I performed a freestyle Hip Hop solo at the 2019 UJ Adult Ballet Showcase this week. An announcement was made to the audience that flash photography and video recording was not allowed. Needless to say, the friends and family members of some dancers did not oblige to this rule in the same way that my family did. So, there is now footage of every other performance, but mine. I then had a look online to check whether any of my previous 10 years of phenomenal dancing had been captured and posted online, and to my disappointment, there is close to nothing. In the age of technology and social media, the following question is often posed: If it wasn’t captured, did it even happen?
This brings me to the topic of ephemeral art. What a beautiful, yet tragic thing. One thing that is desired by an artist is to be remembered. This is particularly difficult for the performing artist given that not every one of her performances are captured. It is thus virtually impossible for the performing artist to be remembered if her work is never captured on camera and posted on Youtube, for example. The dancer, for instance, leaves her heart and soul on the stage and is later complimented by audience members on a fantastic performance. However, she is never able to see herself through the eyes of the audience, she is never able to relive that moment of glory because it has passed. She can recall the way her performance made her feel, and what the performance allowed her to express, but she will never know how great she really was on that stage, in that moment, because the moment was never captured, and the moment is now gone.
So, I question whether the dancer whose work is never captured really is an artist if her work only exists for the three minutes she spends on the stage. Is her work really imprinted onto the hearts and minds of her audience, or is it merely a moment of entertainment? Does she really leave a legacy of her art if all it comprises of is the witness that people have borne to her dancing? How will she tell stories of what a phenomenal dancer she was to her children, never being able to show them what she’s talking about? Was she then ever an artist at all? Or was she just a prop in a bigger picture, was she just a passing breeze in the winds of change? Was she truly an experience to encounter? Even if so, all she is now is a fading memory in the minds of those who watched and didn’t capture her short-lived dance performance.
What value does she really hold as an artist for producing a work that is intangible, a work that passes by like morning mist? Perhaps her life as a dancer represents her life as a human being, short-lived, momentary, fading. Perhaps this is how we ought to appreciate life in general, as short-lived, momentary, fading.
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