Filmed on location in 18 countries, “Dancing” investigates not styles or stars but ideas: dance in religion, dance at court, dance as the product of colliding cultures. The third program, for instance, “Sex and Social Dance,” moves among different cultures to show how each conveys lessons in morals and behavior through formal social dancing. While kids in the Cook Islands grin and wriggle as they dance in joyful groups, their counterparts in Connecticut wear white gloves and belabor the waltz without a trace of rhythm or spontaneity.
For many viewers, the surprise of this series maybe the relatively scant attention it pays to dance as most fans know it best-ballet and modern, onstage. “It’s an honest reflection of how much dance in the world is modern and ballet,” says executive producer Rhoda Grauer. “Not much.” Ballet shows upmost prominently in “Dance Centerstage,” where the Kirov Ballet in St. Petersburg the hour with Japan’s gorgeous and meticulous dance-drama, Kabuki. As the show moves back and forth between the Kirov and Kabuki, we are constantly reminded of how both forms are based on utterly weird stylistic devicer, that gain enormous power in performance.
Modernism arrives front and center in the last part of the series, with portraits of such groundbreaking figures as Isadora Duncan, George Balanchine and Martha Graham. The most conventional show of them all, this one gets a huge boost from the use of rarely seen archival films. Several unusual snippets offer a striking glimpse of Katherine Dunham, who introduced African and Caribbean styles to the concert stage beginning in the 1940s
In conjunction with “Dancing,” some 65 cities are showcasing their own companies this spring and summer, most in free performances. Some of these local troupesand “local” means Indian, African, Cambodian and Native American, among others–are little-known even in their communities. “Everything in the series exists right here,” says Grauer. Maybe these are the artists who will change our thinking about dancing and ourselves.
