But ballet and modern dance struggle. Even the beloved story ballets, which once could be counted on to draw audiences, seem to have lost their wide appeal. The obvious place for blame is the lack of education about dance. It s not that dance is a lesser art or harder to understand or more difficult. As does Stomp.
Swing is in, even with the young, or especially with the young.
As a participatory activity, street and club dancing are popular. It s that the specialized sophisticated vocabulary of ballet and modern dance aren t taught in any widespread way in public schools. There are dance schools in almost every larger community, but dance is almost non-existent in the public schools, even scarcer than music or art instruction. Dance as an artform has intrinsic appeal. Though ballet is a fairly recent development, dance as a means of expression is one of the earliest artforms.