Something has been bothering me lately, and it is this idea that technique and tricks are the most important factors as a dancer. Growing up in the competition world I was told that in order to be great you need to have all these amazing tricks and flawless technique; and If you did not have inhumane flexibility, or if you couldn't do eight pirouettes then you wouldn't be amazing. I see it all the time at dance competitions. The routine that wins first overall is not the most artistically choreographed piece (I don't even know if I could call it a piece), it is the routine with a thirty second fouette section into a grande jete, followed by perfectly in sync aerials.

I spend a lot of time on the internet watching dance videos, anyone who knows me knows that, and about four months ago I stumbled upon a piece called " Black Flies/ Heavy Skies " choreographed by Erica Sobol. I still remember how I felt after watching this piece for the first time... it was like something clicked in my head. You see this piece is all movement. There were no tricks and rarely pointed toes, however it was the most beautiful thing I had ever watched. They moved as though they were the music and with so much passion, and incredible movement quality that it opened my eyes to the fact that exquisite technique is not a necessity to make something beautiful. Yes, technique is incredibly important, however it does not make or break a dancer. Take Emma Portner for instance. Emma has the technique, she can do the eight pirouettes but her movement is so incredible that she doesn't need it. Instead, she takes her technique and changes it. She uses those muscles she has from countless hours of technical training and puts them into other, non-traditional moves. To me that is more impressive than anything else.

It is so bothersome to watch dance become more and more about tricks instead of artistry. Personally, I do not want to watch a nine year old little girl bend herself in half, I want to see someone move with the music, and hit all the accents and not be afraid to be ugly. I say it all the time, I am the farthest from a pretty dancer... It's okay to dance ugly sometimes. It's okay to move in ways that makes us uncomfortable and it's okay to be a little strange, because normality is over-rated and incredibly tiresome.We do not always need to be perfectly turned out and always dancing with our shoulders back and chins up like robots. Its okay to sickle and its okay to bend your knees as long as it makes sense in the movement. We need to start encouraging exploration and let our dancers evolve into their own person and their own style because that is the only way our art as dancers will continue to evolve and continue to be art. I don't want to continue to exist in a world in which contemporary dance is just claw hands and leg extensions. Where is the artistry anymore? Where is the musicality? Where is the passion?

Its like Mia Micheals said in one of the Step Up movies, "Your technique is great, exquisite actually... That means absolutely nothing."

-Ashlee