THESIS J Praeg
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The political promise of choreography in performance and/as research: First Physical Theatre Company’s manifesto and repertory, 1993-2015 A thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for PhD degree Rhodes University Juanita Praeg 682F2501 PhD (Full Thesis) Drama Department Supervisor: Professor Gary Gordon (Rhodes University) [email protected] [email protected] Co-Supervisor: Professor Ketu Katrak (University of California, Irvine) khkatrak@uci .edu Date of final submission: December 2019 ABSTRACT This study redefines the political in dance by drawing on the scholarly concept of the “choreopolitical” (André Lepecki) and extending it into analysing related concepts such as the “postdramatic” (Hans-Thies Lehmann), performance and/as research, among others from Performance Studies scholarship as well as from First Physical Theatre Company’s pioneering legacy of production, pedagogy and research in making Phyical Theatre performance. Following from the notion that performance is both a site and a method of study/knowing, the research invites a rethinking of the relationship between art (performance), epistemology and the political, in the sense that performance becomes a way, not of simply re-presenting the political but, as its own way of knowing, actively questioning the very categories on which the political is premised. The argument for Physical Theatre as having nascent potential to invoke what I call “the power of the small” is analysed as a choreopolitical method and community of practice that has a generative capacity to produce the “intimate revolts” (Julia Kristeva) or body of questions that can perform the imaginative curiosities/forms required to create provocative, subversive, ethical, reflexive and charged performance. My argument is supported by critical commentary, insight, choreological analysis and reflection on the dramaturgical strategies and choreopolitics of selected commissioned choreographers and dance forms that extended FPTC’s manifesto and production between 1993 and 2015. My project has the following three goals: (i) to contextualise, conceptualise and identify key issues in the identity, pedagogy and performance ethos of Physical Theatre as a performance philosophy and form; (ii) to engage critically with the praxis of Physical Theatre within the contextual, cultural, historical and political relationships between Physical Theatre and other performance practices in South Africa; and (iii) to document, analyse and interpret selected claims, works and performance processes from the archive of FPTC’s repertory and training manifesto from 1993 to 2015. The research evaluates the political significance and consequence of FPTC’s heritage and legacy problematising constraints, possibilities, tensions, failures and proposing the hope of imaginative entanglements with practising freedoms. ii DEDICATION To two dancers that inspired and grew me in profound ways - Sifiso Majola and Ayanda Nondlwana - whose untimely, violent passings left us reeling but whose collaborative work with a community of dance practice is celebrated. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis is a tribute to my mother, Doris, who taught me about kindness and small acts of repair. And to my father, Jack, who showed me the ways of tenacity and laughter. Your sustenance has remained constant throughout my life. Thank you Leonhard, my partner, for the fierce criticality and persistent reflection that living with you engenders in me. Also for the persistent prods of incorrigible, difficult provocation coupled with a dark grace - I am not sure I can ever become a “humble servant of clarity”. Maria, my daughter, for your intuitive understanding, fierce fighting spirit and your gentle holding of me in this journey. Thank you to all my friends, especially Camel, Sandi, and Graham for always being present and available. Thank you to the zozo collective for years of wayward zozo play. Thank you to all the staff of the Rhodes Drama department - past and present - for their insights and imaginative collaborations. Thank you to the flow of students that I have shared so much learning with and who have kept me asking the questions. Thank you to the Research Office at Rhodes University for providing me with funding opportunities to pursue and complete the research project with generous support and goodwill. Thank you to Beth Wyrill from NELM/Amazwi for the archival support. Thank you also to Graham C. Reed and Ingrid Gordon for their professional assistance with technical aspects of this thesis. Thank you to my two supervisors, Professor Gary Gordon and Professor Ketu Katrak for their generous input and liberating insights. Gary - for a lifetime of deep somatic learning and friendship that is ongoing, and Ketu - for all the spasms of perception. Lastly, to all the artists I have collaborated with over so many years - for all your imaginative entanglements with practising freedoms. iii DECLARATION OF INTENT I hereby declare that this thesis is my own work, and that to the best of my knowledge it contains no material previously published or written by another person, except where due acknowledgement has been made in the text. I declare that I have included references to my Master of Arts mini-dissertation and to various research papers that I have written, which I clearly indicate in this text and which are referenced in the bibliography. iv CONTENTS ABSTRACT..............................................................................................................................ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...................................................................................................iii DECLARATION OF INTENT..............................................................................................iv List of figures...........................................................................................................................ix List of abbreviations and terms.............................................................................................xi Notes.........................................................................................................................................xi PREFACE...............................................................................................................................xii INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................... 1 Contextual framings............................................................................................................. 1 Conceptual underpinnings...................................................................................................3 A politics of form: Choreopolitics, performance studies, postdramatic theatre................ 4 Methodological considerations........................................................................................... 11 Research design................................................................................................................... 17 PART I PHYSICAL THEATRE AS REACTION AND REVOLT..............................21 (i) Difference is revolting. A body of questions...or towards a democratised performance........................................................................................................................21 Spasm as somatic threshold...choreologicalreadings.................................................. 26 Ethical investment: The power of the small...................................................................33 Reception.closing the circuit........................................................................................38 (ii) Early precedents and practices: FPTC and the Manifesto..................................... 42 Manifesto........................................................................................................................42 Gary Gordon...some geographical roots and biographical routes...........................49 Laban-based influence................................................................................................... 50 Announcing modernities in South African contemporary dance: Anatomical Journey of a Settler Man (1989)..................................................................................... 52 The danceplay................................................................................................................ 54 Interpreting the Anatomical Journeys.......................................................................... 55 Case study I: Dancers in Search of a Choreographer.................................................. 56 Case study II: The Parade for a Defunct Ballerina..................................................... 58 Collaborations and defunct ballerinas........................................................................... 59 Modernising and avant-garde influences in FPTC’s repertory................................61 Curating danced manifestos ........................................................................................ 62 A bodily politics..............................................................................................................63 Dancing identities and histories: the body as a site of resistance..............................64 v Reciprocal influence: Community engagement..........................................................69 The myth of intellectual dance?....................................................................................71 PART II PHYSICAL