Is Dance a Relatable Art Form?

I was listening to episode 97 of the podcast DanceSpeak. Normally, the podcast episodes consist of interviews between the host, Galit Friedlander, and someone who’s found success in the dance industry. Episode 97 was different in that it was a recording of a live panel that happened at an event called Im-Power-Meant.

Toward the end of the episode, someone asked the panel why they thought dancers haven’t reached the same level of public success as other performance artists like actors or singers.

One theory that really caught my attention was that audiences can’t understand or relate to a dance performance as much as they do to an acting or singing performance. I found this idea fascinating. Is dance really not relatable? Why not?

The Vulcan scientist in me likes to take a logical approach to answering questions like this, and the obvious first step was to look at the other performance art forms in which people do achieve “A-list” success. If the issue is that dance isn’t relatable, then the other art forms like acting and singing must be more relatable to the general public. So what makes actors and singers and what they do relatable?

To start, actors portray characters and tell stories that audiences can relate to in some way. The character may mirror their own reality or represent someone they wish they could be. Storytelling has always been an important part of human history and evolution. Actors bring stories to life in a way that allows the audience to experience the journey…