The Aesthetics of Movement Variations on Gilles Deleuze and Merce Cunningham Camilla Damkjær Doctoral dissertation 2005 In “co-tutelle” with l’Université Paris VIII Department of Musicology and Performance Studies University of Stockholm S-106 91 Stockholm Sweden Abstract This thesis is an interdisciplinary study of the aesthetics of movement in Gilles Deleuze’s writings and in Merce Cunningham’s choreographies. But it is also a study of the movement that arises when the two meet in a series of variations, where also their respective working partners Félix Guattari and John Cage enter. It is a textual happening where the random juxtaposition between seemingly unrelated areas, philosophy and dance, gives rise to arbitrary connections. It is a textual machine, composed of seven parts. First, the methodological architecture of the juxtaposition is introduced and it is shown how this relates to the materials (the philosophy of Deleuze and the aesthetics of Cunningham), the relation between the materials, and the respective contexts of the materials. The presence of movement in Deleuze’s thinking is then presented and the figure of immobile movement is defined. This figure is a leitmotif of the analyses. It is argued that this figure of immobile movement is not only a stylistic element but has implications on a philosophical level, implications that materialise in Deleuze’s texts. Then follow four parts that build a heterogeneous whole. The analysis of movement is continued through four juxtapositions of particular texts and particular choreographies. Through these juxtapositions, different aspects of movement appear and are discussed: the relation between movement and sensation, movement in interaction with other arts, movement as a means of taking the body to its limit, movement as transformation. Through these analyses, the aesthetics of Cunningham is put into new contexts. The analyses also put into relief Deleuze’s use of figures of movement, and these suddenly acquire another kind of importance. In the seventh and concluding part, all this is brought into play. Key words: interdisciplinary studies, Gilles Deleuze, Merce Cunningham, John Cage, Félix Guattari, Francis Bacon, dance, philosophy, movement, choreography, the body, heterogeneity, juxtaposition, representation, happening, chance. © 2005: Camilla Damkjær ISBN 91 86434 27 6 THEATRON-serien Stiftelsen för utgivning av teatervetenskapliga studier 2 Table of contents: Opening . 4 Introduction: Methods and materials . 5 Chapter 1: Movements and images . 33 Chapter 2: L’Athlétisme of the material – Logique de la sensation and Torse . 77 Chapter 3: Moving to le rythme, from chaos to consistance – “1837 – De la ritournelle” and Variations V . .. 121 Chapter 4: How to construct a body in movement – Untitled Solo, Suite by Chance and le corps sans organes . 160 Chapter 5: Movements and transformations of desire – le devenir and Beach Birds for Camera . 206 Conclusion: The jeu of chance . 250 List of abbreviations . 255 Bibliography . 256 Résumé en français . 265 3 Opening This is an interdisciplinary study of the aesthetics of movement in Gilles Deleuze’s writings and in Merce Cunningham’s choreographies. But it is also a study of the movement that arises when the two are confronted in a series of variations. A series of variations that are also inhabited by many more: most prominently by their respective working partners Félix Guattari and John Cage. But on our way we will also meet seemingly peripheral characters that suddenly play a part in the series. It is a series of variations, but it is also a textual happening, where the random juxtaposition between seemingly unrelated characters and areas, Deleuze and Cunningham, philosophy and dance, gives rise to arbitrary meetings and connections. It is a textual experiment where the juxtaposition becomes a machine that produces its own connections and forces your sensation, imagination and thought in sometimes unforeseen directions. It is a study of that which cannot be compared, that which can only be confronted in a meeting, where the similarities and differences, the concordances and discordances, become happy instances of chance. The programme of the experimentation that I will put into action consists of seven parts. Each is individual and yet relates to the whole. Between them non-linear lines are traced. Let us play. 4 Introduction Methods and materials “C’est peut-être que nous sommes en train de vivre d’une nouvelle manière les rapports théorie-pratique.” (ID, 288) In these variations methods and materials are intrinsically related and intertwined. The method mimes the materials, learns from the way the materials relate to each other, and indirectly takes into account the context that surrounds the materials. These three aspects coexist and coincide. The smallest circuit sends us to the largest, which sends us back again. It is a methodological ritournelle. Questions and answers Deleuze (following Bergson) insists that the question of right or wrong does not concern the rightness of the answer, but whether the question is rightly or wrongly asked from the beginning. It is through asking the right questions, and not confusing things that should not be confused, that we get the right answers. The liberty of thought depends on the liberty to formulate your own questions (B, DR). But the material, too, asks questions. For instance, it can ask us questions indirectly through making certain kinds of answers impossible. This is the case in the work of Merce Cunningham. By deliberately making answers that rely on narration and psychology impossible, he asks us, among other things, what signfication and interpretation is. By blocking our usual answers, he forces us to ask our questions differently, and thereby to reflect upon the possible methods we can use to approach his work. My temporary answer to the above question is a methodological choice that does not lead me away from Cunningham, searching for an explanation outside his work. It leads me into the core of his work (or at least one aspect of it) through a mimétique relation to some of his principles, namely, the principle of juxtaposing seemingly unrelated elements, such as dance and music, deliberately keeping them separate, and letting them create their own connections which do not refer to a master plot that defines the meaning. This choice, however, is not only an answer to a question Cunningham’s work asks me, but also a series of questions raised by my combination of materials. For how is it possible to deal simultaneously with something as different and heterogeneous as the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and the choreographies of 5 Merce Cunningham? Actually, this is probably the most important question that my materials have asked me, as it concerns the very nature of the combination I am working with. Methodological mimétisme – a textual happening machine We have in the humanities become accustomed to all kinds of interdisciplinary combinations of theory and aesthetic or social materials. But we are sometimes in danger of being blinded by this familiarity. We risk forgetting the very nature of the combinations and wiping out the differences between the materials. There is a risk that we take our method for granted and forget to explain what we are actually doing. I would like to insist on the differences between my materials, and reflect upon what this means for the possible ways in which they can be combined. And as a matter of fact, the materials themselves contain important reflections on this matter. The work of Gilles Deleuze has already been frequently used in diverse interdisciplinary studies. His work invites it (especially his collaborations with Félix Guattari) as it is already in itself characterised by an interdisciplinarity that is hard to repeat and worthy of admiration. The work of Deleuze is increasingly included in the canon of contemporary theory. But I would like to insist on the fact that the work of Deleuze is not a “theory”, but a philosophy in its own right, and I would like to consider it and treat it as such. This might sound paradoxical as I am myself working on Deleuze in an interdisciplinary context. However, my objection is not against an interdisciplinary approach to Deleuze – on the contrary – but it has to do with the way I consider my materials to be related to each other. His philosophy has to be considered as a work, an œuvre to be analysed in itself, and since it is so intrinsically related to his writing it should not be extracted from it. His philosophy is an object of analysis, not a theory to be applied. That is one reason why I have decided to work through concrete analyses of particular texts and not with an overall comprehension of his philosophy. The other reason is that I find that this is also the method that does most justice to the work of Merce Cunningham. Whenever we are writing about dance, the practice of dancing is already in a tricky situation. As dance is a non-verbal phenomenon, it is hard to let it speak for itself. The work of Merce Cunningham is extremely complicated, advanced and obviously the object of serious reflection, and in order to do it justice, I believe we have to consider it in its own right – not only as something to be explained by theory. Choreography is a way of thinking, not least in the case of Cunningham, though it is more than hard to verbalise its philosophy. 6 There are thus two basic principles behind my choice of method: the insistence on the difference between my two materials, dance and philosophy, and an insistence on the equality of the two parts of my materials (Gilles Deleuze and Merce Cunningham). This is my attempt to answer the question of how we can treat such heterogeneous materials simultaneously without neglecting the difference between them.