This one is titled: Gill Asking the Dancers for More Attitude. On the court that means “push your bosom together.”

This one is titled: Gill Mentoring the Dancers. Having been in a few auditions I’m sure the dancers were feeling the mentorship.

This one is titled Gill Showing the Dancers Some New Moves, which could also be subtitled “Gill explaining how the Knick’s City Dancers flip off their opponents.”

To see the entire slideshow, click here. All respect to Gill, and the dancers, who are just making a living, and even to the PR folks who – let’s face it – got me to blog about this.

ALL PHOTOS CREDIT: Chris Batka and MSG

The issue is whether the adults responsible for this performance have a responsibility to enforce more appropriate child-like behavior, and/or model less sexual adult female behavior. Why is it ok for little girls to be made to act “hot”? Isn’t that, like, actually punishable by prison (if it wasn’t on the stage)?

Dance teachers at all levels are responsible for contributing to the healthy maturation process of the child. They’re not just dance students. They’re kids. On the way to becoming adults. Learning and performing the dance in this video these girls learned that if they dress and move that way they get positive reinforcement. That they should dress and move that way. That these kids are being used as sexual objects without their consent (they’re children) is terrible.

This type of performance is not uncommon. It’s not clear what direct effect rehearsing and performing this dance had on these girls, but I can say without a doubt that this is why I was relieved when my eldest niece stopped her training. I love dance. I love it. But when she quit I was honestly a little relieved, because being a professional I’ve seen how twisted the pre-professional world can be with young men and women. The reality is that dancers commonly go professional at age 18, and sometimes even younger. So to prepare them, pre-professional students are made to project like men and women far before they actually are.

As we mature we realize our manhood and womanhood as a reality. To have ones personal identity shoved into a particular box before it fully exists is unhealthy (even though the child may never realize it.) This problem exists broadly in theatrical arts education, but most seriously in dance education. Boys and girls are actually physically told to mimic adult male and female motion (as in this video), and to move and interact in those ways. We are not just making artists with pre-professional training; we are making humans. Teachers have an actual responsibility to help children act like children so that they have time to mature as whole humans.

“And let us run with endurance the course that God has set before us.”

A female friend turned to me a few years ago and said, “You’re a dancer! That’s so great that you’re in touch with your feminine side.” It reminded me that my profession is embedded with expectations of gender and sexuality. Dance is not masculine, feminine, straight or gay, but it seems like most people think it is. Why do we see dance as feminine, or gay?

We all live within communities. And so while you could say – for instance – that “Hispanic men like soccer,” to do so would be invoking a stereotype, not projecting a reality. In the practice of theater, stereotypes are used. When you go to create a character on stage, you need to project aspects of character from which an audience will ‘read’ the vision you are trying to create. At the same time, from what I’ve seen, many artists project the same character stereotypes that their work is seeking to dissolve.

Artists are the visionaries who create the new world (at least that’s what it says in our press packets). So while we exist within communities, we are also leaders, responsible for helping others to find a new way, a new truth, and the way away from The Guiding Light. When we pay homage too deeply to existing stereotypes, we lose our ability to express a more complex, holistic humanity.

Art – dance inclusive – has always been a home for the alternative. Artists are ‘different.’ Today as all members of society jockey for full participation, artists are unfortunately making our own acceptance more difficult by producing work that fetishizes notions of masculine, feminine, straight, and gay. The projection of character and community are complex. To the degree that we as artists prepare the audience to see the world in stereotypes, we perpetuate a society that judges us in the same way.

Are there essential character traits to being a man? Are there central character traits to being a gay man? It is fine to answer glibly that, yes, being a man means liking beer, sports, and Jessica Simpson, and that being a gay man means liking fashion, wine-coolers and Jake Gylenhall. But in reality, the fetishization of ‘gay’ characteristics, like the fetishization of ‘female’ characteristics, pigeon holes not just artists – but also audiences – into oppressive roles.

Being a dancer does not imbue one with a definable character. It doesn’t mean that you are sensitive, feminine, gay, or straight. Being gay does not give you a character either. Being a woman does not give one a certain character. Being hispanic doesn’t give you a certain character. We still live in a world where smart people (for example Lawrence Summers, recent past president of Harvard University) actually debate whether men and women have the same intellectual possibility. As long as we cling to theatrical stereotypes of masculine/feminine/gay/straight, we give validity to the limits placed on any of those groups.

As audiences, and artists, we owe it to ourselves to allow individual character to overcome community stereotyping.

The facts of the issue are dramatic. The website Newspaper death watch.com reports that since the creation of the site in March, 2007, 10 daily papers have ceased print publication. (The Rocky Mountain News; Baltimore Examiner; Kentucky Post; Cincinnati Post; King Couty Journal; Union-City Register-Tribune; Halifax Daily News; Albuquerque Tribune; South Idaho Press; and San Juan Star.) Declining revenue is to blame for these failures. Writing on Slate in 2006, Jack Shafer reported, “Everywhere, newspapers are chucking stock tables, eliminating such once-venerable features as horse-racing coverage and their own editorial cartoonists, and consolidating or killing sections” to reduce expenses.

There are many opinions regarding how this crisis happened, and what the effects will eventually be. Dowd’s commentary blames the search engine google for transforming formerly monetized products into free products. Shafer’s piece notes that, “To be fair, the seeds of the great newspaper decline were planted more than 80 years ago… The emergence of every new media technology-the car radio, television, the portable radio, FM, cable, the VCR, the Internet, the cell phone, satellite radio and TV, the podcast, et al.-has delivered another kick to newspapers.”

The internet has increased the efficiency and decreased the cost of basic news reporting. Writing on the Technology blog for the LA Times, David Sarno cited the downing of a plane in the Hudson river as an example of the new reporting cycle. In that instance, a bystander broke the news long before major outlets were anywhere near the scene. Sarno wrote, “This may be among the most striking instances yet of instant citizen reporting, a trend that was visible in the Mumbai terrorist attacks.”

The impact of the print media crisis on investigative reporting is uncertain. The editors of Techdirt.com, writing on March 18th, 2009, argue that the major media outlets are propagating two myths regarding their service: “Myth 1: Newspapers put tons of money and resources into investigative journalism. They don’t. And never have. Myth 2: Only newspapers can do investigative journalism.”  The Huffington Post, one of the leading new news resources, recently created the Huff Post investigative journalism fund. As reported on their site, the Fund has, “an initial budget of $1.75 million. That should be enough for 10 staff journalists who will primarily coordinate stories with freelancers.” The Huff Post initiative resonates with the statement by Google CEO Eric Schmidt (as quoted by Maureen Dowd) that, “Incumbents very seldom invent the future.”

The wealth of reporting regarding the decline of print publications is influenced by the fact that those impacted are also the ones holding the megaphones. Jack Shafer’s article remarked, “That high-pitched squealing you hear in the background is the sound of the American newspaper shrinking.”

Looking from my perch as editor of an online arts magazine, I see the pain caused by the loss of staff journalist positions. The situation reminds me of an article written by Terry Teachout for the Wall Street Journal in November of 2006, sub-titled, “The decline and near-disappearance of dance in America.” The article highlighted the National Endowment for the Arts 2002 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts, which showed that “…the percentage of Americans between the ages of 18 and 35 who attended one or more ballet performances a year fell from 5.0% in 1992 to 3.1% in 2002.”

Teachout argued that “Anyone who seeks to launch a new company, or revitalize an old one, must start by figuring out how to make large numbers of Americans want to see something about which they no longer know anything–save that Emmitt Smith does it.” Like Dance, print newspapers are falling off of our radar screen. While the talent of the print economy adapts to a new marketplace, we can rest assured that the market still values reporting, and journalism.

There is no evidence that the interest of consumers has dramatically changed; the marketplace is evolving. New models are developing within a newer economy to support the interests of news consumers and providers. The situation is quite reminiscent of Mark Twain’s experience with the New York Journal (a daily that ceased publication in 1966.) Following publication of his obituary in the Journal, Twain quipped, “The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”