What is the role of dance—do we still need this role?

Let us explore through this blog post the formative power and significance of roles in dance, and consider whether they remain necessary.

Kexin XU

January 4, 2026

What makes up a dance character? For centuries, in many traditional dance forms, characterisation has been the fundamental aim. Through shaping a role, dancers convey the character’s inherent narrative or emotions, advancing plot and storytelling. Upon stage presentation, performers often embody swans, lovers, or historical figures, using physical movement to fully articulate narrative, sentiment, and underlying meaning. Audiences interpret these moving bodies as the embodied manifestation of fictional identities. In this sense, exceptional performance lies in convincingly becoming another.

However, within contemporary dance practice, this very notion of characterisation is increasingly being called into question. When movement no longer serves a narrative, and when dancers are not required to embody specific roles, what becomes of the concept of character? Can audiences comprehend its underlying meaning? More crucially, if character vanishes, does meaning vanish with it?

In this blog post, I wish to propose a different perspective: contemporary dance does not lose its meaning when it abandons character portrayal, but repositions meaning within the present sense of existence, bodily sensation, and real-time experience. It represents a shift from external narrative to internal being. Within this framework, the dancer’s body becomes the direct conveyor of meaning, rather than merely a vessel for storytelling.

Ballet: Giselle https://youtu.be/GoG5izkLe-Y?si=Y9NnQDxmXFSMHIJH

From the time of its emergence to the present day

When we look back at the history of dance, we find a prevailing view that someone has intrinsically linked characterisation to narrative and expression. Whether in classical ballet or early modern dance, recognisable roles, emotional arcs, and dramatic intent have been relied upon to convey a complete, watchable story to audiences. Within this framework, dance movements become a visualised character language, and the dancer’s core task is to “translate” inner emotions or narrative meaning into visible form. A viewing experience grounded in empathy and plot comprehension is established, rendering the audience’s perception more direct.

https://youtu.be/_vHqIMFDbQI?si=YaKlQFRmQ7iqv8-B

Yvonne Renner's Trio A (1966)

However, this expressionist model faced a fundamental challenge with the rise of postmodern dance in the 1960s. With the emergence of postmodern dance, choreographers such as Yvonne Rainer came to the fore, rejecting theatricality, spectacle, and exaggerated expression. They aimed to challenge and redefine the boundaries of dance and performance. She replaced virtuosic technique with everyday movements and task-oriented actions (Rainer, 1995). Dancers no longer portrayed others but existed purely as bodies performing actions within space and time. This represented not merely a stylistic shift but a challenge to the prevailing conventions of dance.

Interestingly, the removal of characters did not leave the work hollow but redirected the audience’s attention. Deprived of narrative threads and emotional markers, spectators focused on the dancers’ weight, rhythm, duration, and spatial relationships. Meaning no longer stemmed from a story but emerged from the very presence of the body itself. This shift in focus—from a specific narrative to existence itself—may well be the true meaning postmodern dance genuinely requires.

The body is the subject, not the tool

In contemplating this direction, I recalled Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological theory, a profoundly penetrating philosophical perspective. He posited that the body is not merely an instrument for expressing thought, but the primary medium through which we experience and comprehend the world–the body itself makes up the subject (Merleau-Ponty, 1962). Body and mind are inseparable; the body itself makes up a thinking, perceiving subject. For instance, a dancer’s body can intuitively sense the spatial dimensions of the stage, moving in rhythm with the music without conscious deliberation.

When applying this theory to dance, we observe a transformation: the dancer’s body shifts from being a “tool” to becoming a “subject”. This challenges the assumption that movement must represent a character or emotion. If the body itself is a subject, it can bear meaning through perception, sensation, and action, exploring further dimensions such as weight, flow, space, and relationships. Thus, performance need not rely on fictional identities to justify its existence. The body itself is the source of meaning and the subject of cognition.

From this perspective, the “role” in contemporary dance is not a fixed identity but an ever-shifting state of being. The core of performance lies not in reproduction but in existence itself. I believe this directly resonates with Yvonne Rainer’s aesthetics of negation, as mentioned earlier.

Contemporary dance stripped of its “role” armour

In the contemporary dance sphere today, the abandonment of characterisation is no longer an eccentric experiment but has become a central creative consideration for most contemporary choreographers. Many have adopted this approach to explore the inherent language of the body itself.

For instance, in the works of French choreographer Jérôme Bel, we observe that dancers frequently perform without narrative frameworks and take to the stage in non-characterised states. Within his pieces, these performances no longer aim to construct illusions but to highlight the bodily presence of the performers themselves. During the performance, the focus shifts from superficial forms of expression towards the bodily exposure and sense of presence (Bel, 1999).

https://youtu.be/ccR4rfoECkg?si=vrjmDJ7gDz69mZ5i&t=1390

Jérôme Bel – interview – the last performance (1998) – second part

https://youtu.be/3v69hrtufDw?si=mZVtAp-sl6YmJv8H

Jérôme Bel – The show must go on (2001) – trailer

As theorist André Lepecki observes, this choreographic strategy consciously resists fluid expression and technical coherence. Instead, it endows “stillness, “interruption,” and “extensibility” with renewed significance (Lepecki, 2006). Within this theoretical framework, I contend that dance no longer needs to rush towards an emotional or narrative climax. Instead, the textural quality of each moment in a dancer’s movement is amplified. The body no longer moves to embody a coherent character; it becomes the object of observation itself—It’s fatigue, its persistence, its subtle shifts within time, all brimming with meaning.

My Practice and Graduation Project

These principles profoundly shaped my creative practice and graduation. My choreography does not construct characters or narratives, but rather focuses on bodily states, constraints, and systems of rules. Though the work operates on a logic of play, it incorporates no game characters; dancers operate within a clear framework, yielding unexpected outcomes. During rehearsals, I do not ask dancers to imagine who they are; instead, we concentrate on bodily sensation, timing, pauses, and mutual responsiveness. The body no longer performs an identity but responds to specific situations. Thus, what emerges is not a character but the process itself. Naturally, abandoning characterisation introduces risk into the performance. Characters once served as a protective layer, offering structure and certainty; stripped of this shell, dancers become more directly exposed. With no fictional identity to conceal, the audience witnesses the body’s most immediate language. Thus, in my work, I aim to preserve moments of hesitation, imbalance, and even failure. The focus and vulnerability revealed in these instances are often erased in role-driven performance. I do not pursue flawless uniformity of movement, but cherish its fluctuations and uncertainties.


This direct “exposure” also resonates with phenomenology’s understanding of embodiment—as a dynamic process rather than a fixed form (Merleau-Ponty, 1962). If “presence” itself cannot be fully controlled or fixed, then the continuity provided by the character becomes unnecessary. I do not demand that dancers become anything; I simply ask them to focus solely on the present moment.

Rethinking the Role of the Audience

When dance is stripped of specific roles, the audience’s viewing experience transforms.  Without narrative guidance, spectators can no longer remain passive observers awaiting plot developments;  they must instead focus on subtler elements: the rhythm of movement, the manner of bodily exertion, and how time unfolds within a repeated action.  Witnessing dance becomes more akin to a physical experience than an intellectual interpretation.

As Susan Leigh Foster observes, contemporary dance encourages audiences to focus on the body and perception rather than specific meaning (Foster, 1995). This effectively redirects attention away from “what it symbolises” and back to “How it moves in this moment”. Far from diminishing the emotional impact, this shift may intensify it. Crucially, this does not imply a lack of emotional resonance. When a dancer’s body no longer hides behind the roles of ‘swan’ or ‘prince,’ but is laid bare before the audience—directly, even somewhat laboriously—that unadorned physicality creates a peculiar space for imagination. The work ceases to be a fabricated narrative and becomes a real, unfolding moment of life instead.

Do We Still Need a Dance Character?

What I wish to convey is that contemporary dance does not herald the complete demise of “role-playing”, but invites us to reconsider its absolute necessity. When we perceive the dancer’s body as a thinking, sentient subject in its own right, the assumption of roles ceases to be an indispensable element of creation, becoming merely one possible artistic strategy among many. If dance no longer requires an external “role” as an intermediary, then the performance itself becomes a direct encounter with “presence”. What the audience confronts is no longer a fictional other, but a living body engaged in a subtle negotiation with the attention of all those present. In this sense, contemporary dance has never abandoned meaning. What it undertakes is a spatial migration of meaning—re-anchoring its dwelling place from fictional narratives and symbols into the body’s authentic, dynamic process of existence. Meaning is no longer predetermined but continuously generated through every contact, every decision, every vulnerability, and persistence between the body and its present environment.

Ultimately, the question dance poses may not be whether the role should vanish, but: when stripped of all external narratives and pretence, what does the body’s very presence reveal to us? Contemporary dance’s exploration tells us it reveals life’s most primordial tremors and wisdom.

References

Merleau-Ponty, M. (1962) Phenomenology of Perception. London: Routledge.

Lepecki, A. (2006) Exhausting Dance: Performance and the Politics of Movement. London: Routledge.

Foster, S. L. (1995) Choreographing History. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Rainer, Y. (1995) Some retrospective notes on a dance for 10 people and 12 mattresses called Parts of Some Sextets.

In Banes, S. (ed.), Reinventing Dance in the 1960s. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, pp. 265–271.

Bel, J. (1999) Jérôme Bel. Live performance.