Judges are dance theorists too

                (photo: alexbcthompson)

How many people learn the steps from the Single Ladies video by watching Beyonce on YouTube? Well apparently, a dance you learn by looking at a YouTube video is not choreography, at least not under New York tax law.

New York imposes a four percent sales tax on admission charges at “places of amusement.” However, charges paid for admission to live, choreographic performances are exempt from the tax. The Tax Appeals Tribunal of New York recently decided a case in which Nite Moves, a strip club in an Albany suburb, claimed that its cover charges are not taxable because the pole dancing routines at its establishment are choreographic performances. To support this argument, Nite Moves turned to Judith Lynne Hanna, a specialist on exotic dance and adult entertainment. Dr. Hanna reviewed DVD footage of exotic dance routines performed at Nite Moves and stated that they indeed were live, choreographed performances.

The tribunal differed. Strangely, it seemed to take the view that for a dance routine to be a live choreographed performance, the performer must have actually created the steps.

“With regard to whether it is a choreographed performance, we note that the record sets forth how the dancers help each other when they are getting started, how they view other dancers on YouTube and practice the dances they see on the internet. . . . We question how much planning goes into attempting a dance seen on YouTube. . . . Dr. Hanna said, inter alia, that she saw a range of movements typical of adult entertainment elsewhere and that she saw the individual creativity of the dancers. It is unclear how, based on a 22 minute DVD, Dr. Hanna could divine a particular dancer's 'creativity' as opposed to a dancer on YouTube, for instance, from which the performance may have been copied.”

This is odd. According to the tribunal, the YouTube routines may have been choreographed, but when they are replicated by other dancers, they are not choreographed. The question for the court should not have been “how much planning goes into attempting a dance seen on YouTube,” but how much planning went into creating the dance seen on YouTube. The tribunal's decision also happens to be at odds with the practice of many dance companies that often have dancers consult video footage to learn choreography. (Actually, judges routinely throw logic out the window when strippers are around. For a Freudian reading of why this might be so, you might enjoy Amy Adler's Girls! Girls! Girls!: The Supreme Court Confronts the G-String).

Strip clubs were probably not among the intended beneficiaries of the tax law’s exemption for choreographed performances. But if Nite Moves is not entitled to the exemption, the reason cannot be that its dancers get their routines from YouTube.

The tribunal's decision is here.

06/04/2010 Update: Alistair Macaulay, chief dance critic of The New York Times, has declared the male pole dancing routine in Cirque du Soleil's latest production, Banana Shpeel, "the most enchanting new choreography around Broadway."