New Wine, Old Bottles
Feb. 16, 2006, by Dane Laverty
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Bad dance fusion
I have seen several attempts at fusing dance forms. Student choreographers who study two forms of dance occasionally attempt to express their love for each form by combining them into a single composition.
When each form has so much to offer, merging their strengths into something amazing seems perfectly logical. But somehow, dance fusion usually ends up becoming “two great tastes that taste weird together.” The old bottles cannot contain the new dance.
These dances are like Nebuchadnezzar’s miry clay and iron—mixed but they never merged. Combining dazzling cabaret lifts with introspective lyrical expression and calling it fusion is like placing yellow next to red and calling it orange.
To succeed, the fusion must become something more than each of its parts alone.
Finding fusion in children's literature
The picture book is a compelling example of successful fusion. The pictures and the words each tell a story.
It works because they tell the same story. In the cabaret/lyrical example above, part of the problem was that each dance form wanted to tell its own story. Rather than a dialogue, the combination became a shouting match.
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