Christopher Gabro - Bella Gaia

I went to the Bella Gaia performance this past week and it was an expression of aesthetics that had a call towards an environmental consciousness.  The dance took the audience through the history of the universe using visual representations of the universe alongside vocal and string performances.  The crux of the performance was to show how sacred the Earth was and that it is the only site where humans and nonhumans can coexist can communicate ideas such as protecting the Earth via a dance and music.  Though I found the dance to be aesthetically unpleasing and quite disappointing given the hype leading up to it, it leads to me a question.  Does an art object have aesthetic significance if its message gets across to a wide array of people even though it was deemed by an aesthetic connoisseur as being unsatisfactory?  And no, I’m not calling myself an aesthetic connoisseur but I’ve seen my fair share of dances and performances and this one was utterly dull and drab that it made the earth feel lifeless when its intent was the exact opposite.  Leaving the performance, the audience was caught in a flurry of emotions that did land with me.  The audiences gravitated towards the performances as its message, so does this grant the dance aesthetic standing?  Moreover, what if a community of inquirers whose specialty was in dance deemed the dance “bad.”  Should it no longer be considered a worthy art object or does its intent carry past its “badness?”