As proof that art is open to interpretation, one man in the audience behind me at the Southern Danceworks performance (Spring Dances) commented at halftime how much he preferred the first piece (Quips and Cranks) to the second (Make Like a Tree).  That was just moments after I wrote down that I preferred the second to the first.

I am just one guy.  And I fully admit that I know next-to-nothing about dance.  But I am trying my best to try.  Because I recognize that when it’s good, it can be extremely worthwhile.

Maybe I only thought I preferred the second because I was so drawn in by the excellent and engaging live music of the first piece (by violinist Karen Bentley Pollick and percussionist John Scalici).  Attention dance world: Live music makes everything better.  It would be true even if the music hadn’t been excellent.  Hire struggling piano players.  Amateur guitarists.  Surely there are plenty of musicians who are competent, would work cheapish or free, and would love an opportunity to collaborate with a bunch of dancers.  Any dance performance I’ve seen with live music has been preferable to just about any with canned music.  I’d have to guess, too, that the dancers like it better.

For me, the same pattern held true after intermission.  I’d say I enjoyed the fourth piece (Distinct Destiny With an Open Fist) more than the third piece (Quixotic).  But my hunch is that the man behind me would’ve preferred the third to the fourth.  Who can tell?

The point is that I’m no expert.  I’m just a dude with a keyboard.  I enjoy getting out to see stuff.  And I’m not too shy to write about it.  Everybody else’s thoughts are just as important as mine.  I love hearing the wide range of opinions.  And at the same time, I’m always amazed that these same people, with all these varied opinions, all seem to intuitively know when they’ve seen something amazing.

What I miss is having somebody else to discuss these shows with.  Sometimes this just means taking a friend with me.  But sometimes it means running into a friend in another venue, mentioning Southern Danceworks, and having that person say, “Yeah, I saw them too.”  Or talking to someone else who had a similar wow experience about Susanna Phillips at Opera Birmingham.  Which is the kind of moment that – repeated over time – takes a limited, personal experience and alchemizes it into culture.

Think about that.  No one knows my music.  But if a thousand people included it in a conversation next month, I’d become culture.  For years, The Mountain Goats were under the radar, but now they’re culture.  (Kind-of.)  Bo Bice 2004?  Limited.  Bo Bice 2006?  Culture.  So You Think You Can Dance?  Culture.

Which is one reason I push for bigger, fuller audiences.  For goodness sakes, if you’ve got a good product, don’t be afraid to give away tickets.  Especially if you know you’re going to have empty seats.  Don’t play to an empty room.  One of my favorite books is Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer and a good quote from it is: “What’s the point of giving an extremely subtle performance if basically no one is watching?”  It’s not enough for an arts organization to get grants and find corporate sponsors without spending equal time cultivating its audience.  The audience – culture – is the whole point.  What would the point be of failing to gather a crowd for Svetlana Zakharova?

Back to this performance… I thought the dancers did very well (Gauen Alexander, David Bauser, Jon Caspian, Lisa Gibbs, Jordan Mercer, Chinatsu Owada, Mary Margaret Scalici, and Roger Van Fleteren) and deserve praise for clearly working their toes off, though the choreography in these four pieces rarely singled out any dancer in particular.

Thanks to Gauen Alexander and the rest of the Southern Danceworks crew for the invitation.