faculty dance concert, fall 2006
As early as 1922, Oskar Schlemmer employed strategies which were to define the possibilities of “modern” dance under the umbrella of the Bauhaus. His conception of human “presence” on stage was not to be “a portrayal of individual expression” manifested by pathos, but rather the manifestation of “formal stage elements” such as “space, form, colour, light, and materials. ” The sidestepping of the human dancer suggests an invocation of its performance elements which become constitutive of the dance itself. In other words, the Modern dancer, in Schlemmer-speak, is the total composition of its theatrical elements, rather than the human provocateur.
Such was the case, exemplified by Jody Sperling in La Nuit, involving the manipulation of successive layers of long, flowing garments. Sperling’s continual working of the costume became a motif central to the performance; the perpetual flux of the cloth’s hem-line moving rapidly in space recalls Laban’s theoretical disposition for movement as “a continuous flow within space itself … [and space as] the concealed basic feature of movement ”. The fluctuations of the line in space became the focus of the dance, along with the space it ‘carves out’ or draws the eye to. Each successive layer of cloth that Sperling sheds creates a physical threshold; her awakening sexuality is dramatically unveiled by the physical shedding of her premature inhibitions, a lengthy black drape that shrouds the motion of her limbs. The line is never lost through her metamorphoses: instead, the relationship between line and space is utilised to reveal new levels of freedom.
Sperling’s ‘chrysalis’ phase draws out and defines space at an elemental level: her broad, low strokes of black material sweeps out and explores the void of black around her as if it were once a component of the void it emanated from. The substance of her youth which at once imprisons, becomes the element of her sexuality (transforming into a magnificent cape that augments the splendour of her dress), and the motion of the line arcs out a larger field of space through fluid, breath-like motions. In a twist of narrative, Sperling’s final shedding returns the space to the element of the human, but one that is bereft of movement, hinting at the catastrophic transformative power of society and popular culture. Her semi-nakedness becomes a new map of space in the form of static contour, as if space itself has been collapsed into an object of desire, erasing the possibilities of free uninhibited movement characteristic of her earlier explorations.
In contrast, Kim Root’s Players expands the playing field of movement and space through the identification of 2 independent but coexistent spaces: the stage space occupied by the dancers and virtual space, occupied by the image of a pianist projected onto a mound of cloth suspended from the ceiling. Players takes its reference point from the Western Silent film tradition; the projected video of the pianist is occasionally interrupted with slides of text. As a performance unit, Players aligns itself to Schlemmer’s aesthetics of the total theatrical experience, the sum of its theatrical parts: even emblematic costumes are thrown into this confusing postmodernist pantomime. Dancers resemble vaudeville characters, and movements are stylised to capture the polar extremities between hero/villain, oppressor/oppressed and innocent/guilty, as well as to call into question the nature of their boundaries. During the pas de deux between the ‘hero’ and the ‘villian’, each character melts into the other: the villain sometimes adopts the posture of the hero, and the hero melts into the role of the oppressor. At times, both characters fully mimic each other’s rhythmic gestures, neither following nor leading until they have become inseparable elements of a total unit. These shifting boundaries are re-emphasized by the same dancers re-entering theatrical space in different costumes: the “performer” is blatantly identified by the audience; the performance is merely an ‘enactment’ of one’s roles.
The shifting nature of a “centre” of performance further augments a sense of spatial disorientation, mimicking the destruction of constructed character-dependent boundaries. Holistically, the performance can be seen as a postmodern unit dealing with plural space: the virtual (but equally valid) realm of the pianist versus the visceral space of (live) performers. Building upon the given notion that “any arbitrary point in space can become a centre ”, either regions in the performance has equal claim as a performative “centre”. Is the focus of the piece the underlying mechanism (pianist) that supports the performance, or is it the “played out” action? The Players further aggrandizes this relationship by reversing the roles of the traditional silent film. Whereas the pianist was originally the “live” element of the performance and the projected image the focus of the performance, the pianist becomes the object of the film, whilst the “live performance” takes on an implied secondary role to the projection. Through this messy web of reversals, it is ultimately the audience that shapes the overall arc of movement, vacillating between the simultaneous motion of the pianist, text, and live performers. Much like scanning a work of art, the audience’s eyes are drawn to multiple focus points that mark out the form of the painting, as Kaprow identifies:
“[S]low march of … [the viewer’s] eyes and body before the canvas. The accent is really on our sensations. ”
As movement creates space, the eye-line movement of the audience also carves out and manipulates the performative experience of the Players, pointing to the possible (co)-existence of multiple aesthetic centres individually identified by the viewer. However, the existence of “centres” within the dance suggests an implicit sense of stability, or equilibrium in contrast with its surroundings. It is this very sense of dynamic equilibrium (a process of reaching-towards) that Patricia Beaman and Seth Williams’ Cuddle evokes. Framed within a style depicting 17th Century Victorian drawing room episodes, Cuddle explores the dynamics between male and female, as they continually work towards establishing a centre of equilibrium. The equilibristic centre, however, is in a state of perpetual transience, a “never ending change of connecting and loosening ” amidst stillness and movement: “labile states of equilibrium ”, as it were. The performers form sculptures in space defined by the artistry of balance. Using each other as centres of gravity, Beaman balances atop the Williams’ flat back before breaking a sense of equilibristic ‘arrival’ and moving towards the next position. Symmetry between Beaman and Williams is clearly depicted as another form of equilibrium; both performers ‘mirror’ each others’ actions along imagined planes of symmetry creating a tension between their opposing forces, attempting to create “temporary, relative peace” between the male/female figures.
Urip Sri Maeny’s Gambyong, on the other hand, relocates the centre of gravity within the performer itself. Maintaining an austere centre, Maeny’s peripheral motions do little to alter the stability of the dancers’ core. Maeny’s strict control of inner-space likewise affects the focus of outward space: outward space points inward to the dancer’s centre of stability, suggesting a “homunculus-like” proportion in relation to the surrounding space. In other words, Maeny’s structural centre operates to “[structure] space in time ”, re-proportioning the outward space in relation to her inward space (proportion) as a measure. Maeny’s body-space architecture shifts periodically according to her positions onstage, but the overall complex remains constant, locked in a firm state of equilibrium that Cuddle occasionally hints at.
Such was the case, exemplified by Jody Sperling in La Nuit, involving the manipulation of successive layers of long, flowing garments. Sperling’s continual working of the costume became a motif central to the performance; the perpetual flux of the cloth’s hem-line moving rapidly in space recalls Laban’s theoretical disposition for movement as “a continuous flow within space itself … [and space as] the concealed basic feature of movement ”. The fluctuations of the line in space became the focus of the dance, along with the space it ‘carves out’ or draws the eye to. Each successive layer of cloth that Sperling sheds creates a physical threshold; her awakening sexuality is dramatically unveiled by the physical shedding of her premature inhibitions, a lengthy black drape that shrouds the motion of her limbs. The line is never lost through her metamorphoses: instead, the relationship between line and space is utilised to reveal new levels of freedom.
Sperling’s ‘chrysalis’ phase draws out and defines space at an elemental level: her broad, low strokes of black material sweeps out and explores the void of black around her as if it were once a component of the void it emanated from. The substance of her youth which at once imprisons, becomes the element of her sexuality (transforming into a magnificent cape that augments the splendour of her dress), and the motion of the line arcs out a larger field of space through fluid, breath-like motions. In a twist of narrative, Sperling’s final shedding returns the space to the element of the human, but one that is bereft of movement, hinting at the catastrophic transformative power of society and popular culture. Her semi-nakedness becomes a new map of space in the form of static contour, as if space itself has been collapsed into an object of desire, erasing the possibilities of free uninhibited movement characteristic of her earlier explorations.
In contrast, Kim Root’s Players expands the playing field of movement and space through the identification of 2 independent but coexistent spaces: the stage space occupied by the dancers and virtual space, occupied by the image of a pianist projected onto a mound of cloth suspended from the ceiling. Players takes its reference point from the Western Silent film tradition; the projected video of the pianist is occasionally interrupted with slides of text. As a performance unit, Players aligns itself to Schlemmer’s aesthetics of the total theatrical experience, the sum of its theatrical parts: even emblematic costumes are thrown into this confusing postmodernist pantomime. Dancers resemble vaudeville characters, and movements are stylised to capture the polar extremities between hero/villain, oppressor/oppressed and innocent/guilty, as well as to call into question the nature of their boundaries. During the pas de deux between the ‘hero’ and the ‘villian’, each character melts into the other: the villain sometimes adopts the posture of the hero, and the hero melts into the role of the oppressor. At times, both characters fully mimic each other’s rhythmic gestures, neither following nor leading until they have become inseparable elements of a total unit. These shifting boundaries are re-emphasized by the same dancers re-entering theatrical space in different costumes: the “performer” is blatantly identified by the audience; the performance is merely an ‘enactment’ of one’s roles.
The shifting nature of a “centre” of performance further augments a sense of spatial disorientation, mimicking the destruction of constructed character-dependent boundaries. Holistically, the performance can be seen as a postmodern unit dealing with plural space: the virtual (but equally valid) realm of the pianist versus the visceral space of (live) performers. Building upon the given notion that “any arbitrary point in space can become a centre ”, either regions in the performance has equal claim as a performative “centre”. Is the focus of the piece the underlying mechanism (pianist) that supports the performance, or is it the “played out” action? The Players further aggrandizes this relationship by reversing the roles of the traditional silent film. Whereas the pianist was originally the “live” element of the performance and the projected image the focus of the performance, the pianist becomes the object of the film, whilst the “live performance” takes on an implied secondary role to the projection. Through this messy web of reversals, it is ultimately the audience that shapes the overall arc of movement, vacillating between the simultaneous motion of the pianist, text, and live performers. Much like scanning a work of art, the audience’s eyes are drawn to multiple focus points that mark out the form of the painting, as Kaprow identifies:
“[S]low march of … [the viewer’s] eyes and body before the canvas. The accent is really on our sensations. ”
As movement creates space, the eye-line movement of the audience also carves out and manipulates the performative experience of the Players, pointing to the possible (co)-existence of multiple aesthetic centres individually identified by the viewer. However, the existence of “centres” within the dance suggests an implicit sense of stability, or equilibrium in contrast with its surroundings. It is this very sense of dynamic equilibrium (a process of reaching-towards) that Patricia Beaman and Seth Williams’ Cuddle evokes. Framed within a style depicting 17th Century Victorian drawing room episodes, Cuddle explores the dynamics between male and female, as they continually work towards establishing a centre of equilibrium. The equilibristic centre, however, is in a state of perpetual transience, a “never ending change of connecting and loosening ” amidst stillness and movement: “labile states of equilibrium ”, as it were. The performers form sculptures in space defined by the artistry of balance. Using each other as centres of gravity, Beaman balances atop the Williams’ flat back before breaking a sense of equilibristic ‘arrival’ and moving towards the next position. Symmetry between Beaman and Williams is clearly depicted as another form of equilibrium; both performers ‘mirror’ each others’ actions along imagined planes of symmetry creating a tension between their opposing forces, attempting to create “temporary, relative peace” between the male/female figures.
Urip Sri Maeny’s Gambyong, on the other hand, relocates the centre of gravity within the performer itself. Maintaining an austere centre, Maeny’s peripheral motions do little to alter the stability of the dancers’ core. Maeny’s strict control of inner-space likewise affects the focus of outward space: outward space points inward to the dancer’s centre of stability, suggesting a “homunculus-like” proportion in relation to the surrounding space. In other words, Maeny’s structural centre operates to “[structure] space in time ”, re-proportioning the outward space in relation to her inward space (proportion) as a measure. Maeny’s body-space architecture shifts periodically according to her positions onstage, but the overall complex remains constant, locked in a firm state of equilibrium that Cuddle occasionally hints at.
posted by HT, with T for Teh at 6:45 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home