"Speaking in Tongues" and "Esplanade" by Paul Taylor

(City Center, 4 March 2011)

Appreciation of beauty comes naturally. By contrast, creation of beauty is either outside one's control or requires hard work. (A perfect sphere is easy to appreciate, but hard to build.) A feature associated with an infrequently encountered desirable quality is perceived as beautiful. That quality is often inborn, in which case the appreciation of beauty amounts to the appreciation of a superior endowment. By exercising effort, one can deceive others into a more favourable assessment of one's endowment. Glamourising beauty runs the risk of fetishising endowment at the expense of achievement.

The limited vocabulary of the classical ballet makes it easy to turn it into a fetish. The modern ballet celebrates achievement over endowment by seeking beauty in dancers' humanity (fallibility, diversity, aspiration), not in an external ideal modelled on a bird or a dragon. The modern ballet admits multiple tongues and a narrative more substantial than an excuse for wearing revealing clothes.

"Speaking in Tongues" is concerned with injustice. When one sees individual misery (in art, signalled by ugliness), one can often contrive a story justifying that misery as a means for assuring a satisfactory outcome for the society. Such a story shall not excuse misery. No law of nature assures that institutions evolve to select the best means for attaining a certain goal, even if one were to accept the goal favoured by evolution.

Those ideas are most prevalent that are most infectious, not those that are best for humanity. Interpreting an idea's prevalence as its merit amounts to attending to the well-being of ideas, not individuals.

"Esplanade" administers beauty. Beauty does not blind. Pornography does. Beauty soothes. Its soothing quality makes it hard to overlook in deprivation. Perceived ugliness often reflects a prejudice, in which case ugliness is harmless. What is harmful is the long-term deprivation from beauty.

"Esplanade" is more aesthetically pleasing than "Speaking in Tongues." A dance excels when its protagonist transcends the sum of the individual dancers' characters. This effect is easiest to achieve when choreographing couples, who are the focus of "Esplanade."