UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE The Againness of Vietnam in Contemporary United States Antiwar Choreography A Dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Critical Dance Studies by Jessica Spring Dellecave August 2015 Dissertation Committee: Dr. Jacqueline Shea Murphy, Chairperson Dr. Jens Richard Giersdorf Dr. Anthea Kraut Copyright by Jessica Spring Dellecave 2015 The Dissertation of Jessica Spring Dellecave is approved: Committee Chairperson University of California, Riverside Acknowledgements I extend my deepest gratitude to the persons and institutions that made this project possible. Without the life changing funding from the United States Department of Education, Jacob K. Javits Fellowship, this would not have happened. Additional support from University of California Riverside’s Chancellor’s Distinguished Fellowship, Gluck Fellowship, Humanities Graduate Student Research Grant, Graduate Student Research Association, GradSuccess Dissertation Retreat, and Mellon Dance Studies in/of the Humanities greatly contributed to my success. A huge thank you is extended to the artists that generously shared their stories, processes, and artistic materials with me—Yvonne Rainer, Wendy Rogers, Ann Carlson, Miguel Gutierrez, Victoria Marks, Jeff McMahon, and Krissy Keefer—without your passionate contributions this project would not exist. Thank you to the New York Performing Arts Library, Getty Research Institute, Twyla Tharp Dance Foundation for granting me access to archival materials. I acknowledge and thank my committee chairperson, Dr. Jacqueline Shea Murphy, for her immense guidance, support, and belief in this project and in me. Jacqueline, your ability to flow with the struggle of me working through many large ideas about the world taught me and will continue to teach me numerous valuable skills and techniques. Thank you to committee member Dr. Anthea Kraut for her generous comments on my dissertation as well as for her role as my teaching mentor and graduate advisor. Thank you to Dr. Jens Richard Giersdorf for sharing his expertise and for thoughtfully challenging some of the foundations of my project. All of these wonderful people pushed this work far beyond my expectations. I look forward to our continued iv engagements. As well thank you to my qualifying examination committee members Dr. Linda Tomko, Dr. Jennifer Doyle and Wendy Rogers. Thank you also to the support staff at the University of California, Riverside, especially Katrina Oskie. On the home front I thank first and foremost my creature, collaborator, and life partner LJ Roberts for their endless love and support—at times it felt as though this process took a harder toll on you, thank you for your endurance. To my birth family— my smart Mom, Rhoda Dellecave, and artistic Dad, Chris Dellecave, and lovely, eccentric siblings Kenyon Dellecave and Vanessa Dellecave—your belief in me kept me going. To my academic family, my writing group—Dr. Rachel Carrico, Dr. Hannah Schwadron, and Dr. Michelle Summers—whose keen intelligence and diligent feedback shaped many drafts of this project and whose generous hearts helped me through the most challenging moments. Lastly, but certainly not least, I would like to thank my many artistic collaborators during these years, you kept me sane and inspired as I painstakingly learned to become a scholar and writer. v Dedicated to Mollicus Maximus (aka Molly) Dellecat and Six Teen Dellecat vi ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION The Againness of Vietnam in Contemporary United States Antiwar Choreography by Jessica Spring Dellecave Doctor of Philosophy, Graduate Program in Critical Dance Studies University of California, Riverside, August 2015 Dr. Jacqueline Shea Murphy, Chairperson The Againness of Vietnam in Contemporary United States Antiwar Choreography examines eight twentieth- and twenty-first century postmodern antiwar choreographies in order to uncover the reverberations of Vietnam antiwar protests in these dances. The choreographies I examine in this study are Yvonne Rainer’s 1970 M-Walk and 1970 (and 1999) Trio A with Flags, Wendy Rogers’ 1970 Black Maypole, Ann Carlson’s 1990 Flag and 2006 Too Beautiful A Day, Miguel Gutierrez’s 2001, 2008, and 2009 Freedom of Information (FOI), Jeff McMahon’s 1991 Scatter and Victoria Mark’s 2006 Action Conversations: Veterans. I theorize a concept called “againness,” in order to think through the multiple ways that repetitions specific to these particular choreographies continue to exist and to enact effects through time. I argue that repeated choreographic embodiment offers immediacy, nuanced response over time, expression through the bodies of former soldiers, and sites of mediated resistance such as live-streamed dance protest, to the United States public’s commentary on and critique of war. I conclude that choreography’s irregular and inexact repetitions are one of the ways that dance is vii especially apt for commenting on the large, never-ending, and ongoing traumas of the world such as war. My research extends established discussions about choreographic repetition and ephemerality, exchanging in questions of exactitude for conversations about impact. In particular, I show how the changes inherent to bodily repetitions reflect societal change, raise energy, garner power, and/or respond to current events. I study how politicized dances do not disappear after the time/space event of the initial performance, but instead linger on and reappear in unexpected moments. I thus parse out the many unbounded ways that protest choreographies happen again and again. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction Contemporary United States Antiwar Choreography, Vietnam, and Againness 1 Chapter One Choreographic Re-Purpose: Yvonne Rainer’s M-Walk and Wendy Rogers’ Black Maypole 58 Chapter Two Re-Performance and Choreographic Template: Ann Carlson’s Flag and Too Beautiful A Day and Yvonne Rainer’s Trio A with Flags 88 Chapter Three Choreographic Re-View: Miguel Gutierrez’s Freedom of Information 131 Chapter Four Choreographic Re-Imagination: Victoria Marks’ Action Conversations: Veterans and Jeff McMahon’s Scatter 182 Epilogue Sidesteps Towards Africanist and Indigenous Models of Againness 221 Bibliography 232 Appendix A 242 Appendix B 244 Appendix C 248 ix The Againness of Vietnam in Contemporary United States Antiwar Choreography Introduction: Contemporary United States Antiwar Choreography, Vietnam, and Againness 1 Miguel Gutierrez: “[I] had no illusions that [Freedom of Information] was going to change things […] It is not giving anyone soup, it is not saving anyone from going to jail, that is very clear. I think a large part of what I do is about creating visions that people can create identification with, either to inspire themselves to continue either to live or to make art or to whatever. Or often in the case of people who don’t live in the art world, I know that it creates a space of reflection and consideration that is just kind of an alternative temporality to the one that is gotta-get-up-and-live temporality. [This] reflective space feels like a radical space to me1.” During much of my research on this project, the United States was engaged in war abroad. At the same time, choreographers on the postmodern dance scene were making dances about war2. Many choreographers, like Miguel Gutierrez above, expressed that these antiwar choreographies they made were not intended to stop war or complete a specific goal or action. But, in the face of war, choreographers were compelled to do something, anything, and at times this meant doing what they always do— choreographing in response to what was on their minds. These choreographies and choreographers assert what may seem obvious: contemporary United States antiwar choreography does not stop war. Antiwar dance does not end combat, it does not create peace, it does not affect U.S. foreign policy, it does not bring troops home, and it does not stop killing. When I began this project I was interested in why contemporary choreographers would choose to make choreography about an issue as large and never 1 Personal interview with Gutierrez, May 21, 2014. Gutierrez also stated in our interview: “I am prepared to accept that [Freedom on Information] doesn’t do anything, but I do know I know that I was changed from those experiences.” 2 Postmodern choreographers who created work that responded to war in the 2000s include (but are not limited to): William Forsythe, David Dorfman, Juliette Mapp, Ann Carlson, K.J. Holmes, Krissy Keefer, Wade Robson, Victoria Marks, Jeff McMahon, and Muhanad Rasheed. 2 ending as war because it was somewhat evident that these dances would not actually do anything to stop war. What was the point of these dances about war—which were not presuming to be direct political action, yet seemed to be asserting an important function in relationship to war? How did their choreographed and embodied projects relate to other artistic forms that dealt with war? If there was no possibility of affecting or changing the war at hand, why make these dances? Was there a purpose other than expression of the artists’ ideas? Was it supposed to be doing something more? Was making choreography about war exploitive of the violence, death, and destruction experienced by others? In this project, provoked by these questions, I explore ways that U.S. postmodern choreography from the past four decades acknowledges war as inevitable, offers possibilities for how to cope with it, and aids in our understandings