Picture dancers behind a pop star at a concert, they are moving as one. They have matching outfits, hair styles, and builds. Different images of them may conjure given the minds of each individual, especially given their identity. From a more dominant Western perspective, one may think of people who are relatively skinny, muscular, and occasionally of different body types. There may be a semblance of diversity scattered through the row of dancers, but this can be infrequent depending on where you look. This is a pattern that shows up at concerts or more generally, stage performances. This isn’t a criticism on a singular performer or production but rather a reflection of the music industry and what dance as an art form and how it has taught people what to define as a “good” dancer. Dance fundamentally treats symmetry, synchronicity, and sometimes looking identical while dancing in tandem as the way to achieve “true” performance. This belief doesn’t appear from out of nowhere. Dance in classical forms awards a limited body ideal and the industry just keeps rebuilding it.
