It takes two frogs to tango at Madison Square Garden

One of the benefits of living in New York is the number of dance companies only a subway ride away. Among these are the Joyce Theater, Lincoln Center, City Center, and Dance Theater Workshop. The traditional dance performance consists of going to the theater, being directed to your seat, and observing one or two acts of people on stage moving to music. But is this the only way to see dance? Can you see dance, say, at the Bronx Zoo? Do monkeys dance? Is the prance of a pony dance-like? What, after all, do we consider to be dance?

We considered this question during my first semester as a Barnard student in the beloved and highly esteemed Dance in New York City course. Among the performances we attended was the “World Famous Lipizzaner Stallions” show at Madison Square Garden. Modeled after the performances given by the classic white horses and dashing male trainers at the Spanish Riding School, the horses pranced around the arena performing various tricks and choreography. Hard work and skill were evident, especially during the finale “Pas de Quatre,” where four horses moved around the stage harmoniously, working up to a climax involving them merging into a line and walking downstage. The horses were definitely performing a learned set of movements set to music, and there was an audience. Was this dance?

After seeing the exhibit “Frogs: A Chorus of Colors” this past Sunday at the American Museum of Natural History, I can confidently say that I think frogs dance. I noticed that one little boy in particular was captivated by a tank of swimming tadpoles. He stayed there for easily 20 minutes, observing the fluidity of the organisms who were seemingly putting on a performance for him, dancing not to music but nevertheless in rhythm with each other.

By observing the swimming frogs in the exhibit, one easily picks up the almost ubiquitous move of the frog kick, an example of human movement not only modeled but named after nature. One could argue that dance choreography is modeled after something in nature. Moving is inherently natural.

As pointed out by the exhibit, scientists use frogs to study muscle function. Should dancers, to whom strong muscles are of paramount importance, study frog anatomy too? What can a dancer learn about him- or herself from the body of a frog?

The model skeleton of a frog at the very beginning of the exhibit shows how a frog’s body is built for jumping. The heavy bones of its front legs are perfect for absorbing the shock created by the jump off the long, strong back legs.

Also worthy of a dancer’s envy are the webbed toes of the beautiful, bright green Chinese gliding frogs. The webbing allows them to glide through their jumps, and their characteristic adhesive toe-pads let them land with assurance, even from great heights. Frogs have gliding, strong leg muscles, stoic landings after jumps—everything a dancer strives for as well.

The Borneo eared frogs secrete mucus from each of their tiny, padded toes, which allows them to stick to any surface and even dangle from only one toe at a time. I observed a performance suggestive of a modern dance—contact improvisation, where two people rely on each other’s touch to dictate their next movements—in which one waxy monkey frog was perched on top of the other frog’s back, with both facing in opposite directions. Maya Angelou said, “Everything in the universe has rhythm. Everything dances.”