Affirming versus Relating: Steps around, toward, and away from Dance and Performance Art

ABSTRACT

This essay establishes distinctions between dance, an art of affirmation and convergence, and performance art, an art of relation and divergence. While dance generates new dimensions of time and space, performance art reconfigures the various elements it employs. Thus, in dance, interpretation always corresponds to an authorial role, evident in the dancer's quality of presence, unique to each performance. This problem engaged modernists, who advocated the use of the machine or puppet in place of flesh-and-blood performers, distancing dance from the concerns of Futurists and performance artists.

KEYWORDS:

• Performance art
• dance

MARIANA BRANDÃO, Ph.D., has a background as a dancer and art historian. She holds a master's degree in the history of art, Faculty of Letters, University of Porto. She collaborated with the Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art (Porto) and the General Directorate for the Arts of the Portuguese Ministry of Culture. She is also a university lecturer in the areas of performance and dance history. Brandão received a Ph.D. from the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Lisbon, supported by FCT (Science and Technology Foundation) at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Lisbon, with a thesis titled “Steps Around: Dance vs. Performance: A Conceptual and Artistic Scenario for the Portuguese Context.” She also serves as associate researcher of CIEBA (Centre for Research and Studies in Fine Arts), University of Lisbon. In addition to her academic work, Brandão collaborates with several performing artists in Portugal.

Notes

^* Here I have in mind the use of the term performance to refer to any type of artistic presentation, which leads to an equivalence between performance and behavior, an association outside the scope of this work.

^* As Roselee Goldberg has written, “The history of performance art in the twentieth century is the history of a permissive, open-ended medium with endless variables, executed by artists impatient with the limitations of more established art forms.” See Performance Art: From Futurism to the Present (London: Thames and Hudson, 1988), 9.

^† Michael Kirby and Victoria Nes Kirby address this issue with regard to happenings in Futurist Performance (New York: PAJ Publications, 1986), 20.

^†† For example, Kate Linker writes that many of Vito Acconci's works from 1969 through the early 1970s “involve the idea of a system.” Further, “Acconci has stated that the motive behind many of these works . . . was an attempt to attach himself or (in his words) ‘key into’ an existing situation by fabricating schemes.” This can result in a state where, as “Acconci has remarked, describing Following Piece, . . . ‘I am almost not “I” anymore. I put myself in the service of this scheme.’” Vito Acconci (New York: Rizzoli, 1994), 20.

^* I refer here to the sense of proprioception—that is, the ability to recognize, without using sight, the body's spatial location, position, and orientation, the force exerted by the muscles, and position of each part of the body in relation to others. As early as 1921, Adolphe Appia referred to this sense: “Nous sentons notre corps sous nos vêtements” (We feel our body under our clothes). L'oeuvre d'art Vivant (Geneva, Switzerland: Édition Atar, 1921), 89. Translation by Mariana Brandão.

^* On “presence” in contemporary dance, see Laurence Louppe, Poética da Dança Contemporânea (Lisbon: Orfeu Negro, 2012), 296–97.

^* “Vie intérieure, mais celle-ci toute construite de sensations de durée et de sensations d’énergie qui se répondent, et forment comme une enceinte de résonances. Cette résonance, comme toute autre, se comunique: une partie de notre plaisir de spectateurs est de se sentir gagnés par les rythmes et virtuellement dansants nous-mêmes!” Paul Valéry, “Philosophie de la danse” (1936), in Danser sa vie. Écrits sur la danse, eds. Emma Lavigne and Christine Macel (Paris: Éditions du Centre Pompidou, 2011), 91. Translations from this source by Mariana Brandão.

^* “une sorte d'ivresse qui va de la langueur au délire, d'une sorte d'abandon hypnotique à une sorte de fureur.” Valéry, “Philosophie de la danse,” 96.

^* Moira Hodgson wrote of Paul Taylor's performance with New York City Ballet in George Balanchine's Episodes (1959), “Balanchine told him to pretend he was a fly trapped in a glass of milk. No one was capable of replacing him afterward and the solo was dropped.” Quintet: Five American Dance Companies (New York: William Morrow, 1976), 13.

^† Louppe also discusses “phrasing,” with regard to organizing time, in Poética, 156–58.

^†† “O body swayed to music, O brightening glance, / How can we know the dancer from the dance?” William Yeats, “Among School Children,” Poetry Foundation, 1933, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/43293.

^* Schlemmer considered the possibility of having music only in the “head” of the dancer, to highlight the optical effects and movements. His Triadic Ballet, started in 1916, never depended on music and became set only with Paul Hindemith's composition (for mechanical organ) in 1923, since lost.

^† Regarding audience responses of incomprehension to his stage work, Schlemmer wrote in his diary about his Round Dance in Lacquer, “The educated people were much taken with it, the simple people asked: ‘What is that supposed to mean?’ But that is the usual fate of such things.” Schlemmer, quoted in Walter Gropius, ed., The Theater of the Bauhaus (London: Eyre Methuen, 1979), 392.

^†† László Moholy-Nagy made a similar claim in “Theater, Circus, Variety,” in Gropius, Theater of the Bauhaus, 50.

^* Citing Otto Runge, Schlemmer remarked, “It is precisely in the case of those works of art which most truly arise from the imagination and the mystique of our soul, unhampered by externals and unburdened by history, that the strictest regularity is necessary.” In Theater of the Bauhaus, 85.

^† Schlemmer, The Letters and Diaries of Oskar Schlemmer (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press,1972), 243. The “return” to elementary and basic movements of everyday life would become a major feature of the work developed by the Judson Dance Theater and is reflected in their performances and dances. See, for example, Yvonne Rainer's first film, Hand Movie (1966), consisting of a single take of about five minutes of one of her hands moving.

^†† This appreciation for stage work was not shared by all Bauhaus artists; sometimes Schlemmer's writings are pervaded by an inferiority complex in relation to the leaders of other workshops, who in practice had much higher budgets, which he interpreted as indicating disregard for his work.

^* “Bisogna superare le possibilità muscolari, e tendere nella danza a quell'ideale corpo moltiplicato dal motore che noi abbiamo sognato da molto tempo” (We must overcome muscular possibilities, and aim in the dance for the ideal multiplied body of the engine of which we have long dreamed). Filippo Marinetti, Manifesti e scritti vari (Milan: A. Mondadori, 1968), 187–88. Translation by Mariana Brandão.

^* Rosalind Krauss, Passages in Modern Sculpture (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1981), 201. According to Virginia Spivey, Morris wanted to be inside the column, causing it to fall apparently alone, but because of a head injury suffered during a rehearsal, he had to give up the idea, instead making the column fall by pulling it with wires. “The Minimal Presence of Simone Forti,” Woman's Art Journal, vol. 30, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 2009): 11–18.

^† In this early phase of her work, Brown sometimes used untrained performers. Later in her career, when these pieces were presented internationally, local dancers were selected for the performances, which suggests Brown's recognition of the usefulness of specialized body control for obtaining the desired result. See for example, the discussion by Elizabeth Streb of her 2010 performance of this work: “Elizabeth Streb Discusses Trisha Brown's ‘Man Walking Down the Side of a Building,’” Whitney Museum of American Art, December 13, 2010, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9kxWm31jh3Q (accessed July 18, 2017).

^* Yves Klein, in 1961, wrote on the issue of detachment: “By maintaining myself at a specific and obligatory distance from the surface to be painted, I am able to resolve the problem of detachment.” See Yves Klein, “The Chelsea Hotel Manifesto,” http://www.artep.net/kam/manifesto.html.

^* On denial of limitations, see Hans Ulrich Obrist and Yoko Ono, “Mix a building and the wind: An Interview of Yoko Ono by Hans Ulrich Obrist,” 2002, http://projects.e-flux.com/do_it/notes/interview/i002.html (accessed July 18, 2017).

1. Carol Simpson Stern and Bruce Henderson, Performance: Texts and Contexts (New York: Longman Publishing Group, 1993), 382–83.

2. Martha Graham, quoted in Merle Armitage, Martha Graham (New York: Dance Horizons, 1996), 101–2.

3. Paul Taylor, quoted in Moira Hodgson, Quintet: Five American Dance Companies (New York: William Morrow, 1976), 15–16.

4. Michael Kirby, The Art of Time: Essays on the Avant-Garde (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1969), 109.

5. Rudolf Laban, The Mastery of Movement (London: Macdonald and Evans, 1960). See also Rudolf Laban, “Vision de l'espace dynamique” (1938–1950), in Danser sa vie. Écrits sur la danse, ed. Emma Lavige and Christine Macel (Paris: Éditions du Centre Pompidou, 2011), 113. All translations from this source by Mariana Brandão.

6. Laurence Louppe, Poética da Dança Contemporânea (Lisbon: Orfeu Negro, 2012). All translations from this source by Mariana Brandão.

7. Karmen MacKendrick, “Embodying Transgression,” in Of the Presence of the Body: Essays on Dance and Performance Theory (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2004), 140–56.

8. Gordon Craig, quoted in Francis Steegmuller, Your Isadora: The Love Story of Isadora Duncan and Gordon Craig (New York: Random House, 1974), 161–62.

9. Laban, Mastery of Movement, 8.

10. Renato Cohen, Performance como Linguagem (São Paulo: Perspectiva, 2007), 110. Translation by Mariana Brandão.

11. Ibid., 96.

12. Paul Taylor, quoted in Cynthia Lyle, Dancers on Dancing (New York: Drake Publishers, 1977), 119.

13. José Gil on Merce Cunningham, quoted in David-Alexandre Guéniot, ed., Doc. Lab, Uma Publicação Lesível, Sobre práticas do corpo e movimentos do pensamento (Lisbon: RE.AL, 2000), 59. Translation by Mariana Brandão.

14. Paul Valéry, “Philosophie de la danse” (1936), in Lavige and Macel, Danser sa vie, 88; Simone Forti, quoted in Sally Banes, Terpsichore in Sneakers, Post-Modern Dance (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1980), 34–35.

15. Banes, Terpsichore in Sneakers, 119.

16. Jean-George Noverre, Letters on Dancing and Ballets, trans. Cyril Beaumont (Alton, UK: Dance Books, 2004), 96.

17. Rudolf Laban, “Vision de l'espace dynamique,” 114.

18. Louppe, Poética, 137–38.

19. Reported in Paul Taylor, “Down with Choreography” (1977), in The Modern Dance: Seven Statements of Belief, ed. Selma Jeanne Cohen (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1967), 97.

20. Oskar Schlemmer, quoted in Walter Gropius, ed., The Theater of the Bauhaus (London: Eyre Methuen, 1979), 18.

21. Calvin Tomkins, Duchamp (London: Chatto & Windus, 1997), 4.

22. Schlemmer, quoted in Gropius, Theater of the Bauhaus, 82, 128.

23. Eric Michaud, “Technique de la grâce (sur Oskar Schlemmer et Heinrich von Kleist),” in Transpositions. Hypothèses sur le mouvement, ed. Jean-Louis Schefer (Paris: La Ferme du Buisson, Centre d'Art Contemporain, 1993), 16. Translation by Mariana Brandão.

24. Laban, Mastery of Movement, 9.

25. Arthur S. Wensinger, quoted in Gropius, Theater of the Bauhaus, 50.

26. Ibid.

27. Schlemmer, quoted in Gropius, Theater of the Bauhaus, 96.

28. Gropius, Theater of the Bauhaus, 8–9.

29. Matthias Eberle, World War I and the Weimar Artists (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985), 108.

30. Daniel Dobbels, “La douceur,” in Oskar Schlemmer (Lyon: Gilles Fage, Réunion des musées nationaux, 1999), 195. Translation by Mariana Brandão.

31. Ibid.

32. Laurence Louppe, “Les danses du Bauhaus: une généalogie de la modernité,” in Oskar Schlemmer, 177–93. Translation by Mariana Brandão.

33. Heinrich von Kleist, On the Marionette Theatre, 1810, http://www.virtually-anything.org/kleist.pdf (accessed July 18, 2017).

34. Schefer, Transpositions, 11. Translation by Mariana Brandão.

35. Gordon Craig, quoted in Michael Kirby and Victoria Nes Kirby, Futurist Performance (New York: PAJ Publications, 1986), 76.

36. Bruce Nauman, Art Make-Up, June 3, 2012, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOB5L89cC8A (accessed July 18, 2017).

37. Cohen, Performance como Linguagem, 100.

38. Banes, Terpsichore in Sneakers, 86.

39. Ulay, interview with Linda Montano, Performance Artists Talking in the Eighties (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2000), 330.

40. Yvonne Rainer, quoted in Gregory Battcock, Minimal Art: A Critical Anthology (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1968), 267.

41. Jp McMahon, “Vito Acconci, Following Piece,” Khan Academy, http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/conceptual-artacconcis-following-piece.html (accessed July 18, 2017).

42. See Shannon Jackson, “Performativity and Its Addressee,” in On Performativity, ed. Elizabeth Carpenter, vol. 1 of Living Collections Catalogue (Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 2014), http://walkerart.org/collections/publications/performativity/performativity-and-its-addressee (accessed July 30, 2014).

43. Kirby, The Art of Time, 94. See also Michael Kirby, Happenings: An Illustrated Anthology (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1966), 20.

44. See also Jorge Glusberg, A Arte da Performance (São Paulo: Perspectiva, 2009), 102.

45. Scott Burton, quoted in Seth Sieglaub, Marion Fricke, and Roswitha Fricke, The Context of Art / The Art of Context (Trieste, Italy: Nevado Press, 2004), 19.

46. See also Acconci, in Michael Rush, New Media in Late 20th-Century Art (New York: Thames & Hudson, 1999), 50.