Only for that moment

We have to lament that in today’s world of marketing and commerce, we have reached a nadir where the dancer has almost no space, either physical or metaphorical. The dancer simply has no product to market (no CDs and cassettes like the musician or instrumentalist, no painting or sculpture like the artist, no buildings or plans like the architect, no books like the authors and poets) except the ability to create an intangible art form which springs alive only for that moment, and then, evanescent, fades from all existence, except in memory. And memory cannot be marketed. Hence it is that all the related industries that have cropped up to market the other arts, like galleries, publishing houses, ad agencies, music companies with sales planets and even galaxies, have no equivalents for dance simply because the dancer and the dance have no commercial value. Geeta Chandran, ‘World Dance Day’ The Asian Age, Kolkata, April 29, 2005