The Rise Of Physical Theater

Where does dance end and theater begin? And does it actually matter? John Rockwell has been sampling some of the UK’s wide-ranging dance scene recently, and “from an outsider’s perspective, it was surprising how ubiquitous ‘physical theater’ is in Britain today. The term means, in the most rudimentary terms, theatrical dance, or dance with implied theatrical elements, or theater expressed primarily through movement… But nearly all British choreographers seem to incorporate overt theatricality, sometimes so much so that they try to pretend that they aren’t doing dance anymore at all.”