The above is a quote from one of a series of ten minute plays I saw last week. All of which were odd, some of which were also very funny. One or two however, involved interpretive dance. And quite frankly, and I can’t emphasize this enough people, I fucking hate interpretive dance.

Anyone who has read Terry Pratchett’s discworld series will probably be familiar with the character of Lord Vetinari, a perfectly reasonable and just ruler of a major city with the single exception of his passionate hatred for mime artists. Anyone with white gloves and face-paint pretending to be trapped in an invisible box in this fictional city soon finds themselves upside down in a scorpion pit, on the side of which is helpfully hung a similiarly inverted sign reading “Learn The Words”

If I were an absolute dictator, a similiar level of intolerance would be applied to anyone who thinks that important messages can be effectively conveyed by the interplay of the swaying bodies of people with too little talent to get into ballet school. Interpretive dance is the visual equivalent of really bad poetry. Its painful to watch, its boring, and anyone can do it.

Yes, self-expression is commendable. But unless you’re pretty goddamn interesting its also boring as fuck. Why subject other people to it? Not to mention the fact that if you can’t fucking dance then the fact that its not really dancing is not going to help you all that much. I went to the ballet last year, and was shocked to learn that I loved it. It was graceful, beautiful and captivating. I think talented dancers are amazing, whether they perform the tango or a hiphop routine. But there is a reason interpretive dance is confined to small theatres filled with hippies, and that reason is that it fucking sucks.

I love weird-ass smale scale theatre productions, in fact my favourite ever live performance was probably done on a budget of about $23. I have a healthy appreciation of the utterly bizarre, in an otherwise fairly banal performance I can at least enjoy the absurdity of the appearance of a semi-naked angel in a white afro wig on rollerskates with a unicorn horn strapped to the crotch of her silver hotpants (yes, this did happen. New York is such a wonderful place). But I really wish people would stop trying to disguise this interpretive dance crap as entertainment.

It’s pretentious, self-indulgent wank. Go wank at home like everyone else.