Reception and Analysis of Nietzsche's Apollonian and Dionysian
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DOCTORAL THESIS Reception and analysis of Nietzsche’s Apollonian and Dionysian aesthetics in the writing and choreographic practice of Six Dance Figures: 1900-1948 Straus, Rachel Award date: 2019 General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ? Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 26. Sep. 2021 Reception and Analysis of Nietzsche’s Apollonian and Dionysian Aesthetics in the Writing and Choreographic Practice of Six Dance Figures: 1900-1948 by Rachel Straus BA, MFA, MS A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of PhD Department of Dance University of Roehampton 2019 Abstract This thesis investigates how Friedrich Nietzsche’s two original aesthetic concepts, the Apollonian and the Dionysian, helped to articulate the self-understandings of modern dance and ballet in the writing and choreographic practice, produced between 1900 and 1948, of six key figures in the history of Western concert dance: Akim Volynsky (1861-1926), Isadora Duncan (1877-1927), Mary Wigman (1886- 1973), Oskar Schlemmer (1888-1943), John Martin (1893-1985), and Lincoln Kirstein (1907- 1996). As partially inspired by the identities of romanticism and classicism, the formulations created by Nietzsche (1844-1900) provided a set of ideas that helped to communicate the tensions between two early twentieth- century, concomitant dance movements: modern dance and neoclassical ballet. In The Birth of Tragedy (1872), Nietzsche conceptualised the Apollonian to signify rationality, purity, order and the individual; and these values were employed to help articulate the neoclassical ballet aesthetics of Volynsky, Schlemmer and Kirstein—the latter in reference to George Balanchine’s neoclassical works. Nietzsche designated the Dionysian to signify ecstasy, sensuality, chaos and the communal; and these values were instrumental in the formulations of modern dance aesthetics by Duncan, Wigman and Martin— the latter in reference to Martha Graham’s works. Expanding upon pioneering scholarship devoted to Nietzsche and dance, this thesis also examines the scholarly discussions about Nietzsche’s diverse references to dance in his philosophical works. The 1 methodology of the present research is based on the conceptualisation of ‘interpretive’ social science by the sociologist Max Weber. According to Weber, concepts can be used to achieve an interpretation of historical movements through a reconstruction of social actors’ self-understandings. The actors themselves, that is to say, the artists and dance writers analysed in this work often expressed their intentions, purposes and opinions in terms of the Apollonian-Dionysian opposition, as defined by Nietzsche. This project seeks to reconstruct, clarify, and synthesise the attempts at self-understanding of the historical actors under study. 2 Declaration I certify that this thesis has not been submitted previously for a degree. Except where otherwise indicated, this thesis has been written by me. The support that I received during the process of researching and writing this thesis is detailed in the acknowledgements. 3 Acknowledgements I would first like to thank my tutors Drs. Stacey Prickett and Helena Hammond. They embraced my project from the start and supported me while I taught for periods of time at The Juilliard School in New York City. Their wide-ranging knowledge of dance studies have informed me; their guidance, patience, humour and warmth have buoyed me. Their careful reading of my drafts immeasurably helped me to sharpen my project’s research, argumentation, and organisation. I am deeply appreciative of the probing lectures and important scholarship of Professors Stephanie Jordan and Andrée Grau, Drs. Larraine Nicholas, and Anna Pakes at University of Roehampton. The Dance Research programme is a model for the field. Its scholars are its bounty. I am grateful to the late Lawrence Rhodes, Artistic Director Emeritus of the Dance Division at The Julliard School, because he valued dance research work. He facilitated a new schedule for me at Juilliard so that I could concentrate my teaching into shorter periods of time in order to carry out this project. To my innumerable dance studio teachers who inspired and provided me with a life-long love for movement expression and rigour, thank you. To professor Denis Donoghue, the Henry James Chair of English and American Letters at New York 4 University, I am indebted to your instruction in close readings of poetry. It has served as my foundation for observing and writing about dance. To Lynn Garafola, Professor Emerita of Dance of Barnard College/Columbia University, and Deborah Jowitt, former Master Teacher at NYU/Tisch School of the Arts, I aspire to your incisive, elegant writing styles and wide-ranging knowledge. To the instructors at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, thank you for teaching me that writer’s block usually signals that sufficient information has not been gathered. I dearly thank my mother, Dr. Nina Pelikan Straus. She was my first teacher. Her passion for literature, as a site of meaning and imagination, I applied first to my passion for dance and then to my passion for writing about dance. I embrace my father who, along with my mother, ferried me to auditions and gracefully returned home to pick up my forgotten costumes—more than once. To my Musical America editor Susan Elliott, I treasure your unwavering faith in my dance writing. Publishing (and paying) for my reviews about the New York and European dance scene has been a boon. To my husband Agustín Ferraro, your unwavering love has made the writing of this thesis an adventure. 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................. 1 DECLARATION ............................................................................................................ 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .............................................................................................. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS .................................................................................................. 6 INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................... 8 TERMINOLOGY AND HISTORICAL SLIPPAGE ............................................................................... 15 NIETZSCHE IN TRANSLATION …………………………………………………………………………………………… 21 AN ENDURING INTEREST IN TWO DANCE GENRES ...................................................................... 22 PATHWAYS TO INVESTIGATION ............................................................................................... 29 THE RESEARCH, ITS CONTRIBUTIONS, AIMS, AND OBJECTIVES ...................................................... 31 METHODOLOGICAL APPROACHES ........................................................................................... 32 STRUCTURE AND SCOPE OF THE THESIS .................................................................................... 33 CHAPTER 1: NIETZSCHE’S ANALYSIS OF GREEK TRAGEDY............................................ 41 SCHEMA OF CHAPTER 1 ........................................................................................................ 42 1.1 Nietzsche, Modernity and the Arts in Crisis .......................................................... 43 1.2 Nietzsche and Dance in the Greek Tragedy .......................................................... 48 1.3 Nietzsche’s Criticism of Socrates .......................................................................... 66 1.4 The Birth of Tragedy ............................................................................................. 74 1.5 Schopenhauer, Wagner and the Creation of Myths ............................................. 78 CHAPTER 2: THE DANCING PHILOSOPHER .................................................................. 87 2.1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................. 88 2.2 Art and Gender Identities in The Birth of Tragedy ................................................ 91 2.3 Nietzsche and Dance in the Philosophic Discipline ............................................. 104 2.4 Nietzsche and Dance in Gender Studies ............................................................. 123 2.5 Nietzsche and Dance in Dance Studies ............................................................... 130 CHAPTER 3: ISADORA DUNCAN AND AKIM VOLYNSKY ............................................. 148 3.1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................... 149 3.2 Fin de Siècle Nietzsche Reception ....................................................................... 151 3.3 A Differing Reading of The Birth of Tragedy