I went to see a musical yesterday. (Long story. The Book Of Mormon, as it happens.) At one point in the first half there was a Very Musical Moment: all the boys onstage NOW, and* tapdance like your life depends on it!* And I thought……Nice set. I can’t see the drummer – I wonder how far under the stage the orchestra pit goes? That woman three rows in front is very tall. Do I need a piss?
Now, I don’t hate tap. I mean, how could you? But I could live without it. If it went away for ever, I wouldn’t even notice it had gone. So that’s what this thread is about – and feel free to interpret “artform” as widely as you like. And hey, if there’s an artform that you really hate – if you loathe, say, ironing plastic beads* – well OK, go ahead and vent about that too; but that’s kind of a sidebar to this thread.
So if I woke up tomorrow and someone told me, it’s over, that’s it, tapdancing is gone for ever – I wouldn’t rejoice. Not really. I’d just say fine, and then wonder about breakfast. It’s the artform I could live without.
What’s yours?
j
You didn’t know it was a thing? Me either, until I ended up in a repurposed Copenhagen church where young adults (!) were doing it (even longer story). So it is a thing. But it shouldn’t be.
I really like tapdancing when it happens to appear before me, but I never seek it out, so like you I could probably live without it. I do like it though, and I’m always pleasantly surprised when it pops up in movies (I’ve never seen a person tap dance live).
Personally, I frequently actively dislike, and at best merely tolerate, slam poetry, so that’s my choice.
I thought I’d take on some larger prey just for conversation’s sake.
I like to think of myself as a guy who likes his culture, but if opera disappeared tomorrow, I don’t think I’d even notice. It’s one of those things (like ballet or poetry) that I pay lip service to as one of the high arts, but I never really put in any effort towards appreciating it. As many of you will say, my bad.
I was just looking at those in a store, fantasizing about doing a huge mural with those beads. Might have to rent a flamethrower, an iron would take too long. My other dream mural would be a wall-sized LiteBrite.
As to the OP, for me, it’d be couples figure skating. Oh, I’ll watch it during the Olympics, but meh…
~ ~ ~
But I’ll tell you what we can’t live without…
“Next big thing? Whaling songs. No more country music, no more classical music. Fuhgettit, fuhgettit, fuhgettit. Hello, no more classical music at this station, just whaling songs… No more rock and roll, in the dumper. Whaling songs.”
(according to Bill Murray interviewing Christopher Guest)
Heinlein invented the “artform” I could do without in PODKAYNE OF MARS: full video+sound holographic adverts beamed at you wherever you are. But that’s inescapable. So I’ll nominate musical greeting cards. And Billy Fish.
Let me be the one to drop in the requisite “old white guy whose musical tastes atrophied somewhere in the mid-70s” suggestion of rap/hip-hop/whatever the hell it is these days that the cretin in the chopped Toyota next to me at the stoplight is blaring at a volume that would sterilized frogs at 50 meters.
I’m going to be contrarian and say Hama beads are great fun, but you really need a convenient five-year-old with you for camouflage purposes.
That thing where people dress themselves in all-over silver and busk as pretend-robots was kind of fun while it lasted. But I’m fine with its window being brief.