When I think of the $80 ticket price (the cheapest seats) for the Ana Laguna and Baryshinkov performances at the Harris Theater in Chicago this weekend, I cringe. When I can only spend $80 a week on groceries how can I justify spending $80 dollars for a single show. It is ridiculous, and it is precisely why I and many other dancers and non-dancers who would die to see this show will miss out.

Compare this to the ten nights of dance performances at City Center, in NYC this week, during it’s annual Fall for Dance Series. All tickets are $10 and, even with the sometimes questionable programming, the dancers will inspire.  Every seat will be filled, an experience rarely found at any dance performance today. In most cases young adults choose to see a movie or go to a museum for an artistic outing, for the $10-$20 sticker price. But, the Fall for Dance series is a instance where those young adults who can’t afford the $80-$150 tickets can afford to see one or ten live performances of dance. These types of performances not only bring young crowds together and inspire but they also help rebuild a community of dance that has dissipated in the last years because it is so disconnected to it’s contemporary audience.

If New York can do this with its dance community, why can’t every major city in the United States?

Chicago has started to offer more free dance concerts, mainly in the summer, with the Chicago Dancing Festival and outdoor performances by companies such as the Joffery ballet.  Where is Chicago’s Fall for Dance or San Francisco’s, LA’s, Seattle’s, Houston’s, Miami’s and Washington DC’s?  All these cities have enough large corporations to underwrite such performances. So why do they not exist yet?

I hope that soon the dance communities and supporters in each of these cities, and many other cities not mentioned, will wake up and realize dance needs to rebuild its network and that programs like Fall for Dance are a great way to do this. Even if only those who can’t afford the $80 and up ticket price could find comfort in the fact that once, twice, or ten times a year there are live dance performances for the price of a movie.

A reader in the Chicago Tribune writes to complain about the rude audience at the Joffery Ballet’s Thursday night performance in Millennium Park.

“A picnic eaten indoors isn’t dinner at Alinea, and a ballet performance held outdoors isn’t a Cubs game. I was distressed by the rude behavior at last night’s Joffrey Ballet performance in Millennium Park.”

Why can’t ballet be more like a Cubs game?  When we go to see dance shows in a theater the audience is expected to act like vegetables, clap politely, and sip on a cocktail.  But does it always have to be this way?  The stadiums in Chicago fill up even when the teams are down and out, because whether they win or lose you get to share in an awesome communal experience.

So, the next time you go to see a dance performance just relax and show your enthusiasm.  Take your favorite beer and dress yourself like a real dance fan with your dance company logo gear (hat, t-shirt, sweat pants), some face paint and maybe even a fog horn.  Yell out for your favorite dancers at the end of pieces, and release the real dance fan within!