As we talk about the course of dance in the twentieth century we will see that designed movement as a value-transmitter and the kind of meaning a dance embodies are linked. The New Yorker, January 19, 1991. This cartoon perpetuates the public image of dance as either carrying no important meaning, or as having meaning that is unintelligible to the average person. The cartoon also alludes to the question of whether the structure of meaning is different in dance than in language. These larger tasks are not the topic of my presentation.
Audiences come to performances with expectations concerning their experience.
They may expect to be moved emotionally. They may expect to appreciate formal values such as unity, balance and to anticipate certain kind of development and closure. These expectations amount to a way of looking at a dance. Because these expectations are part of how our culture at large understands and expresses meaning, it is not possible to come without expectations. Mark Morris Dance Group.