CHOREOGRAPHIES OF DISABLEMENT A Dissertation Submitted to the Temple University Graduate Board In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY by Amanda DiLodovico December 2017 Examining Committee Members: Dr. Mark Franko, Advisory Chair, Dance Department Dr. Karen Bond, Dance Department Dr. Sherril Dodds, Dance Department Dr. Shannon Walters, English Department Dr. Jens Richard Giersdorf, External Member, Marymount Manhattan College © Copyright 2017 by Amanda DiLodovico All Rights Reserved ii ABSTRACT Choreographies of Disablement interrogates the historical relationship between dance and disability to recognize and define ‘disablement’ as a choreographic concept within contemporary dance practice. Working from choreographic analysis, interviews, and theories of sovereignty and crip time I argue ‘disablement’ grows out of the historical nexus in which Western concert dance, through the paradigm of ballet, was cultivated: the seventeenth century French political sphere and the prestige of a sovereign balletomane King. The performances of French kings in the burlesque ballet choreographies of 1624-1627 serve as the historical center of this research because disability has a political role to play at the dawn of concert dance in the West. This insight provides the historical perspective from which I locate the development of ‘disablement’ in the seventeenth century and identify its emergence in twenty-first century choreographies. This dissertation uses the historical and political significance of the burlesque ballets as a touchstone to then analyze three contemporary sites of choreography produced between 2004 and 2016. Chapter 3 considers the repertory of German choreographer Raimund Hoghe, a queer disabled artist. I focus attention on his piece Sacre – The Rite of Spring (2004), which draws upon dance’s historical, canonical past. Chapter 4 focuses on Disabled Theater (2012), devised by French choreographer Jérôme Bel in collaboration with the Swiss-based company Theater Hora, a professional theater company comprised of performers with developmental disabilities. The piece is composed of theatrical tasks, including the presentation of self-choreographed dance iii solos. Chapter 5 centers on the collaborative performance work, A Fierce Kind of Love (2016), comprised of Philadelphia-based disabled and nondisabled performers with choreography by US dance artist Nichole Canuso. Taken together, my analysis of these sites questions the state of disability within the discursive space of dance studies, and in turn positions ‘disablement’ as a historically inflected site of choreographic thinking materializing in contemporary practice. iv Dedicated to my family: Mare, Tone, and Anthonie v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I want to thank my advisor Mark Franko for his support, time, experience, inspiration, thoughtfulness, and dedication throughout this process. To my committee – Karen Bond, Sherril Dodds, and Shannon Walters – thank you for your time, insights and continued support. To my external reader, Jens Giersdorf, thank you for being a part of this experience. Thank you to the department of dance, faculty and staff, for your comfort and creativity over the past 4-plus years. I am so grateful to all those who have read, discussed, and listened to part or all of this project. I also want to acknowledge the artists included in this dissertation who supplied their time and resources: the performers and creative team from A Fierce Kind of Love (2016) who agreed to speak with me about their experiences and share images from the production; Raimund Hoghe, who provided access to video recordings of his works; and Theater Hora who provided access to video recordings of Disabled Theater (2012). Thank you to my parents, MaryEllen and Tony DiLodovico, for their unwavering support and love. Most importantly, I want to thank my brother, Anthonie DiLodovico. Without you, the idea for disablement would never have come to fruition. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT ……………………………………………………………………iii DEDICATION ………………………………………………………………….v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ……………………………………………………....vi LIST OF FIGURES ……………………………………………………………..ix 1. CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................1 2. CHAPTER 2 BACK TO THE FUTURE: SOVEREIGNTYAND THE SPECTER OF DISABILITY IN THE FOUNDING PAST OF WESTERN THEATER DANCE ..........................36 3. CHAPTER 3 RAIMUND HOGHE AND CANONICAL DISABLEMENT: RITUAL, SACRIFICE, AND CRIP LABOR .......................................................78 4. CHAPTER 4 MINIMALISM MEETS THE CHORUS LINE: DISABLEMENT AND DISABLED THEATER .................................................121 vii 5. CHAPTER 5 DISABLEMENT IN ACTION: A FIERCE KIND OF LOVE ................................................................................162 6. CHAPTER 6 CONCLUSION: CHOREOGRAPHIC DISABLEMENT ..................................197 NOTES …………………………………………………………………………205 BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................220 APPENDICES A. INTERVIEW PROCEDURE ………………………………………………236 B. REHEARSAL CALENDER, A FIERCE KIND OF LOVE (2016) ………..238 C. REHEARSAL OBSERVATION NOTES …………………………………239 D. IMAGE PERMISSIONS ………………………………………..................241 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1. Seventeenth-century French costume sketch …………………………………..71 2. The ramp and platform in A Fierce Kind of Love (2016) ……………………...178 3. The cast of A Fierce Kind of Love (2016) in rehearsal with signs ……………..182 4. The signs in A Fierce Kind of Love (2016) …………………………………….182 5. Erin McNulty’s solo in A Fierce Kind of Love (2016) …………………………183 6. Erin McNulty rehearsing A Fierce Kind of Love (2016) ……………………….183 7. Nichole Canuso and Erin McNulty in rehearsal, 2014 …………………………184 8. Erin McNulty floating down the ramp in A Fierce Kind of Love (2016) …………………………………………………..186 9. Lee Etzold and Shawn Aleong ‘travel’ in A Fierce Kind of Love (2016) …………………………………………………...189 10. Erin McNulty and the tableau in A Fierce Kind of Love (2016) ………………..190 11. Erin McNulty blows on Lee Etzold and Shawn Aleong in A Fierce Kind of Love (2016) ………………………………………………...191 12. Lee Etzold manipulates the trio in A Fierce Kind of Love (2016) ………………191 13. Lee Etzold, Nichole Canuso, Shawn Aleong, and Erin McNulty in rehearsal, 2014 ……………………………………………………...195 ix CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION “… disability is seen as the very absence of futurity, or as the very least desirable future, and thus deliberative rhetoric invokes disability to characterize everything that was undesirable about the past, everything that the future must overcome.” (Jay Dolmage 2014, 133) I began this dissertation project with the incentive to interrogate the topic within dance studies scholarship known as ‘dance and disability’. This area of research is diverse in terms of subject matter and methodology, ranging from the influence of dance on modes of communication for children with disabilities (Bond 1991), the experience of disability in a higher education dance setting (Whatley 2007), and the impact disabled dancers have on audiences in performance (Albright 1997). In surveying the scholarship that can comprise ‘dance and disability’, my most initial basic query was around the presence of the ‘and’ that suggested ‘dance’ and ‘disability’ were separate if somehow related concepts. As a dancer with fluctuating ability within a social milieu that privileges what disability and feminist scholar Alison Kafer (2013) refers to as “able-bodiedness and able-mindedness,” dance and disability, to me, felt inextricably linked. I spent hours in front of a mirror growing up desperately working to acquire technique while moving in unison with other young girls dressed in the same leotards and tights. In adolescence, I was considered typical in terms of physical and cognitive development. My entry into dance was a foregone conclusion once teachers noticed my long limbs, open hips, and 1 arched feet suitable for classical ballet training. Yet, even with this supposed predisposition to having a technical dancing body, the moments of ever feeling fully in possession of ability were few and far between. When class ended, I returned home to eat dinner with my parents, do homework, and play with my brother, Anthonie, ten years my junior. He is autistic, developmentally disabled and has hypotonia, which causes low muscle tone throughout his upper body. Maturing and learning adjacent to him and as a dancer has informed my understanding of what is known in disability and critical theory circles as ableism – a discriminatory practice that assumes able-bodiedness and able- mindedness as normative. In return, disability is often marginalized, constructed to be without value and, as Jay Dolmage states in the epigraph above, without a future. For Anthonie, our more youthful concept of dance informed by the classes and concert performances available within the confines of suburban New Jersey felt not only inaccessible, but unwilling to consider his body as a dancer. Fifteen years, several cities, and higher degrees later I have acquired a more nuanced approach to and understanding of dance, one to which Anthonie also has access. Within my study of ‘dance’ the concept of choreography, how and why movement is generated, organized, expended, and apprehended, has become paramount. After sharing the knowledge to which I have been granted access, my brother and I developed a much more accessible and collaborative relationship