Dances of Future Past

The Clyde Fitch Report: A couple weeks ago, I was invited by the University of Houston to lecture on the recent history and near future of American dance. I talked about the still-stinging loss of Joyce SoHo (among other stages for contemporary movement in this country), the ongoing devolution of institutionalized dance companies into ad hoc groups, and how technologies like the Microsoft Kinect and massive, curved HD televisions are functionally replacing theaters with virtual proscenium stages in our living rooms. Institutions optimized for a previous era of dance-making, I argued, will diminish in relevance now that I can summon the totality of archived dance history on my cell phone in more pixels than the human eye can perceive. The inevitable question broached by my audience was, where is all this crazy-making nonsense going?