The Self/portrait Effects and Dance Performance

Abstract

This article considers performances of dance as sites of performers’ self-portrayals. The focus is on two works, from the context of visual arts and theatre, both featuring fluid instances of performers’ self-presentations in the works that are conceptualized by someone else. The after-effects of their actions are denoted as self/portrait effects – subtle disturbances of the material, which open for possible decenterings of the work as a text. The examples are from Rineke Dijkstra's The Krazyhouse (2009), a visual art video installation in which dance performance is used as a medium of portraiture; and from William Forsythe's plotless choreography the second detail (1991) – a theatre dance work whose performers are seen to produce similar self/portrait effects on stage. The analogies with portraiture and self-portraiture emerge through a close reading of the specific performers’ approaches, and drawing upon Bal's (2009) discussion of ‘portrait effects’, as well as Freeland's (2010) observations about blended binaries between ‘self-impersonations’ and ‘out of pose’ projections in portraiture. Additional kinships observed relate to the social characteristics of identity projection in (pseudo)selfies. The self/portrait effects observed on the one hand reinforce the idea that the performance opens possibilities for communication of the dancer's ‘self’ through an infinite web of discourses (after Dennett 1991), and on the other, they reveal layers of dance performance as an open-ended network of intricate, shifting agencies in cohabitation.

Notes

1 ‘Dronie’ is a sub-genre of selfies taken with a remote control device, seemingly capturing a subject from a third-person perspective. It is popularized by people [who] program their drones [miniature robotic aerial devices] to take short videos of themselves that operate like extended selfies. Most dronies begin with a portrait-like shot of the person or people, then zoom up and away while guided by remote control. (Eler 2014)

2 Altman suggests that the person we see on stage does not act as a ‘character’ until they assume a set of characteristics required by a narrative. For instance, the iconic actress Sarah Bernhardt may be perceived on stage as an agent of performance, but she is not a character until she assumes properties of it.

‘She may laugh and cry or rant and rave, but she remains an actress and not a character. When she speaks, it is the body of Sarah Bernhardt that speaks … Once she becomes Camille … however, Sarah Bernhardt is no longer the agent of her actions.’ (Altman 2008: 12–13) At that point, Altman argues, the agent is more remote or ‘one step removed’ from the character as the ‘narrative's vehicle’ (13).

3 In the recent revivals the original Forsythe's leotard costumes are redesigned by former Dresden Semperoper Ballet dancer and dancewear designer Yumiko Takeshima.