In a relatively well-known article, Monroe Beardsley defines dance as a sequence of motions that is designed primarily for the pleasure given through either rhythm or expressiveness (1). In reply, Sally Banes and Noël Carroll graciously, but firmly, reject Beardsley's account by claiming that he further requires a “superfluity of expressiveness” and by arguing that this feature is neither necessary nor sufficient for dance (2). Their reasons for denying the sufficiency option are ones that we can easily accept, it seems to me. However, their reasons for denying the necessity option are problematic. In brief, they invoke post-modern dance practice, and cite as a counterexample to the definition Yvonne Rainer's Room Service (1964), which ostensibly comprised nothing but pedestrian movements and tasks such as mattress carrying (3). Because Room Service for post-modernists is a “task dance,” conveying no more expressiveness than one usually finds in such activities, Banes and Carroll conclude that a superfluity of expressiveness cannot even be a necessary condition of dance, at least from the 1960s onwards. Furthermore, anticipating the retort that Room Service may not really be a dance to begin with and thus not a true counterexample, they offer four different criteria that would cause the work to be categorized positively. My primary intent in this article is to reveal that those criteria misfire and actually cause it to be excluded from dance.

One of the most heated debates in modern literary and aesthetic theory concerns the relevance to criticism in general, and to interpretation specifically, of information about an author/artist's intentions in creating a particular work. This intentionalist/anti-intentionalist debate is an important one for dance educators to examine and discuss with students, since teachers' beliefs about the relevance of an artist's intentions determine in large part the way they interpret and judge dances (and other works of art), and mentor student choreographers and critics. The critical advice of mentors who hold intentionalist assumptions naturally tends to be quite different from the input of those holding anti-intentionalist views.

The debate over artists' intentions began in earnest in 1946 with the publication of a provocative and now famous essay entitled “The Intentional Fallacy” by W.K. Wimsatt and Monroe Beardsley. In this work the authors attacked the intentionalist idea that to achieve a valid, or true, interpretation of a work we must ascertain whatever meaning its maker intended it to possess. The essay laid the groundwork for a rigorous anti-intentionalism, which held that works of art and literature are autonomous entities whose meanings are carried entirely by their internal structures and do not depend on the so-called meaning-intentions of their creators.

As western theatrical dance has developed through the centuries, dance educators, artists, and researchers have sought methods to improve dance skills and to refine the quality of dance performance. In the pursuit of ever-increasing technical skills, improved alignment, freedom from injury, and enhanced artistic capabilities such as expanded dynamic and expressive range, dancers have explored numerous training systems developed for these purposes. These systems are often used in conjunction with dance technique classes, and they explore a range of approaches addressing different aspects of the neural and motor mechanisms underlying dance skills. In general, the systems can be seen as operating within two large concerns. The first includes systems using imagery and/or mental practice designed to affect alignment and dance performance on the subcortical or neurological level, with minimal or no physical action (Bartenieff 1980; Dowd 1990; Sweigard 1974; Todd 1937). The second emphasizes consistent and specialized exercise programs designed to encourage muscular strength and endurance, flexibility, and/or cardio-respiratory endurance, with the claim that these physical changes will enhance alignment, dance technique, and performance (Clippinger-Robertson 1990; Fitt 1988; Kravitz 1990; Lauffenburger 1990; Pilates 1945; Russell 1992; Solomon 1990; Stephens 1990; Trepman, Walaszek, & Micheli 1990). While there is often overlap in these two categories, the first group emphasizes neuromuscular repatterning to alter alignment or movement habits, while the second addresses muscular/structural alterations to affect change. For example, the body therapies, including the work of Bartenieff, Alexander, Feldenkrais, and Sweigard, attempt to alter the way muscles pattern themselves, stressing whole body activity, connections, and awareness, not exercises for specific muscles (Myers 1980). Conditioning programs, on the other hand, do engage particular muscles, in order to make gains in muscular strength and range of motion.

A recent, inconspicuous story in the newspaper, one of our most revered keepers and transmitters of traditions, added to our cosmology. It reported “galaxies formed at high rates when the universe was half to one-fourth its current age—earlier than thought. If one assumes the universe is 15 billion years old … this discovery would put the galactic baby boom at about 8 billion—11 billion years ago…. Astronomers are able to witness galactic births because light takes so long to reach Earth, but they've not seen them on the scale reported in the new findings—namely, 40 cosmic infants” (Anonymous 1995).

This carrier of tales, the newspaper, also reports “America Online has been offering Road Trips since June, with customized interactive trips through its own areas and sites on the World Wide Web. The service allows users to designate favorite places while being able to chat in real-time with friends about the experience…. The Internet is a kind of strange, scary place and [Road Trips] can make it more friendly” (Haring 1995 ).

Theoretical physicist Stephen W. Hawking writes that “life, at least as we know it, can exist only in regions of space-time in which [there are] one time and three space dimensions” (1988:165) (1). Space-time is ever fascinating to us humans because it is where we live, and its dimensions continue to expand.