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Set in Motion: Dance Criticism and the Choreographic Apparatus By Kate Mattingly A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Performance Studies and the Designated Emphasis in New Media in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Shannon Jackson, Chair Professor Abigail De Kosnik Professor Anton Kaes Professor SanSan Kwan Spring 2017 Copyright © Kate Mattingly All Rights Reserved Abstract Set in Motion: Dance Criticism and the Choreographic Apparatus By Kate Mattingly Doctor of Philosophy in Performance Studies Designated Emphasis in New Media University of California, Berkeley Professor Shannon Jackson, Chair This dissertation examines the multiple functions of dance criticism in the 20th and 21st centuries in the United States. I foreground institutional interdependencies that shape critics’ practices, as well as criticism’s role in approaches to dance-making, and the necessary and fraught relations between dance criticism and higher education. To challenge the pervasive image of the critic as evaluator and of criticism as definitive, Set in Motion focuses on conditions that produce and endorse certain forms of criticism, and in turn how this writing has gained traction. I employ the concept of a choreographic apparatus to show shifting relations amongst writers, artists, publications, readers, institutions, and audiences. Their interactions generate frameworks that influence dance’s history, canon, and disciplinary formations. I propose a way of situating criticism as a form of writing that intersects with, informs, and influences both history and theory. Set in Motion expands discourse on writing by examining the continuities and discontinuities in practices over the course of a century. Chapter 1 focuses on articles by John Martin in the New York Times the late 1920s and early 1930s. Chapter 2 analyzes how artists in the 1960s, in particular Yvonne Rainer, took hold of the choreographic apparatus to redirect discourse about their projects. In Chapter 3, I expand my analysis from methodologies to the study of educational institutions. Chapter 4 turns to the question, “where is criticism today?” and investigates how digital technologies in the 21st century inform and inflect our engagements with criticism. Set in Motion contributes to dance studies discourses, disciplinary formation, and histories of professionalization by noticing ways in which criticism and theory function less often as opposing forces and primarily as reciprocal and interconnected partners. By recognizing the ways criticism has functioned as a fulcrum to legitimate and leverage particular approaches to dance, this project highlights artists’ and critics’ modes of production that generate and redesign our definitions of dance writing. 1! Table of Contents i Acknowledgements ii Introduction iii Chapter 1: What is dance criticism? John Martin’s impact on disciplinary expectations 1 Chapter 2: Who is a dance critic: Yvonne Rainer’s published performances 27 Chapter 3: Dance Criticism after Dance Studies: Curricular Design as a Critical Framework 47 Chapter 4: Digital Dance Criticism: Screens as Choreographic Apparatus 81 Bibliography 106 i! Acknowledgements: I would like to thank my committee, Shannon Jackson, Abigail De Kosnik, Anton Kaes, and SanSan Kwan, who guided and enriched this project in numerous ways. Thank you also to the Performance Studies faculty and Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies staff at the University of California, Berkeley. I am grateful for the conversations that transpired in seminars as well as coffee shops with my Cal classmates. Both the Arts Research Center and the Berkeley Center for New Media were generative places of thinking, listening, and reflecting, and I’m thankful that I had opportunities to work with Lara Wolfe, Lauren Pearson, and Amber Fogarty on events and projects. Ultimately, without the support systems of both financial assistance and friendships, it would have been impossible to finish this degree. The Beth Burnside Graduate Student Support Fund not only made it possible for me to attend U.C. Berkeley but also brought me into contact with a great mentor and friend, Beth Burnside. At its core this dissertation is about how we discuss, respond to, and appreciate one another’s work, and friendships have been my most present and ongoing sources of learning from and appreciating one another. I am particularly grateful for those who have sustained and inspired me these last six years: Ayelet Even-Nur, Tria Blu Wakpa, Sarah Galender Meyer, Hillary Goidall, Molly Rogers, Karen Sefton Safrit, Caitlin Sims, Marie Tollon, Katherine Conley, Julie Potter, Megan Thompson, Serena Orloff, Helanius Wilkins, Melanie George, and my sister, Virginia Mattingly Friedman. ii! Introduction In October of 2015 choreographer Joe Goode presented a performance called Poetics of Space. Although the event took place at the Joe Goode Annex, his studio- theater in San Francisco, there were no seats or chairs for the audience. The evening was described as an “immersive performance installation,”1 and invited people to meander through make-shift rooms that featured vignettes of dancing, singing, and speaking by his company of performers. At one point I was taken outside of the building by Joe Goode, who played the evening’s narrator, or as he introduced himself to the audience, “a representative of the dead.” Instructed to walk slowly towards him, I realized that our “duet” was visible to members of the audience inside who could see our silhouettes projected on the Annex’s windows. Momentarily suspended between being a watcher and being watched, between Goode’s presence and people’s eyes on me, between seeing a performance and becoming part of the performance, I felt my heart beating faster. Poetics of Space investigated how environments affect us and how they inform our emotions and memories. Influenced by Gaston Bachelard’s book Poetics of Space, Goode collaborated with set designer Sean Riley and lighting designer Jack Carpenter to transform his studio into a spatial, experiential wunderkammer. Nooks and crannies revealed intimate duets and trios. The subtleties and vulnerabilities of our relationships appeared in shifting contexts. The performance itself changed the ways we attend a dance concert, and the expectations we may bring about our roles as audience members. Writing about this event revealed similar negotiations amongst roles of critics, audiences, and readers. Writing in the San Francisco Examiner, dance critic Leslie Katz dismissed the show, starting her review with the statement: “Despite the lofty title, there aren’t many huge revelations about the nature of space in Joe Goode Performance Group’s newest production, ‘Poetics of Space’.”2 Katz complains that an earlier work by Goode, Traveling Light, was “a truly unique experience” and “outrageously original,” whereas Poetics of Space was not. Here we see criticism functioning as a kind of policing of artistic approaches: Katz prefers the theatrical effects of “huge revelations” to the subtler and more intimate negotiations of Goode’s Poetics. Her use of words like “original” and “unique” indicates a preference for choreography that emphasizes individual invention or innovation. The fact that none of the dancers’ names appear in the review points to an approach to choreography that assumes single authorship or individual creation instead of collaboration amongst performers and director. In contrast to Katz’s approach, Jaime Robles writes on a website called Repeat Performances about Poetics of Space: …it is a primary tenet of phenomenology that we move closer to a true understanding of life when we abandon stereotypical or habitual thinking. Once we have done that we can meditate on the objects of life that stand before us, sharing our consciousness and reminding us over and over that we are not alone, !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 1!“Poetics of Space,” vimeo.com, https://vimeo.com/139295843. 2 Leslie Katz, “Intimacy appeals in Joe Goode’s ‘Poetics of Space’,” San Francisco Examiner, October 21, 2015, http://www.sfexaminer.com/intimacy-appeals-in-joe- goodes-poetics-of-space/. iii! and that we are part of a greater––and miraculous––universe. And it is here, to this space, that Joe Goode brings us.3 Reading these two reviews it becomes apparent that one performance can elicit markedly different responses and markedly different approaches to criticism. In these two examples, one is characterized by standards and criteria, suggesting a hierarchy of “good” and “bad” performances, and emphasizing the critic’s role as evaluator. The other investigates the context and contingency of Goode’s work, the way it is in conversation with theoretical frameworks, and how it intentionally disturbs the “habitual” or familiar. Mining the distinctions between these two reviews reveals other differences: in the print publication––San Francisco Examiner––the critic’s tone is authoritative and definitive.4 The review is 329 words. As a critic, Katz distances herself from the audience by writing: “About 60 audience members stand throughout the shape-shifting, hour-long presentation. At times they may follow their own path…” She seems to be observing the observers: “they” are separate from her. On the website, Repeat Performances, Robles begins her piece: “In the darkened space divided by long dark curtains, three of us are silently directed to duck