simply walked onto a stage, or to the mic and here we are!
Of course, that’s not the reality. Even if the whole performance was created with AI, someone had to tell it what to do.
Northwest Tribes carved totems from long wood poles to post in the village – guards of the long Houses. In the mid 19th Century and beyond, artists Artists like Emily Carr worried about neglect and decay. She ventured out to islands off the British Columbia shores to capture these amazing works of art and there by creating her own art. It was a way to share the totems with the public. Professional museum curators did one better. They frantically saved and transported what they correctly interpreted as irreplaceable expression of a dwindling national identity. In every North West museum there are stunning examples of totems, protected by state of the art buildings, or perserved in purpose-built glass boxes. Saved. Admired.
But for native artists, preservation was not the point. Totems were carved from a natural substance (trees), raised, admired, then allowed to gradually decay and return to the earth. Totems were not meant to last forever, and the artists who created them knew this.
Dance was not meant to last. It doesn’t even translate to video very effectively. It’s a shared experience, as Virginia Woolf said, a moment of being. Dance is the creation, the process, and the practice. The final result almost doesn’t matter. It was the practice that mattered, the camaraderie, creating something that required cooperation, team. Or practicing moves to music to find something new in your body, even your soul, a singular moment – for the artist. If the audience gets something out of the final performance, so be it. But it’s not really the point. the point is the artist is changed, she had learned and conquered something new, she is more enriched for the experience. .
Creating and sharing work that purposefully does not last is one of the few remaining acts against The Man, against the grindingly dull commodification of everything. A live performance is like watching the last of the Nationalist rebels, the freedom fighters. Why art? Because we need it. Because those five minutes on stage are an accumulation, and a gift to you.
We are embroiled in the War of Art, fighting in the streets (albeit wearing sequins and towering wigs) for our souls and for yours.
