# Beyond the Steps: Cultivating Your Unique Artistic Voice in Advanced Contemporary Dance
A guide for the dancer ready to transcend technique
You’ve mastered the release technique. Your spirals are effortless, your falls are controlled, your inversions defy gravity. You can replicate the choreography of Bausch, Duato, or McGregor with stunning precision. You’ve conquered the steps. So why does it sometimes feel like something is missing? Why does the studio mirror sometimes reflect a technician instead of an artist?
This is the pivotal moment in a dancer’s journey. The leap from advanced technician to true artist isn’t about learning more steps; it’s about discovering what only *you* can say through them. It’s about cultivating your unique artistic voice.
This is the terrain beyond the steps. Welcome.
## The Foundation: Your Body is Your Instrument, Not Your Dictator
Your technical proficiency is non-negotiable. It is the foundation upon which everything is built. A shaky foundation cannot support a unique voice; it will crack under the weight of artistic intention. Your technique must be so deeply embedded in your muscle memory that it becomes a subconscious language. You don’t think about vocabulary; you think about poetry.
But here is the crucial shift: your body must become a responsive instrument for your ideas, not a dictator that only knows how to execute shapes. You move from asking "How do I do this step?" to "**Why** am I moving this way? What emotion, story, or concept is driving this movement?"
## The Excavation: Mining Your Uniqueness
Your voice is already within you. It’s not something you import from a famous choreographer; it’s something you excavate. It’s a fusion of everything you are:
* **Your Physical History:** The unique proportions of your body, your natural movement habits, your strengths (incredible spine flexibility? powerful jumps?), and even your "limitations." What can your body express that no one else's can?
* **Your Personal History:** Your cultural background, your joys, your heartbreaks, your obsessions, your fears. Art is human experience filtered through movement. What stories are yours alone to tell?
* **Your Intellectual Curiosity:** What are you passionate about outside the studio? Astrophysics? Social justice? Mythology? Video games? These passions are fuel. Let them influence your movement quality and narrative. A dance inspired by the theory of relativity will look vastly different from one inspired by medieval tapestry.
**Practice:** Spend time in improvisation without the goal of creating "dance." Move as your 10-year-old self would. Move like your favorite animal. Move like the concept of "resilience" or "decay." Record yourself. Watch it back. What movements keep appearing? What qualities feel most authentic? These are the seeds of your voice.
## The Alchemy: Synthesizing Influence into Innovation
We are all influenced by the giants upon whose shoulders we stand. The key is to digest your influences, not imitate them.
Love Crystal Pite’s articulate, robotic group work? Don’t copy it. Ask yourself: *What is it about that aesthetic that resonates with me? Is it the precision? The sense of a collective unconscious?* Now, take that core concept and filter it through your own physicality and ideas. Maybe your version is softer, more organic, but still possesses that hypnotic unison.
Admire the raw vulnerability of Pina Bausch’s Tanztheater? Don’t just slap dirt on the floor and call it art. Explore your own questions for the audience. What makes you laugh, cry, or feel uneasy? Use theatricality as a tool to serve *your* truth.
Your voice is the unique alchemy that occurs when your influences pass through the filter of your unique self.
## The Courage: Embracing Imperfection and Risk
Your true voice will be messy before it’s polished. It might feel vulnerable, strange, or even "wrong" compared to the clean lines you’ve been taught to value. This is where courage is essential.
* **Embrace "Wrong":** The step that "isn't how it's done" might be your most original movement invention.
* **Prioritize Authenticity over Approval:** It’s safer to perform a perfect replica of someone else’s work. It’s riskier to present something uniquely yours. Choose the risk. The audience may not always connect, but they will never forget the artist who dared to show them something new.
* **Find Your Collaborators:** Surround yourself with other artists—choreographers, musicians, visual artists—who value authenticity. They will provide a safe space to experiment and offer perspectives that help refine your voice.
## The Practice: Weaving It Into Your Daily Work
Cultivating your voice isn't a separate activity; it’s a lens through which you view all your work.
* **In Class:** Don’t just execute the combination. Own it. Why are you doing these pliés? Are they preparing you to jump, or are they the movement of sadness weighing you down? Invest every exercise with a specific intention.
* **In Rehearsal:** When a choreographer gives you movement, don’t just perform the steps. Interpret them. Ask questions. Offer your own ideas. Be a collaborative artist, not a movement automaton.
* **In Creation:** Start making your own work. It doesn’t have to be a full-length piece. A one-minute study on a specific idea is enough. This is the fastest way to learn what you want to say and how you want to say it.
## The Journey, Not the Destination
Your artistic voice is not a fixed destination you arrive at one day. It is a living, breathing, evolving entity. It will change as you change. It will deepen with more life experience, shift with new influences, and mature with consistent practice.
The world doesn’t need more dancers who can perfectly execute someone else’s steps. The world needs artists. It needs *you*—with your unique perspective, your idiosyncrasies, your passion, and your truth—expressed through the profound and powerful language of contemporary dance.
So step beyond the technique. Listen to the quiet whisper of your own voice. And then, have the courage to let it roar.
