Can We Please Stop Using the Term “World Dance”?

Dance Magazine: It's time for our field to retire the phrase "world dance." What does it even mean? Aren't all dances "of the world," whether its ballet's embedded history of Renaissance elites' court spectacles, or embodying the orishas in Afro-Cuban dance? Typically, it's an intermediary—a manager, a producer, a critic—who labels something as "world dance." The term denotes exoticness, authenticity—and it sells. It's also problematic and limiting.