Can dance provide a political commentary? Can it tell us more than the news does, or indeed, different artforms? It is not about fact, but feelings, or experiences.
I have just come back from seeing ‘Three Atmospheric Studies’ by the Forsythe Company. Each year the Forsythe Company comes to Sadlers Wells and gives me much food for thought. But it is stuff to think about, rather than adding to my depth of understanding of a situation.
Three Atmospheric Studies is about, inasmuch as it is about anything, the experience of war. It exposes the cultural conflict as much as the military one. In the third act, Dana Caspersen, in a Deep South accent deepened by audiologic wizardry, tells a Middle Eastern mother, whose son has been arrested for some misuderstanding, that she ‘doesn’t understand.’ That ‘we’ have all the facts and a hold on the truth. Keep calm. It is a ‘good idea to lie down.’ The performance ends.
Forsythe has moved from pointe shoes and something that looks like ballet to tanztheater, which is not pretty and doesn’t involve much of what most people would recognise as dance. I enjoyed ‘Kammer Kammer’ a few years ago, a multimedia postmodern extravaganza featuring students talking about the films of Catherine Deneuve and Dana Caspersen playing Catherine Deneuve herself a few years ago. I really really enjoyed it; it was like nothing I’d ever seen before. The result of Forsythe’s new choreographic work is sometimes disturbing performance art and sometimes dancing that is nothing like dancing. The artists move in a way difficult to describe; it is as if they are made of rubber, almost as if there is something wrong with their bodies. It is very effective in expressing the pain felt by those who witness war. They speak too. In the second act, the mother whose son has been arrested tries to tell her eyewitness account to a translator. He gets bits of it ‘wrong’. She has to repeat herself over and over again. As she gets more worked up she starts to scream/sing. Her voice moves like her body does, it contorts, it hurts. We are harrowed. Her tale and her movements are unrelenting until she finally realises she is not going to be able to make her truth heard. She sits down opposite the translator, defeated.
But I haven’t come away from the theatre thinking much more than a) Forsythe’s dancers are versatile and flexible and b) war is harrowing and it would be a good thing if we, as a world, didn’t bother with wars anymore. I don’t think I didn’t need a dance performance to try and tell me that. I get enough and more harrowing imagery from watching the news. Dance for me isn’t escapism, but I don’t think I need it to try and make political points that are essentially there in the newspapers like the Guardian and magazines like the New Statesman. (www.guardian.co.uk and www.newstatesman.com.) Anyone with an imagination doesn’t need choreographers and dancers to spell it out for them. And also, most of the people who venture out to see this kind of thing are well informed on these kind of issues anyway.
Nevertheless, I applaud William Forsythe for creating such a piece. Contemporary dance needs more choreographers who are willing to take the risks he does. He is still my favourite living choreographer!
Here are some pictures of the third act and the first set of bows:
I liked the way the stage was set up so it looked like the dancers could fall off the edges at any time.
William Forsythe also came to the curtain call:
Here’s a review of the performance in The Guardian.
I’d be interested in hearing what others think about whether dance should be used as a commentary on current affairs. Can it be done through dance? Or is it better done through other media or artforms?
tonya
I posed a similar question in a message board post once (writing about a Joan Acocella review in which she criticized the Israli company, Batseva, for not offering more political work given the contemporary state of affairs in Israel) but no one responded. I don’t know exactly how I feel about the dance / political dualism thing; I have to think about it more. For me, I definitely prefer choreography that makes me think or that really moves me — and I guess that means for me that it deals with the political, or the social, but in a very very broad way. And, of what I’ve seen, my favorites have been Alvin Ailey and early Mark Morris because they’ve done that the most, and I was also very intrigued by the Bill T. Jones piece I just saw at FFD. I guess if the message is too obvious, then I just think it’s silly, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be ‘political.’ The choreographers I’ve liked the least are abstractionists like Trisha Brown, who admitted at a panel discussion I saw her speak in that she doesn’t know what the meaning of her work is, she doesn’t think about it. And to me her dancers seem like they’re just jumping around the stage in no particular formation; I don’t know what I’m supposed to get out of that. And if she doesn’t know what she means, how am I supposed to get what she doesn’t know she means… I’ve seen very very little by Forsythe, but from what David has said about him, I definitely want to see more. So, that wasn’t really an answer, but just a lot of blabbering. I’d like to know what other people think too!
Oct 15, 2006 @ 21:39
jennifer
i agree with you kate…i know dance is an art form that has the ability to express emotions and perspective uniquely in its own language. But I personally don’t like my dance to be political…it’s almost preachy and it tends to distract me from the choreography and dancers. With a war piece…the perspective of the choreographer is presented, and this added layer (to me) distracts from the choreography and the talent of the dancers, which is what I enjoy most about dance.
I like to escape reality when I enter the theater. To be reminded of harsh reality is something I like to avoid.
I prefer princes and fairies to war!
William Forsythe is a great visionary though. I hope to see more of his pieces in the near future! Sometimes I do wonder whether choreographers pick a politically charged piece to garner more attention in the media? I wonder…
Oct 16, 2006 @ 00:00
Evan McKIE
Thanks Kate- i always enjoy watching Forsythe company (especially his wife, Dana, who is one of the best movers I have seen..) I like watching Forsythe reflect on such large issues. There are so many ballets about absolutely nothing that when he tackles some of the more current, thought provoking things its almost refreshing for the dance world. (not CNN of course.) I saw his ‘you made me a monster’ about Cancer( another sad issue that people often find themselves dealing with…) it was sad, but thought-provoking, and interactive. a good theater-going expereince.
Oct 16, 2006 @ 03:28
kate bordwell
“There are so many ballets that are about absolutely nothing” - Evan you hit the nail on the head. I go through my dance life and so much of it is internal, and then I see something like this and realise that it is possible to make a statement about big issues, even if it is not a complicated one. It is not wrong that dance should so often be about nothing, but it is important that it strives to be about something every so often, otherwise it becomes irrelevant.
My friend, who was also at Sadler’s Wells on Saturday night, puts it much better than I can:
“I think that perhaps dance can be used to make political comment, in a different way to other art forms. Because it communicates directly, bypassing the conditioning and preconceptions that we bring to language, and therefore to our consumption and interpretation of literature or film, a comment is able to be made in a different register; more visceral, more basically human. Dance, or dance theatre, takes you into its realm perhaps more than any other artfrom; there is less a dialogue than an immersion: something about dance, and watching the movement of the human body demands our attention unequivocally and bodily.
Theatre might come close, but doesn’t force the same involvement because we have to consciously process the dialogue laid out before us; we are forced to engage intellectually, which is always at at least one remove from our instinctive response. With static art there is usally no language, but we process it on our own timescale, and therefore inevitably bring language into our assimilation of it, which colours its message.
Forsythe’s comment may indeed be broad and fundamental rather than specific, but that doesn’t have to make it less powerful. The question remains as to whether our horror at the dance is greater than our horror at the photographs or film footage of the events themselves. Arguably it is, because we come to the auditorium expecting to see something which is on one level graceful; we have paid for pleasure rather than pain. The shock of finding ourselves witness to death and excruciating destruction is greater for the uncomfortable disrailment of our expectations and the encroachment of the terror of war on our leisure time. And our horror is certainly of a different order: for a moment we think only of the human dimension; of the mutilation that is dramatised by the dancers’ contortions and the tearing apart of lives and relationships that they play out in their continual coming together and exploding apart, silently, so not united by a reassuring soundtrack. We do not think of the political context, of who is right and who is wrong. It is simple: whoever causes this pain has done something bad,regardless of the intent or the ambition. The dancers’ breathing becomes more and more laboured, ripping through throats, disgorging individual pain into the shared space; because we expect music, this takes its place, making the experience still more total, more intense.”
Oct 16, 2006 @ 14:42
Chimene
Hello,
I think that dance theatre is meant to convey feelings and emotions that cannot be adequately expressed through written or spoken language. Therefore, yes, I think dance can adequately represent political ideas. I like Nacho Duato’s works. I usually don’t like singing and dancing mixed together (probably why I am not a big Broadway fan) but a little verbal expression every now and again if done correctly can be a fabulous tool in dance.
Fairy Godmothers and Princes in white tights have a role in dance as does politics as far as I am concerned. How well the dance is staged, performed and choreographed makes the most impression in my opinion anyway. I don’t like every classical ballet that I see not because of the storyline but because of how it was presented. If a polital dance is done well, chances are that I will appreciate it.
Best, Chimene
Oct 16, 2006 @ 17:56
Michelle
Wow Kate, this has to be one of the most interesting and thought-provoking reviews I’ve read in a long time…!
And it’s great to read everyone’s thoughts on the subject.
I have to think this over, but for now:
I think for me, it partly depends on the commentary the choreographer wants to give. Personally I would think “war is bad” is rather useless a message, but I think dance -like any artform- can be very useful in getting across feelings that tend to overlooked by the public, to trigger new thoughts and considerations in people.
Whether I always *want* this is another thing, though.
Of course I don’t go to a performance to be spoon-fed that-what-I-already-know-and-love everytime, I love it when things make me think.
But ultimately I DO go there because I ENJOY it, and I would hate it if dance ever became just another form of lecturing!!!
And speaking of “spoon-feeding” and “making me think”, in my opinion an artist with a message should do the latter, and not the first.
I really resent artists who force-feed you some “Grand Message” of theirs that is not open to individual thought in any way. Let’s leave that to Hollywood…
Oct 16, 2006 @ 19:30
ABTJess218
As a politics major, I am constantly exploring how dance and politics might interact with one another. In choreography, there is this tendency to be a bit biased, but although that can be irritating to an audience, I think that’s authentic. An opinion can be expressed through dance, and if someone disagrees with it- that’s all the better! In a world where dance is about nothing, these kind of choreography creates a dialogue, not necessarily just about the choreography.
With the presence of political music, I realy think there is a place for political dance expression. Many cultures already do this- using dance to celebrate historical events, in festivals, and rituals and such- and I think that the professional dance world could do worse things than embrace this.
Oct 16, 2006 @ 23:33
kate bordwell
Thanks everyone for your opinions on this. I’ve found that the more dance I go to see, the more questions I ask myself about the meaning of what I’m seeing. I have moved on from being overawed by dancers, to being critical of their technique/the choreography, to wondering what the purpose/message of the piece actually is.
No doubt I will be asking more questions in the next performance I see, and I will share them with you. This is a really great form of dialogue, between those who know and those who want to know, and we slip between the two types of observers. It is a very fluid process.
Oct 17, 2006 @ 04:15
tonya
After seeing this piece last week, I looked at this earlier post. I feel like I’m all “talked out” about it now (commenting on Matt’s ‘Ranting Details’ blog, and I just blogged about it as well). But looking over the comments again, I totally agree with Evan, and I found what Kate’s friend had to say about the impact of different art forms all the more interesting now. Evan also mentioned Forsythe’s “You Made Me a Monster” which happens to be showing in NYC tonight and tomorrow night at the Baryshnikov Arts Center: http://www.baryshnikovdancefoundation.org/schedules_forsythe.html
I plan to go!
Also, tomorrow night Forsythe and Toni Morrison are going to be discussing work at the BAC.
Mar 06, 2007 @ 16:36