H aving spent the last nine months as a musician in the world of dance, I've become interested in the aesthetic differences between the current music and dance worlds. Perhaps the most striking difference is the acceptance of new ideas and new work in dance, which forms a striking contrast to the world of music, which is very grounded in "the classics". I contend that the root of this difference is the lack of a standard and widely understood form of notation for dance, and that the lack of a written record has both positive and negative effects on the dance world when compared to music.

Without a written record, it is hard to build a history, or repertoire of pieces that can be performed. This forces dance to constantly create new works, and without a strong bias towards an established set of "classic" pieces, which results in dancers being more accepting of new pieces. Furthermore, without the burden of a large history behind them, dancers are more easily encouraged to become choreographers. The lack of a separation between those that perform and those that create is a fundamental difference between dance and music. In music, the repertoire of notated pieces reaches back almost 700 years, in the eyes of educators it is important for musicians to become familiar with the important pieces in this repertoire, and as a result, musicians spend much of their time learning "the classics" and not learning new works.

Another symptom of this situation is the insidious repertoire cycle. This cycle revolves around Phillis, the adroit socialite, and her lover Philip, who decide that the would like to be seen at the Symphony on Friday. They buy tickets, not knowing what is on the program, but expecting to hear familiar tunes, or at the very least, see familiar names listed as composers in the program. If they find nothing familiar in the program, they will leave at intermission, and not send a generous check to the symphony when fundraising time comes. The symphony, therefore, performs the role of a classic rock radio station, playing the hits over and over. Due to periodic attrition and egos, symphonies must occasionally replace members with new players who have been classically trained in institutions of higher education. These students, in order to be properly prepared for their life goal of playing the music of dead composers, have played the "master" works over and over again while in school. They are well prepared. They wasted no time in learning new techniques or practicing music by living composers, as these skills aren't necessary for professional musicians.

Perhaps this cycle of classic rock could be broken if more musicians felt that they were free to write music. But because there is such a great repertoire of existing pieces, theorists have created a large number of theories about how this music works, and devised rules (that the writers of the music weren't always aware of) to explain how to and how not to produce imitations of these pieces. Persons interested in learning how to write must first study the theory of how to write other people's music, and this takes time. Time that could be spent simply playing music, discouraging performers from writing as well.

For as much of a burden notation is, it also has benefits. Several years ago I attended a concert which included a dance done to Stravinsky's Concerto for Two Pianos. It was a wonderful piece, stunning in it's interpretation of the music, and allowing me for the first time to see how the two art forms could enrich each other. But the dance is gone. I saw the final performance. Perhaps it exists on a slightly muddy video tape, or in the minds of one or more of the performers, but for all intents and purposes, the performance I saw was ephemeral: it died when the music stopped. I can go to the library and find the score to Stravinsky's piece, and play it, but I can't pull the score to the dance and visualize or reconstruct the movement. Consider how many dances have been created that will never be seen again. Suppose the same were true of some of the composers of the past, that all we knew of J.S. Bach was a catalog of his works, and some aural descriptions of what his music sounded like in contemporary reviews.

The history represented by notated music is not just for listening or playing pleasure, but also represents a body of work that can be explored for it's content and ideas. When the neo-Classical idiom sprung forth in the 20's it was fueled by references to styles that came previously. Without notation, composers would have only vague ideas of what older styles sounded like, and without a repertoire, listeners wouldn't have appreciated how the old was reworked and reshaped into something new. Without a detailed knowledge of it's history, any culture is forced to constantly re- invent the wheel. Is the freedom granted by ignorance of the past a fair trade for inability to recognize progress?

Perhaps there is a "art music" bias to this way of thinking. Jazz, Blues, and Rock and Roll have all survived in this century, primarily because of the existence and accessibility of recording media, which have formed a lasting way to preserve performances. But recordings of performances are in some respects too fine grained. They may not aid in reconstruction of the piece because the creator requires so much performer input, or even if they do represent the gist of the creator's intentions, the viewer is powerless to separate intentions from interpretation. The same piece of Bach played by Wanda Landowski and Glenn Gould could sound quite different, but without a score, the listener has no idea what represents the composer's instructions to the performer, and what represents the performers decisions about interpretation.

It would be nice to believe that we have finally entered into an age when a culture can be preserved without any written record, but the two edged sword of technology also makes obsolete as quickly as it makes accessible. Who is to say if CDs pressed today will be readable a hundred years from now. We know for fact that the primary form of recording of dance, video tape, is not stable, and can degrade significantly in as little as ten years.

So. The point of all this is not to say that dance needs notation like Fred needed Ginger, or that notation has ruined music, but only to point out the probable cause of the major differences between dance and music aesthetics in the '90s. Please feel free to disagree, but be sure to put your arguments in writing.