Why I like modern dance

I like modern dance. My friend, Dermot, likes modern dance. Therefore, we go see modern dance. We have no dance background. We can't tell a cambre from a riff. I had to look those up by the way and I still don't understand. We are in many ways a modern dance company's favourite customer : we have no hitherto connections with the genre and yet we pay our money and watch the spectacle.

To my amateur eyes modern dance is where all the rules can be broken. A choreographer has carte blanche to interpret the music or the theme as she sees fit through dance movements. To me when it is done well I am challenged, I am surprised, I am amazed.

I want the movement to make me think. I want to wonder if the music, the set, the costumes, the movement are telling me something. I don't necessarily want a story. I want an interpretation of a sound, of an emotion. I want to live in the moment. I don't want clichés. I don't want literal. I don't want to be patronised. The choreography has to be very very special.

I love it for the sheer admiration I have for the dancers. How can they do it all so effortlessly and with such grace. I like it that the dancers don't seem to be homogenised. They all have athletic bodies but they are all slightly different. It's probably just my perception but they have personalities even when giving themselves over to the dance.

We have been to quite a few productions over the years. Anything goes really. I am open to being challenged in numerous ways but I do have two golden rules which a choreographer would do well to adhere to. The dance would have to be very superlative to win me over if it included the following misdemeanours. The dancers should never speak or sing. They should talk to me through the dance. The choreographer is being lazy if she resorts to speech. I prefer it if there is a no story. I would say it's very difficult for the choreographer to avoid falling into clichés if she is telling a chronological story. There is always a moment when they fall into a literal interpretation of an emotion or action. I don't want to see kisses to show me love. Show and surprise me in other ways.

Gosh I know nothing about dance and yet modern dance moves me to have big opinions - I love that.