Are choreographers like Paul Taylor and Mark Morris ballet choreographers?
Both describe themselves as modern dance choreographers. The works of both (as well as other modern dance choreographers) are in the repertories of ballet companies. Sometimes modern dance choreographers create works especially for ballet dancers, sometimes an existing work enters the repertory unchanged. These facts do not change the nature of the works. If they’re not based on the danse d’ecole — if they do not use the ballet vocabulary — they are not ballets. But their works are great. There are a lot of bad ballets and a lot of great modern dance works. That’s a different issue. What’s wrong with ballet companies dancing modern dance? In the best of all possible worlds, nothing. There are a lot of good things about it. It preserves works which might otherwise be lost, it gives work to choreographers, it exposes dancers to new ways of working– if they’re properly trained for it, this is unlikely to cause harm and may well enrich the dancer. However, if ballet companies continue t
