Tears streaming down, eyes wide, tingles down deep into one’s skin, alertness flowing through the mind and soul: these are some parts of the physical experience of watching moving, powerful dance art. These are the signs of our biology connecting with that of another, and therein getting a window into their experience. While some dance affioncionados and neuroscientists wouldn’t expect that process to occur from work shown on a popular television dance show, it has certainly happened -- multiple times -- on So You Think You Can Dance. Two of those occasions were the performances of Bleeding Love and Fix You.
Season Four’s “Bleeding Love” was choreographed by Tabitha and Napoleon (aka Nappytabs) and danced by Chelsea Hightower and Mark Kanemura. Set to Leona Lewis’s song of the same namesake, it’s a story in movement of love becoming control and plain ole’ heartbreak. Stylistically, it was in the category of softer, more lyrical hip-hop dance -- slower in speed, more continuous in quality, and often based in themes of romance or other passionate emotions (versus the bravado, irony, and pure creative exploration of much other hip-hop dance). Hightower and Kanemura wore pedestrian clothing, adding to the piece’s realistic feel.
These are the signs of our biology connecting with that of another, and therein getting a window into their experience.
What was by far more memorable and impactful about this piece, however, had nothing to do with technical movement. It was in the moments that were yes, movement-based, but they spoke to so much more than the shapes in the body through which they come. Earlier on in the piece, Hightower’s character kicked Kanemura’s character’s suitcase away -- in the context of the story rolling out through movement, her insisting that he leave behind work in favor of love.
Later, Kanemura’s character moved along with Hightower’s such that he was a marionette moving her like a puppet -- with small gestures making her pop her chest, turn a knee inwards for a shallow lunge, and body roll -- right on cue with musical beats. He gestured as if pulling her heart of her chest -- a “wow” moment for sure.
Ultimately, Kanemura’s character picked up the suitcase and started walking off, and Hightower’s character began kicking and thrashing -- embodying the incredible emotional duress that would happen (and happens) as a reaction to that kind of choice from a significant other. Her overall presence -- facial expression, movement quality, physical carriage -- made it all go deep into your bones. Kanemura gave a great performance, but Hightower in this piece was a whole other force to be reckoned with.
Overall, it was powerful enough to have to take a moment in silence with oneself and check in with your body -- breath and physical tension, for instance -- to process the meaning and emotional power of what you just saw. In just over two minutes, these artists shared something that evoked more and said more than many evening-length concert dance works -- through a “pop” dance television show medium. They keenly demonstrated how through dance art done well, movement is just a vehicle for something much bigger.
Season Seven’s Fix You was choreographed by Travis Wall and danced by Alison Holker and Robert Roldan. Host Kat Stevens put it well -- “there’s just something about when the right choreographer comes together with the right piece of music, comes together with the right dancers, comes together with the right dance….it creates a magic that moves people, and that’s what we all experienced [from the piece].”
The work, centered on an embodied narrative of supporting a loved one through hardship, came from a deeply emotional place for Wall -- whose mother was in treatment for breast cancer at the time. Roldan’s mother was facing a similar situation, so the emotional resonance of the piece wasn’t hard for him to tap into. For her part, Holker is a consummate performer and (seemingly) a deeply empathic person -- so embodying the story, and all of the emotion it came with, wasn’t hard for her either.
“There’s just something about when the right choreographer comes together with the right piece of music, comes together with the right dancers, comes together with the right dance….it creates a magic that moves people, and that’s what we all experienced [from the piece].” --SYTYCD Host Kat Stevens
The work established the convention of using partnering and negative space to illustrate Roldan’s character supporting Holker’s when she couldn’t support herself. Her falling back on him and him pushing her forward, him lifting and turning her as her hip rested on his, her swooping through his arms with him there to catch if she might fall: it was all stunning and innovative, apart from the powerful metaphor at play. In a literal sense, he supported her physical weight, but that action in movement spoke to so much more -- and the dancers brought that across. It was again clear illustration of when dance is a vehicle for something so much bigger than the movement itself.
To match the instrumental of powerful driving beats (to Coldplay’s song Fix You), the two moved through some incredibly virtuosic and memorable dancing -- high flying, far reaching, and adrenaline-fueled. If taking a bit more of a cerebral and critical eye, one might wonder why this woman who was too weak to move on her own was all of the sudden able to flawlessly execute such strength and energy-demanding movement vocabulary.
Yet it was moving enough to make one suspend their disbelief and stand in awe of the power of the music and the movement of those stellar artists coming together in this moment. In another interpretation, the support of Roldan’s character could have been enough to give Holker’s the physical and emotional strength to move in that way -- a moving proposition indeed.
As the music softened again towards the end of the song, their movement came back to something more like the beginning of the piece, with partnering of Roldan supporting the weight of Holker. Him gently lifting her so that he could support her legs on his was one of those moving pictures in the piece that spoke a thousand words and more. Then came the capstone moment: the score having rung out its last notes, with his legs he moved hers forward, lifting from behind and taking slow and careful steps.
Their facial expressions spoke to physical and emotional exhaustion, but also a determination to overcome that far outweighed that. In such a moment in dance art, there’s nothing quite like the feeling down to one’s bones. It’s our mirror neurons relating our experience to that of another human being. “There are moments [here] that transcend a television dance competition, and that was one of them,” affirmed Nigel Lythgoe as the judges gave their rave reviews of the piece.
Wherever dance art happens, there’s a chance for that to happen. We just have to keep our eyes open for it, our souls ready for it, and for that tingle deep in our skin to overcome us. Those are moments of deep connection to experience beyond our own, a powerful and important gift indeed. That’s a powerful way in which empathy can blossom and the world can become a bit kinder of a place -- dance by dance, piece of art by piece of art.
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