The burning question....''what is contemporary dance?''

This question is like a hurdle many dancers have to clear in their career. I mean I have found it difficult to answer, its a simple question yet holds infinite and unknown depths to the answer which will always change with the time and place.
I was faced with this question on the induction day where I fumbled my way through a very basic and incoherant answer ( i must have gone to panic mode) no doubt leaving many still curious as to what it is I 'do'. I apologise for that, and to help clarify I thought I may as well have a little blog with some information and thoughts on contemporary dance.
I like many other dancers struggle to define this dance genre in a efficient and comprehensible approach with an adequate and substantial representation, leaving the listener 'full' as so to speak, hopefully steering them away from the obvious statement..''so you pretend to be a tree?!'' You will be suprised how often this can be said. In a way this is good as the listener is able to form their own ideas, but the dance style goes so much further than just the interpretive dance idea of a 'tree'. Contemporary dance I feel is boundaryless, so if anything goes, then one day it may be the right thing to do.... to be a tree! :-)
The techniques of contemporary dance can stress versatility and explore improvisation, unlike the more strict and structured nature of ballet (the style of dance of which contemporary dance was formed after its rebellion against such forms, with thanks to pioneers of the early 1900's, Martha Graham, Ruth St Denis, Rudolp von Laban to name only a few). The hallmark on the style is an awareness of the limitations of form, like ballet, and the option to fly free of these.
Unlike its original predecessor, this being ballet, contemporary dance techniques employ the use of gravity in movement which can be seen in the amount of floorwork, release and fall/recovery (Graham and Limon techchniques for example), joined with strength, improvisation, partnering and lifts.
Within contemporary you can still see the influences of ballet, yet it also draws influences from theatrical perfromance and perhaps a cross over in perfromance art.
As a student we were always told not to ''close in on an idea of contemporary dance as there are countless ways to define it, all individual to the person and the time in which it is encountered''. This got me thinking about the mind and body connection where the dancer and choreographer can encourage ones exploration of emotions and own experiences that can be touched upon in one specific movement or as a dance piece as a whole.
Following my babbling attempt of an answer on induction day I arranged a discussion with some fellow company members to see how they each percieve contemporary dance. It was interesting to see that there was an underlying theme used, ''movement for time and place'', and also, ''the inner being connected to the physical being, whether it be a concious thing or not''.
I found that each description vaired tremendously depending on each dancers current line of work; for instance one, who is very interested in exploing improvisation in perfromance spoke about the mind, (our invisible body) being open to influences that can be encountered or are expressed by the physical body. This in contrast to another, who described contemporary as architecture in space and time, where she uses a 'chance' method to determine the outcome of performance....leaving no space for emotive reasoning for the direction. the representation is simply the here and now.

Still, without viewing certain styles, companies and choreographers within the world of contemporary, even the above description will come across a little vague to a non dancer. Yet I feel it is a little more intelligable and consistent than my first 30 second attempt, ha! I hope this may have helped??

How do you percieve this genre? I would be interested in hearing some other ideas and thoughts.