So to jump right in. Here is why I think "Contemporary" is a fad and I hate when people use this word. By today's standards the dance community would equate Martha Graham's movement as modern. Back in the day when she was putting together her school she named it "MARTHA GRAHAM CENTER OF CONTEMPORARY DANCE". Is Mia teaching at this school? No. Are kids at competitions entering contemporary pieces with rep from Kilian, Graham, Wheeldon, Forsythe or Duato? No. Using this term is to describe a new wave of movement is like calling an orange an apple. You can't rename the wheel if you want to call something else a wheel. Contemporary has already been established as a genre thanks to modern ballet companies in Europe.

Somewhere along the last few years the word "jazz" became dirty. Jazz is a genre of dance that is free for the choreographer/teacher to interpret the music. Jazz is a very broad term. Somewhere in the late 80's or early 90's jazz dancers began creating sub-categories. These would include Broadway jazz, lyrical, street jazz, etc. There was the fad where some teachers were exclusively teaching "lyrical". I can't remember a time when I thought lyrical was a real genre. It was invented for competitions in my opinion. Kids wanted to do more solos and competitions answered the call by putting lyrical as a separate category from Jazz. Now competitions are starting to do the same thing with this new fad called contemporary.  I had started the hear the "contemporary" genre a few years ago. It didn't take off until Mia started saying she was choreographing contemporary routines.

Here is a video from the first season of SYTYCD. In this video you will see that Mia is choreographing under the "lyrical jazz" genre. The whole first season she was a lyrical jazz choreographer.

Then all of a sudden she was a contemporary choreographer because that was the cool term for the week. This term for some reason has stuck. Here are other video examples of Mia's work under the "contemporary" genre.

These pieces are very strong examples of choreography but they are all of the same ideology. I would love for someone explain to me why now she is now considered contemporary when a few years ago she was lyrical jazz. I saw her first company's performance at Playhouse 91 in 1998 or 99. During this time her work was being labeled at modern jazz. So is there going to be another new term in the next couple of years? It's getting a little silly in my opinion. It should just be considered jazz.

I have written about the use of this word before. Here is the link: http://blog.danceruniverse.com/blog/story/2007/12/7/03336/1310

Katie Langan also wrote about contemporary ballet in last month's issue of Dancer. It's a good read.

http://danceruniverse.com/stories/issues/200808/the_spectrum_of_contemporary-Au1/

So back to your comments Emily---I think the fact that you are only offering an hour class where your students get to "forget about the rules for an hour" and allow the body to dance organically is great. Not many studios offer a class in how to improv. It's a great ability to pick up and will be a great tool for them to draw upon later in auditions. The fact that you offer a "free night" is also amazing. That's not something I hear of regularly.

I have been hearing about studios offering contemporary classes because "it is in demand" by their students. There are even teachers in NYC that claim to offer contemporary classes when they have no real experience in Europe. I know of one teacher that is trying to pass off a technique with contemporary by labeling positions as 1, 2, 3, or 4. There is one studio that a friend of mine was offered a teaching gig. He turned it down because of the way this studio was about to restructure. This studio was going to offer 6 contemporary classes to all age categories. I couldn't believe when I heard this. It's so absurd that teachers are beginning to offer this as training in their Dolly Dinkle studios. There are exceptions to everything in regards to how studios are handling this "fad". However,  I see a new generation of kids moving to L.A. or NYC with a misguided perception of this business. Most dancers start training because they fall in love with moving. Teachers should be embracing these students passion and  training their students with the mindset that this is a business.

The commercial world is heavily fueled by hip-hop. The concert world is more established market. To break in with a new style in the concert world would actually take years for the choreographer to establish credibility. Forsythe is completely embraced now but that took years of work to achieve the level of respect he has. There will never be more contemporary jobs except for inside the competition world. As the mislabeled contemporary genre expands there will be more of a demand for teachers, judges and choreographers. It probably will be very similar to life of "Lyrical". Kids trained for years in this genre and then when they went to find jobs they were stuck in the small limited lyrical circuit of teaching and choreographing in competitions. To train in one genre is like shooting yourself in the foot. For example, dancers who only specialize in ballet are probably not going to get hired in the commercial world of dance. The same thing will happen for the new batch of contemporary kids. In a few more years there will be a new fad name for jazz and they will seem archaic . It will be a never ending cycle until studios just stick to the basics and teach a well rounded program. Ballet should be a major part of the students schedule. I see more schools cutting out an additional ballet class in favor of other genres that are fads. Lyrical, contemporary, and jazz are actually all the same ideology. They all rely on a loose interpretation of a body's reaction to music. Kids are not aware of Jack Cole usage of Indian movements in his jazz choreography. Most student dancer's don't know how to Fox-trot, Ragtime, Charleston, or other steps from the early days of jazz dance in America. That's like not knowing the five basic ballet positions. After the birth of jazz came Fosse, Robbins, and Mattax. There was Luigi, Giordano and list goes on until present day. Before students embark on the road to "contemporary" they should really be aware of how the dance as evolved before going to the next step.

Those my two cents. :)

Matthew