Ghost-Bodies; History, Performance, and Practice in Contemporary Dance in France 1980-2000
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Ghost-Bodies; History, Performance, and Practice in Contemporary Dance in France 1980-2000 by Toni D’Amelio Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Dance Studies School of Arts University of Surrey March 2004 ProQuest Number: 27557407 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 27557407 Published by ProQuest LLO (2019). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLO. ProQuest LLO. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.Q. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 ABSTRACT Ghost-Bodies: History, Performance, and Practice in Contemporary Dance in France 1980-2000 explores a phenomenon in dance known as “muscle memory”, that ability which the dancing body develops acutely, which allows a dancer to remember choreography, and even to perform steps automatically. This ability is crucial to dance’s history and future, both of which are characterised by an oral tradition of transmission. The common belief that muscle memory, and the body image upon which it depends, are enduring constructions, is opposed by contemporary neuroscience. Recent research into phantom limbs suggests that the body image is, rather, a malleable construct, and challenges the perception of the body image’s stability that is widespread in dance today. Science provides explanatory models which enter popular culture. These metaphors, which conceptualise the workings of the human organism, affect the way in which the dancing body perceives and acts. Yet these metaphors are also reshaped by the art-making of the human. The thesis offers a metaphorology of dance techniques now dominating practice in France. It proposes a new model for conceptualising how subjectivities are constructed and perpetuated: the ghost-body. The ghost-body is a synthesis of information arising from techniques of conceptualising, perceiving, and acting. Two ghost bodies currently dominate contemporary dance in France. The first, the Ghost-Body-as-Clockwork, is traced in Enlightenment philosophy and science; in the arts, through works by Edgar Degas and the ballet Coppélia; and in the dance studio, through the mechanical metaphors used by classical ballet. The Ghost-Body-as-Marionette is traced in the Romantic movement, through the scientific movement of vitalism and the pseudo-scientific movement of mesmerism; in the arts, through gothic literature and the romantic ballet, as well as through their revival in the work of Pina Bausch and Pedro Almodovar; and in the dance studio, through metaphors of strings and passive movement. 11 Table of Contents Explanatory Notes p. vi Acknowledgements p. vii Part I The Ghost-Body in the Making Chapter 1 : Introduction The Ghost-Bodv in Dance Studies p. I Section 1 The Ghost-Body: Paradigm of Paradigm p. 3 Section 2 Dancing Knowledge, Thinking, and Thinking About Thinking p. 5 Section 3 The Discourse of Dancing Intelligence p. 7 Section 4 Ghost-Writers of Ghost-Bodies: History, Performance and Practice in Contemporary French Dance 1980-2000 p. 10 Section 5 Parts and Wholes of Ghost-Bodies p. 16 Section 6 The Ghost-Body-as-Clockwork and the Ghost-Body-as-Marionette p. 17 Chapter 2: The Matter of Ghost-Bodies p. 20 Ghosts of the Body Image p. 23 Action, Perception, and Cognition p. 28 Dance Practice as Autobiography: Biology as Biography p. 35 Necessary Fictions p. 40 Static or “Volatile” Bodies p. 43 Inside the Grammar of the Dancing Body p. 46 Part II The Ghost-Body-as-Clockwork Chapter 3: The Ghost-Bodv-as-CIockwork as Philosophical Ideal and Publicity Stunt p. 51 Metaphor as Total Programme: Ways of Thinking, Feeling, and Acting p. 58 Dancers’ Identities: Imaging and Writing the Dancing Body-as-Clockwork p. 62 The Place of Intelligence p. 66 Hierarchies of Intelligence p. 69 ill The Topologisation of the Body p. 73 Chapter 4: The Ghost-Bodv-as-Clockwork in the Repertoire p. 76 A Dancing Doll and her Public: Bozzacchi and the Reception of the 1870 Coppélia p. 77 Hoffmann’s Dancing Doll: the Ghost-Body-as-Clockwork in “The Sandman” p. 77 Recasting the Ghost-Body-as-Clockwork in Coppélia p. 81 Frantz, Travestie, and the Legs of Eugénie Fiocre p. 82 Scenarios of Dancing Dolls p. 84 Acts of Seeing and Knowing, and of Acting in Ignorance p. 88 The Ghost-Body-as-Clockwork in Parts p. 92 The Live Wit in the Mechanical Dancer p. 93 Chapter 5: The Ghost-Bodv-as-Clockwork in the Present and in Practice p. 97 Sightings in the Present: The Ghost-Body-as-Clockwork in Performance p. 98 Conscious Coppélias and Unwitting Ones p. 100 Sightings in the Present: The Ghost-Body-as-Clockwork in Dance Writing p. 106 Sightings in the Present: The Ghost-Body-as-Clockwork in Practice p. 109 The Ghost-Body-as-Clockwork at Rest p. 114 Part III The Ghost-Body-as-Marionette Chapter 6: Vitalism and its Marionette Body p. 118 The Movement of Vitalism p. 120 The Nerves of VHomme Sensible p. 124 Organs and Glands: Sex and Death p. 126 Mesmerism: Science as Performance p. 130 Kleist’s Imaging of the Vitalist Body: Somnambulist and Marionette p. 138 From Popular Culture to Artistic Production p. 141 Chapter 7: The Ghost-Bodv-as-Marionette Goes Gothic, Romantic, and Post-Modern p. 142 Three Guises of the Ghost-body-as-Marionette: Somnambulist, Fugitive, Still-[But-A] Live Body p. 143 The Ghost-Body-as-Marionette in the Gothic p. 146 The Ghost-Body-as-Marionette in the Romantic Ballet p. 149 The Deadening of Death: The Body’s Paler, Fainter Shadow, Copy, or Ghost in The Woman in White, Dracula, and Giselle p. 151 Repetition in the Nineteenth-Century Works p. 156 IV Late Twentieth-Century Incarnations p. 157 Café Müller p- 161 Talk to Her p- 172 Chapter 8: The Ghost-Bodv-as-Marionette in Practice p- 179 Altered States and the Ghost-Body-as-Marionette p. 180 The Matter of Timing p- 182 The Terrain of Practice in France, 1990-2000 p- 183 The Vitalistic Body of Thought of Hubert Godard p- 190 Practice in Thought: Scholarly Interest in Dance Training p- 191 Thought in Practice: Peter Goss and the “New Pedagogy” p- 194 The Teacher as Marionette and Marionette-Handier p- 199 The Marionette Metaphor in Practice p- 200 The Marionette in the Classroom p- 205 Totalising the Body: the Ghost-Body-as-Marionette as Metaphor p- 208 Making Metaphor Matter p- 211 Conclusion: Why Ghost-Bodies Matter p. 215 Ghost-Bodies in the Plural p. 215 The Imaginative Space of Ghost-Bodies p. 219 Illustrations p. 222 Works Cited p. 231 Explanatory Note To promote readability, my general rule in this study on French dance, has been to provide English translations in the main text, and to give the original French in footnotes where relevant. Exceptions to this rule occur where I have judged the original French wording to be important, at which points the French is given in the main text, and an English translation provided in a footnote. Each chapter provides the full name of authors the first time they are mentioned; thereafter they are referred to by last name only. The codified vocabulary of ballet is italicised. VI Acknowledgements This research was supported by a scholarship from the Arts and Humanities Research Board, and the University of Surrey, both of which institutions I gratefully acknowledge. Yet even more than institutions, what has made this study possible has been the contact with persons, both dance scholars and dance practitioners. Here, 1 would like to thank Professor Janet Lansdale for her expert intellectual guidance throughout the course of my research. I would like to thank, too, Laurence Louppe and Hubert Godard for the different valuable horizons they open up for the study of dance practice, and Peter Goss for his consistently inspiring daily example in the dance studio. Above all, this project could not have been carried through without the support of my friend, Daniel Gunn. Vll PARTI THE GHOST-BODY IN THE MAKING Chapter 1 Introduction: The Ghost-Body in Dance Studies The first time a movement is encountered, the dancer-in-the-making must consciously hold in mind and direct the different parts of the body, their different efforts, and their timings. But with practice, these efforts no longer need to be guided consciously: the dancer can rely instead for a movement’s accomplishment on what dancers call “muscle memory”. The “muscle memory” of which dancers speak is in fact a misnomer, in that it does not consist solely in traces laid down in the body. Certainly, when rehearsing repertoire after a season or two has passed without performing a piece, a dancer may say that a step feels “right”. When he or she does so, what is happening is that the dancer is measuring his or her current kinetic sensations, as he or she performs the step, and comparing them to remembered sensations. The intelligence which makes dancers commonly able to perform an isolated coordination, a sequence of steps, and in some cases even a lengthy segment of choreography, even when not attending to the actions they make—an inattention due to stress or other circumstances—does not reside solely in the muscles themselves, but is constituted by pattemings of synapses in the brain.