de - archiving movement research : choreography#5 : performance ed. by Rose Breuss and Claudia Jeschke in cooperation with IDA research lab Francesca Falcone REFORMING DANCE JIA RUSKAJA AND THE ACCADEMIA NAZIONALE DI DANZA Rose Breuss AS IF THERE WERE A NEGATIVE IN THE ARCHIVE TEXTURES OF DOCUMENTATION: A CHOREOGRAPHIC SCORE ON GERTUD BODENEGGER ISBN 978-3-940388- 73-5 © Rose Breuss, Claudia Jeschke, epodium (München) Website: www.epodium.de E­Mail: [email protected] Alle Rechte vorbehalten/All rights reserved Covergestaltung: Drahtzieher Design & Kommunikaon, Wien Satz: Johannes Novohradsky epodium ist eine eingetragene Marke ISBN 978­3­940388­73­5 Germany 2019 Reihe de­archiving movement Herausgeber: Rose Breuss, Claudia Jeschke Bibliografische Informaonen Der Deutschen Naonalbibliothek. Die Deutsche Naonalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikaon in der Deutschen Naonalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über hp://dnb.ddb.de abruar. Rose Breuss As If There Were a Negative in the Archive Textures of Documentation: A Choreographic Score on Gertrud Bodenwieser Linz, 2018 Choreography and historiography no longer uses the document as “inactive matter through which it attempts to reconstruct what humans have said or done, what is past and of what only a trace remains. It looks for determinations of units, quantities, series, relations in the textures of documentation as such.” 1 The following score applies this concept of documen- tation as a tool for dance specific praxeology, i.e. for artistic exploration and dancers´ agencies. 1 Foucault, Michel: Archäologie des Wissens, Frankfurt am Main 2015, Suhrkamp Verlag, 14. Table of Content P r e l i m i n a r y R e m a r k s / K e y 0: 0.1. Textures of Documentation 0.2. Movement Phenotypes – Movement Simulations 0.3. The Material Force (Violence) of the Document – The Incarnation of Movement 0.4. Transcription into Labanotation (pages 2 – 7) D o c u m e n t 1: Archive of the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna -mdw Akademiesekretariat und Rektoratskanzlei Sammelmappen 1919-1944, Sammelmappe 'Gross-Bodenwieser', 2888/1935. (pages 8-16) D o c u m e n t 2: Series I – IV Ines Murdoch’s verbatim movement-record of the Grades for a teacher’s certificate, 1942. From: Vernon-Warren, Bettina; Warren, Charles: Gertrud Bodenwieser and Vienna’s contribution to Ausdruckstanz, New York 2013, Routledge, 127-138 (pages 17-25, Dance Notation Booklet, pages 26-31) D o c u m e n t 3: Series V and VI, Fragments 1 - 32 Ways to Compose and Transpose Movements Contributions from former members of the Bodenwieser Ballet: Helen Elton, Coralie Hinkley, Evelyne Ippen, Hede Juer, Emmy Steininger, Bettina Vernon. From: Vernon-Warren, Bettina; Warren, Charles: Gertrud Bodenwieser and Vienna’s Con- tribution to Ausdruckstanz, New York 2013, Routledge, 140-158 (pages 32-39, Dance Notation Booklet 40-47) D o c u m e n t 4: Series VII – Progressive Spatial Lines and Auratic Contours Photographs of the Bodenwieser Ballet from the Image Archive of the Austrian National Library (pages 48-55) D o c u m e n t 5: Series VIII Amalgamations of Actions, Model Sheets (Dance Notation Booklet pages 56-62) B i b l i o g r a p h y a n d P h o t o g r a p h C r e d i t s (pages 63-64) 3 0 Preliminary Remarks/Key 0.1. Textures of Documentation The selection of documents on Gertrud Bodenwieser took place as part of a search for indi- cations concerning her movement and dance practice, her dance vocabulary and the rules of realisation. D O C U M E N T S 1 – 5 list and collect those descriptions and illustrations that could provide information on the forms of movement used in the dances. As part of Series I – VII, movement descriptions were excerpted, noted down and interpreted on the basis of a variety of documents on Gertrud Bodenwieser. The emerging motifs, components, parameters and frag- ments form the score’s documentary texture. Dancers2 – thus the experimental set-up of the given choreographic study – ‘incarnate’3 these scores via the vectors of living bodies. They realise the documentary tissue ‘literally‘ in their body tissue. Without such a physical activation, the movement indication of the documents remains in- complete, fragmentary and immaterial. There are only few instances where it is possible to de- cipher as concrete movement vocabulary the descriptions, symbols, drawings and the inconsistent terminology. Nevertheless they simulate a series of phenotypic arrays of movement. 2 Gertrud Bodenwieser worked primarily with female dancers: “1951. For the first time, men are accepted into the dance troupe.” (Dunlop McTavish 1992, 113). 3 In an article entitled La notation choréographique: une forme de survivance du passé, Anaïs Loyer analyses processes that emerge in living bodies in the ‘incarnation’ of notations. Scores, then, appear as the flotsam and jetsam of the past. “Nous ne pouvons rien savoir du passé “dans le passé” [..] Le passé est une histoire de débris.” Loyer, Anaïs: La notation chorégraphique : une forme de survivance du passé. http://larevue.conservatoiredeparis.fr/index.php?id=1822 (accessed on 12/8/2018) 4 0.2. Movement Phenotypes – Movement Simulations Individual movements, individual movement elements, body fragments, movement action, phenotypic constructions of space, dynamic differences in height, chronological specificities: all these form the components of the documentary fabric found in the score. They are listed in Series I – VI and arranged as horizontal rows on a table. Vertical cuts into the fabric occurred in Fragments 1-32, leading into specific motif arrangements. These function as the starting point for physical transfers. T A B L E from Documents I – VI and Vertical Series – Fragments 1 – 324 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 3 4 4 4 5 6 7 8 8 8 9 9 9 1 10 10 10 10 11 11 11 11 A A A A A B C A B A B a b A B 0 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 II II II II II II II II II II II II II II II II II II II II II II II II II II II II II II II II 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 3 3 3 3 4 4 5 5 5 5 6 6 6 9 9 9 10 11 11 11 11 12 13 A B B B 1 2 3 1 2 3 A B A B C C A B A B C A B C D 1 2 III III III III III III III III III III III III III III III III III III III 1 1 1 1 2 7 7 7 7 7 7 8 8 8 8 9 10 11 12 A B C A B C D E A B C IV IV IV IV IV IV IV IV IV IV IV IV IV IV IV IV IV IV IV IV IV IV IV IV IV IV IV 1 2 3 3 3 4 4 4 4 4 4 5 5 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 7 8 A B A B 4 4 4 A B A B C C C C D E E E G 1 2 2 1 2 3 1 2 A B V V V V V V V V V V V V V V V V V V 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 VI VI VI VI VI VI VI VI VI VI VI 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 4 For the verbatim transcription see 17–25 and the translation in Labanotation 26–31. 5 Whether and in what way Fragments 1 – 32 can be activated as dance movement is decided on by the dancers in the physical transposition and according to the actualisation of their move- ment repertory. They decide on the dominance or the perseverance of particular motifs and ‘amalgamate’ 5 these to form individual movements and/or complex sequences of movements. In the score ‘literally‘ transposed, the dancers encounter lacunae. The movements simulated on the basis of reading do not begin and end abruptly. The documentary fabric allows for the emergence of moments of movement, vague traces of movement. It projects into space body parts that are frozen; it sketches leaps that never land, impossible paths, unclear temporal tra- jectories, faint or ambiguous spatial traces. Any single motif remains fragmented, simulating a moment in space or a point in time as part of a movement that is not further determined. The two aspects that are amalgamated – this, at least, is the vision of this study – are, on the one hand, the performance of the score and, on the other, the movement of emergence (occurring subjectively). The edges of movement that begin or end abruptly open up formative space – subjective, dynamic time-space. According to Gertrud Bodenwieser, movement is to be completed not only ‘technically, but also compositionally’. The approach to this choreographic score is inspired by Bodenwieser’s legacy for dancers of considering it a given that conception and composition would be integrated into the artistic processes of dance-making.