September 2015 | Breaking the Mold

Competition dances often present angst-ridden choreography set to lyrics that convey pain or despair. Whether they depict personal suffering or take a bleak perspective on the state of the world, these pieces are dark—and though they can be powerful, they can be difficult to watch, and in some cases, similar to one another, or derivative. What happened to dance as joyful entertainment, we wondered, and is there value in originality? To answer these questions, we asked readers whether such