Dance is often described, usually in a whimsical tone of voice with folk music as accompaniment, as a “universal language”. Dance is a form of expression that transcends the spoken word, different cultures, religions, even continents are no obstacle to its communicative powers.
You don’t need to speak French, German, Dutch, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, or Australian, all you really need is the ability to move rhythmically or not to music, or not!
Pull the other one it’s got bells on it!
You try rolling up to a restaurant in Paris and ordering Brochettes de Porc, àla sauge using nothing but contact improvisation to communicate your desires to the famously patient and understanding French waiters.
Or how about booking a train ticket to Prague from Warsaw in Poland with nothing more than a few divertissement from Swan Lake. You’ll be arrested and thrown in a Gulag before you can say “petit jete”. (do they still have Gulags in Poland? Ed!)
I can only imagine the facial expressions of the locals in downtown Manhattan as a bunch of Taiwanese contemporary dancers ask for directions to the Statue of Liberty with a few choice phrases from the latest work by Merce Cunningham!
Trust me, if you need the police or an ambulance in a foreign country and you don’t speak the local lingo, running about screaming and flapping your arms up and down will work a lot better than dance!
Er………. hang on a second………………….