Soma journey 6 - dance & movement history
No to spectacle. No to virtuosity. No to transformations and magic and make-believe. No to the glamour and transcendency of the star image. No to the heroic. No to the anti-heroic. No to trash imagery. No to involvement of performer or spectator. No to style. No to camp. No to seduction of spectator by the wiles of the performer. No to eccentricity. No to moving or being moved.
Yvonne Rainer (1965)
I'm currently doing a course on dance history and it's absolutely fascinating. I have heard a lot of the 'important' names in dance sporadically throughout my life but have never had it all laid out in a coherent and chronological order. It's been fascinating to discover when specific forms of movement had appeared and how. Of course, XX century is the most interesting for me personally - partly to do with the amount of resources (films especially) available.
I wanted to highlight a few groups and people who have left an impression on me (in all honesty, there's too many to name):
1. Valeska Gert - people call her the punk movement originator. She refused to be whatever society wanted her to be and instead was completely original and outrageous in her performance work. She even simulated orgasm on stage - in like 1930s?!
2. Judson Dance Theater - a short lived but very influential collective of dancers, filmmakers, composers and others from 1962-1966 in the USA. Similar motives as Fluxus groups, they rejected glamour and spectacle and this way helped invent Post Modern dance. Yvonne Rainer's 'No Manifesto' I quoted at the top was part of it. Even though I don't neccessaily agree with all the points of it now, but the lack of authority, democratization of performance and creation is very close to my idea of how we should be creating - collectively and actively. One of my favourite filmmakers Carolee Schneemann was also part of the group and her seminal work 'Meat Joy' (1964) was certainly quite groundbreaking, considering it was also perormed in a church. Steve Paxon who helped create contact improvisation was also part of the collective.
3. Pina Bausch - I probably don't need to say much here, but there is pure genius in her works. They are so visceral and alive, each and every one of us can feel a direct connection with them. I found it most interesting when the teacher asked our group what was the most memorable thing about XX century dance, a lot of students highlighted Pina. To me this suggests that we all experience deep inner lives that are not expressed through the body, and magically we feel them indirectly through her work. She manages to forcefully capture the realness and pure existance of the movement and being. I'm off to watch Pina by Wim Wenders!