CompañÃa Nacional de Danza 2
I haven’t had many experiences with watching dance performances. Before I moved to Madrid, my experience didn’t go any further than my sister-in-law’s 6th grade dance recital, which involved about 50 acts crammed into 2 hours, and about 200 too many family members piled on top of each other in a box theater that very quickly took on the nostalgic aroma of a junior high boy’s locker room.
My friend Paul broadened my experience with dance performance this past fall when he invited April and me to join him and a friend to see the CompañÃa Nacional de Danza.
The experience was proof that good art can change you, even if you know nothing about the art form itself, and possibly more significant, the experience was proof that good art is not actually meant to draw attention to itself or to the artist, to make the viewer think the art is good and skillful and altogether well done. No, good art is transparent. Good art gives the spectator the sense that what’s going on on the stage is actually the most natural and right way of expressing one’s self. In the case of dance, suddenly the movement of the human body becomes the most natural way of saying “I love you” or of asking yourself “Who am I?” or of expressing any one of a thousand truths we live with.
This idea that good art is transparent is why I’ve always loved reading John Updike. When I read Updike, it’s only a matter of minutes before I forget that I’m reading someone else’s words, and I begin actually believing that the words on the page are my own, the characters in the story, these are the characters of my life.
When I saw the posters in the metro this past week for not the first company, but the second, called the CompañÃa Nacional de Danza 2, I couldn’t resist going to the show. April and I went, and we dragged a few friends along. The new company, the second one, was just as good as the first. Just as transparent. I highly recommend the show to anybody.
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