Reflections on Improvisation, Choreography and Risk-Taking in Advanced Capitalism

Reflections on Risk-Taking in Advanced Capitalism in Advanced Risk-Taking and Choreography Improvisation, Reflections on Improvisation, Choreography and Risk-Taking in Advanced Capitalism JOÃO CERQUEIRA DA SILVA JUNIOR JOÃO CERQUEIRA CERQUEIRA JOÃO DA SILVA JUNIOR SILVA DA 08 KINESIS Reflections on Improvisation, Choreography and Risk-Taking in Advanced Capitalism JOÃO CERQUEIRA DA SILVA JUNIOR JOÃO CERQUEIRA DA SILVA JUNIOR REFLECTIONS ON IMPROVISATION, CHOREOGRAPHY AND RISK-TAKING IN ADVANCED CAPITALISM KINESIS 8 ISBN (Paperpack) 978-952-7218-18-1 ISSN (Paperpack) 2242-5314 ISBN (PDF) 978-952-7218-19-8 ISSN (PDF) 2242-590X PUBLISHER University of the Arts Helsinki, Theatre Academy © 2017, University of the Arts Helsinki, Theatre Academy, João Cerqueira da Silva Junior GRAPHIC DESIGN BOND Creative Agency www.bond.fi COVER IMAGE Sammi Landweer LAYOUT Atte Tuulenkylä, Edita Prima Ltd PRINTED BY Edita Prima Ltd, Helsinki 2017 PAPER Scandia 2000 Natural 240 g/m2 & Scandia 2000 Natural 115 g/m2 FONTS Benton Modern Two & Monosten Contents Introduction 9 0.1 Not knowing and Responsibility 16 0.2 Culture of Fear and Innovation in Advanced Capitalism 19 0.3 Choreography~Improvisation in Advanced Capitalism 24 0.4 Risk-Taking in the Arts 29 0.5 Approaches to Improvisation 35 0.5.1 O’Donnell’s Responsible Anarchy (RA) 40 0.5.2 O’Donnell’s Holding Form (HF) 42 0.5.3 Rodrigues’s Anthropophagy 43 0.6 Way of Working 46 0.7 Structure 47 Chapter 1: Dance Improvisation and Risk-Taking, A Literature Review, Intro 51 1.1 Literature Review 52 1.2 Dimensions pertaining to Risk-Taking: An Overview 78 1.3 Conclusion 80 Chapter 2: Dance Improvisation and Choreography, Intro 83 2.1 A (brief) Historical Account of Dance Improvisation as the ‘Other’ of Choreography 86 Chapter 3: Spontaneity, Intro 115 3.1 The Etymology of Spontaneity 116 3.2 Moreno’s Theory of Spontaneity 117 3.3 Preparedness 121 3.4 Conscious Thinking 127 3.5 Novelty 134 3.6 Conclusion 141 Chapter 4: Theories and Understandings of Risk Outside of Dance, Intro 145 4.1 Early Usages of Risk and Risk from Mid-20th Century Onwards 145 4.1.1 Uncertainty and Risk 149 4.1.2 Danger and Risk 150 4.1.3 Prediction, Anticipation, and Expectation 151 4.2 Realist versus Constructivist Epistemologies of Risk 152 4.2.1 Cultural Theory 153 4.2.2 Systems Theory 155 4.2.2.1 Decision-Making 161 4.2.3 Governmentality 164 4.2.4 Edgework 168 4.3 Conclusion 173 Chapter 5: The Question of How to Be Together on Stage, Intro 175 5.1 How to Be Together: A Shared Concern 176 5.2 In Relation to the Spatiotemporal Context of the Works 180 5.3 In Relation to Edges or Boundaries 185 5.4 In Relation to Self-Control and Responsibility 194 5.5 In Relation to Failure, Listening, and Trust 204 5.6 In Relation to Decision-Making 210 5.7 Conclusion 216 Epilogue: The Question of How to Be Together in the World 219 Appendices 241 Cited Bibliography 254 Acknowledgments 269 JOÃO CERQUEIRA DA SILVA JUNIOR 9 Introduction A study of the literature of the past thirty years, particularly how dance scholars and artists alike have theorized risk-taking in dance, shows that risk-taking is very often alluded to as an engagement with or the pursuit of the unknown. It also shows that such engagement or pursuit is more present in improvisation than in choreography, improvisation being often articulated in opposition to chore- ography1. In this relation of opposition, choreography is identified with planned and previously decided-upon forms and improvisation as a practice in which at least some decisions are made in real time, spontaneously. In short: the more unplanned, unknown and spon- taneous the action, the more risk-taking will be involved. Study of the same literature shows, in addition, that risk-taking in dance (engaging with the unknown) is often alluded to in relation to other notions such as trust, failure, listening, control, decision-making, and responsibility. These, however, are not often exposed in detail or in context. My intention here is to shed more 1 Choreography (from the Greek khoreia ‘dance’ + graphein ‘to write’) is often conflated with other terms such as (dance) composition, writing, inscription, structure, law, the given and even product creativity. Examples abound of how authors move seamlessly between the terms composition and choreography, using them as synonymous. Doris Humphrey’s book, The Art of Making Dances (41, 45, 46, 66, 92), is a good example; another is dance scholar Susan Leigh Foster’s Reading Dancing, in which, despite the fact that Foster does not present choreography and composition as the same, the close proximity of the terms in the text leaves room for ambiguity (99-185). Foster becomes more explicit in her genealogy of the notion of choreography in her later book Choreographing Empathy. REFLECTIONS ON IMPROVISATION, CHOREOGRAPHY AND RISK-TAKING IN ADVANCED CAPITALISM 10 light on these notions and, by extension, to investigate the nature of risk-taking in dance beyond the assumptions regarding the al- leged opposition between improvisation and choreography. I will do this by means of an examination of two pieces, Faust (1993) by American Mary O’Donnell (Fulkerson), a dance for thirteen dancers that is highly structured but clearly improvised, and Pororoca (2009) by Brazilian Lia Rodrigues, a dance for eleven dancers that is meticulously choreographed but often perceived as improvised2. My choice of the work of these two choreographers is, other than my involvement with O’Donnell’s Faust as dancer and a pro- found admiration for the pioneering work of both, based on the fact that both choreographers have made pieces that, in their overall form, are closed (set), but both employ open and non-prescriptive strategies to come to it. It is how different their strategies to set the overall form are that is productive for my attempt to unsettle the usual opposition between choreography and improvisation. It will also help me show that an understanding of what risk-taking in dance entails becomes clearest when one perceives improvisation and choreography as always related dynamically, tangled up in the various ways of knowing that any one dance fosters and requires. This includes an awareness of the potential encounter with the unknown within the dance. Thus, even in a dance as meticulously choreographed as Rodrigues’ Pororoca, improvisation will always take place, however minimally. In other words, here I propose that improvisation and choreography, as well as the unknown and the known, are dimensions of any dance danced by a human, dimen- 2 One can refer to their biographies and a list of their works in the Appendix section at the end of the book. JOÃO CERQUEIRA DA SILVA JUNIOR 11 sions that are always present, but to different degrees, depending on the dance. Moreover, these differing dimensions are never fully determining of any one dance, because a dance is always more than the sum of its dimensions. Consequently, risk-taking itself cannot be fully known a priori either. My choice of the work of these two choreographers is also based on their approach to improvisation, the scope of their work and the vast web of references they make use of and produce. These enable me to make my point about improvisation and choreography being differentially entangled (not in a relation of opposition) and, following from this, that knowing and not knowing—also differentially entangled—condition, but cannot determine whether risks that matter to the work are taken or not. Thus, following sociologist Ulrich Beck3, I here propose risk as a highly hybrid and dynamic object. Clearly, the above characteristics are not unique to Faust and Pororoca. One can find similar methodologies that weave materials set in advance with improvised materials in real-time in the work of many choreographers, as, for instance, in the work of William Forsythe. A crucial difference, however, between Forsythe’s work and Faust and Pororoca is that in his choreographies the movement materials used are often highly codified at the level of form, following well-known dance techniques (ballet) that are intimately shared, if not by the whole ensemble then by most of the dancers. In Faust and Pororoca, arguably more in Faust, dancers do not share a common heritage in terms of formal training and so the movement 3 Beck drew on Bruno Latour’s Actor Network Theory. See, for example, Beck’s World at Risk (2011), Deborah Lupton’s Risk (1999) or Zinn’s Social Theories of Risk and Uncertainty (2008). REFLECTIONS ON IMPROVISATION, CHOREOGRAPHY AND RISK-TAKING IN ADVANCED CAPITALISM 12 material they as a group produce is not only a huge mix of different techniques and styles but also different levels of proficiency in these. This makes reading the works—as an audience member and as dancer within the piece—a challenge, less easy for one dancer to predict what another dancer might do in each moment. This is more so in Faust. Moreover, the way these works make use of improvisation is not to be confused with what can be found in a contact improvisation jam where the issue of repeatability of movement forms or patterns is very different. For example, a movement form might repeatedly re-appear in a contact jam, such as a roll over the back of a body or a lift, both of which might have been practiced beforehand in other similar circumstances, but are not consciously planned, as is the case with specific movements inFaust and Poro- roca, more so in Pororoca than in Faust.

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