dinner.

The other day, someone asked me an interesting question that really got me thinking.

"If you had a dinner table set for you and three guests, who would they be?

They can be living or passed, and at any age." 

I knew my answer right away. I would love to have dinner with:

- Karen Kain, the current Artistic Director of the National Ballet of Canada 

 - Late German choreographer Pina Bausch, right after she choreographed "The Rite of Spring" 

- Nico Archambault, the first winner of So You Think You Can Dance Canada. 

If I could, I would also sneak a chair in to seat Michael Jackson during the "Thriller" heyday. 

I would be fascinated to hear each of their views on dance in 2013. Is it too commercial? Do average people still go to the ballet? What needs to change? 

With digital technology connecting us more than ever before, we can watch and share dance content so easily. As a choreographer, YouTube has become a huge source of personal and artistic inspiration, and has allowed me to watch full performances from around the world. 

However, I do wonder if this is actually helping or hindering our art. There have been many artists caught copying choreography from performances they have never seen in person. Some argue it's artistic plagiarism. 

For Pina Bausch and Michael Jackson, they both were apart of iconic moments in dance and movement that have and will continue to be reinterpreted and copied to no end. How do they feel? Was there ever any doubt while working and performing these pieces that it wouldn't work? Can they grasp what their impact was, and still is to the dance community? 

From there, I would be interested in hearing from Kain and and Archambault if what Jackson and Bausch did for dance really was significant. The National Ballet of Canada and So You Think You Can Dance Canada are obviously very different stages for movement, but in many ways, they have the same roots. If not, who would they identify as the movers and shakers (pun intended)? 

Of course, after dinner I would suggest that we all go out dancing. 

I've started asking my peers this same question, and have gotten some really interesting answers. 

Some talk about sitting down with grandparents they never knew, the future President of the United States, Beyonce, the actor who played Big Bird and so on.

So now I ask you...

If you could have dinner with three people of any time period, at any age, currently alive (or not), who would they be? 

Just a thought.