From the archive | Examining Expressions
I have decided to take a look back at my favorite papers from my time in graduate school. Many of these detail intracacies from my fieldwork that did not fit into my final thesis, others explore other things. They are not perfect. But they are the foundation from which I continue to grow and learn. I have decided to be proud of them. One per week in the month of May. Enjoy.
(This particular paper had endbotes, which do not work on this platform…I have thus attempted to properly name the scholar before every quote and idea, but if I have missed any please know that was not intentional and the authors are all listed in the works cited)
Abstract |
This research looks at the ways that Icelandic choreographer Steinunn Kettilsdóttir approaches choreographic/participatory research in her attempt to (re)define what a dancer does. Her work centers around ideas of choreography as breaking and maneuvering within the structures of formalized dance and performance. These structures include funding, space, and definitions of dance. Data for this paper is based on my 10-week field work in Iceland in the summer of 2017, specifically my time during Steinunn’s Expressions workshop. During this workshop she uses four practices to attempt to understand how to navigate the role of “dancer.” The four practices she uses are the peoples practice, pleasure practice, production practice, and party practice. This paper will go through her research questions and approach, explore her methods through the four practices, and discuss how this relates to larger themes and performances in the dance, choreographic, and performative realm. In specific, this paper will look at ideas of traces, left in the body and by the body; and the definitions of dance, dancer, and performance. This paper is also in itself an attempt to write about the choreographic practice, and to provide a way of reproducing these four practices.
In the summer of 2017 I lived in Reykjavík, Iceland for ten weeks conducting ethnographic research of the Icelandic dance community through the lens of the Reykjavík Dance Festival (RDF). This time in Iceland was the research component for my MA thesis in the Department of Anthropology. The goal of the research was to understand how the Icelandic dance community navigates through the global dance network while creating a hub of local and international contemporary dance in their geographically isolated city. One of my nine main participants was Steinunn Kettilsdóttir.
I met her via email and a few weeks later we hunkered down in a cozy corner of Reykjavík Roasters drinking gallons of kaffi (coffee) on a rainy day, discussing her research and theoretical approaches. She invited me to attend her workshop Expressions a few weekends later. That is where this particular research begins. I participated in the weekend-long workshop in August, but do to the nature of my thesis research, I did not have the opportunity to sift through or discuss this experience or Steinunn’s work in great detail. This paper became an opportunity to engage with what occurred in my own body and mind in Iceland, as well as relate this to the larger themes of this course. This paper will go through her research questions and approach, explore her methods through the Four Practices, and discuss how this relates to larger themes and performances in the dance, choreographic, and performative realm. In specific, this paper will look at ideas of traces, both left in the body and by the body; and defining of dance and how space influences movement. This paper is also in itself an attempt to write about and archive choreographic practice, and to provide a way of reproducing these four practices.
Introduction to Steinunn, Expressions, and Her Questions |
Steinunn Kettilsdóttir is an Icelandic choreographer. Like many Icelandic dancers of her generation, she did not train Iceland. Rather, she received her Bachelor of Arts at Hunter College in New York City and later her Masters at Tisch School of the Arts in New York City. Steinunn choreographs solo works and collaborative pieces as well as working as an instructor at the Icelandic Academy of the Arts (LHI). Her current project is a two-year research project titled Expressions: The Power and Politics of Expectations in Dance. She describes this work as,
A project that explores expectations in dance through a research of theory and choreographic practice aiming to generate new knowledge and explore the potentialities of dance outside of its expected manifestation. By questioning choreographic structures, methods, and expectations in dance, the project aims to deconstruct and reconfigure the very concept of expectation itself.
When I interviewed her in August, she talked about her desire to conduct this type of work. The project’s goal is to create practices surrounding dance that open up these limitations within the field. She developed Four Practices as a method for researching what elements of improvisation work in this expansion process. According to her, these practices will likely shift and change into something more final as her research continues. The research also involves studying dance histories and methodologies, asking where these “preconceived notions come from, like who shaped these things and where did our expectations come from…” She wants to explore what exactly the “structures” that dancers reside in are, how to change them, or navigate through them. Currently, Steinunn feels like these structures include: “our bodies, the habits of our bodies and of dance as an art form, the funding structures we exist inside of, and questions like, how do we circulate with our work?” An example of a restricting structure she encountered while preparing for this research was an online funding application. While applying for this project, she could not submit the form without answering the ticket price and selling goal. Frustrated with this process, she told me that it was impossible for her to fill out the online form because there is no product as an end goal. The challenge lay in the fact that the grant funders like projects that can immediately quantify their work. With dance, this is usually through the price of and anticipated sale of tickets. In her attempt to break the structures that dance reside inside, she was unable to maneuver.
This research stemmed from a concern that began to plague her prior to returning to NYC in 2015. Questioning “what else can dance be,” she felt that it had all been done and wanted to dig into the potential and future of the art of dance. The goal is to recognize these patterns as well as the choice the choreographer and/or dancer has to navigate through these structures. Thus, she calls this work feminist—in that it is not product driven, but agency driven.
The Workshop |
I participated in a two-day workshop in downtown Reykjavík that was a part of her residency at the Reykjavík Dance Festival (RDF). She opened the workshop with the question: “what does a dancer do?” Each participant wrote a response on a piece of brown paper and then shared these responses. This was a practice in defining and un-defining the term ‘dancer.’ She collected the paper for her research and shared a bit about her project. She then explained the Four Practices, defining the core of term “practice” as doing something “over and over to gain knowledge.” Thus, Steinunn, like Allan Kaprow with his Happenings, believes that knowledge and information reside in somewhere in the depth of repetition. Each practice is aimed at allowing the dancer to: notice – listen – desire, within our own context and expanding to the collective. The workshop was conducted in a white studio space with a skylight. It was rained both days and the droplets glittered on the skylight and the white walls opened up the space. There was a lot of discussion during lunches about the white studio and its importance in a geographic location such as Iceland. I include a discussion of space in this paper.
Practices |
There are four practices in this research. The People’s Practice, Pleasure Practice, Production Practice, and Party Practice. Of the four practices, only Party Practice uses music, the other three are conducted in total silence, save for a few ques from Steinunn. Each practice includes a series of structured improvisation exercises.
People’s Practice | As studied in her workshop—we began with the People’s Practice. This was completed in two rounds of ten minutes—the first time walking around the room with no instruction, and the second time walking while sticking to an internal destination. The goal was to trust your instincts and to give up control of the idea that “walking” in a dance space must be productive. After the practice we gathered and discussed how the simplicity broadens the possibility and took note of what tensions or realizations had occurred in our bodies.
Pleasure Practice | Next Steinunn initiated Pleasure Practice, which involved blocks of fifteen minutes walking while acknowledging the other bodies in the collective whole. There was no directional instruction, we were simply to make (at minimum) eye contact with others. Steinunn’s thoughts behind this Practice were the: “Idea of not accomplishing anything – risky and precarious, okay; Not choosing to leave because you’re there but because you’ve already made that choice; Composing and decomposing shapes, internally.” Afterwards the participants said that they noticed that pre-conceived ideas excluded the possibilities. A dancer would engage with another and try to create a relationship which may or may not be reciprocated. Thus, giving up control of a narrative was an important element which allowed this practice to evolve naturally. One dancer said, “just when it was ending I felt like things were starting to happen—so typical.” There were variations to the exercises in these two Practices, and we explored the various limitations and possibilities.
Production Practice | After lunch, we moved on to the Production Practice. This is a bit more structured and is based on the idea of our expectations of forms. Steinunn asks: What does your body want to do within or outside forms? When you are in an expected form—how does that feel for your body? Can you be in your body not your brain? Do choice and clarity create space? Is it chaos or order? How can we play within structures and investigate opportunity? For this practice, each participant would choose a shape (box, triangle, zig zag) and silently we would try to create it, once it “settled” Steinunn would declare it complete and we would dissolve the shape.
Party Practice | The final Practice is The Party Practice, which is all about going back to the roots of why we dance. Steinunn wants to break the structure of the studio-space; learn possibilities of movement in our bodies; and learn to be free even when it’s a bit awkward. For this practice you just groove/dance freely to fun music. We did Party Practice for thirty blissful minutes. There is no correct way to engage with Party Practice. Some dancers stood almost still swaying, others of us had to ice our necks the following day as we’d been grooving very hard.
Examining Expressions |
I will now go through a few themes of performance and choreographic work from dance anthropology and performance studies and examine how Expressions fits in, expands, or goes against these concepts. The concepts I am addressing in this paper include: the possibilities of improvisation, traces in the body, concepts of the choreographed and space, and finally how to write about a choreographic practice and create an artifact of a dance moment. I will not be truly able to answer Steinunn’s question, nor make a conclusive claim as to the effectiveness of her research. She is about half way through her research process, and it is for her to write about in that type of manner. Until it is published as a guide, a theoretical critique is rather unproductive. Therefore, this paper looks to tie in her ideas and questions with the concepts from this course and dance scholarship, and to assess the possibility of creating an artifact from these exercises and using her methods in different settings. This paper in itself also ties directly to our class questions of writing about the performative. Thus, this is an experiment of that method of writing and will become an artifact of our class’s experiment in re-creating this workshop and exploring the ideas of Steinunn’s research. In this section I will include student reflections as well.
Improvisation | Stephan Nachmanovitch, an improvisational musician and educator, begins his book Free Play, with a Japanese folk tale about a flutist. In this story a Master was teaching a brilliant student a new Chinese flute. The student completed every single task laid before him with technical brilliance, but each time the Master said, “something is lacking.” The student grew more and more discouraged as he could not figure out what was wrong, and eventually left the Master. He fell into sorrowful drinking until his money was gone and then became a flute teacher to young students. After many years he was invited to perform at a large event, he did not want to but decided he had already lost everything, so he agreed. At the concert he performed the song from his inner silence, and from the back of the room “like a god!” was heard. This story sets up the rest of the book, which revolves around the freedom that play and improvisation bring to art. This story also highlights the importance of formalized performance technique, as well as finding space within the rigidity of the technical structures to let the love for that performance take over (Nachmanovitch).
The Four Practices are an exploration of how a dancer can find these spaces of freedom. The Practices explore this with a foundation that narrowing the options (going from having no rules, to having a specific mission, engaging with others, creating a shape as a group) provide for more creativity. An example of this occurred in Iceland during the Pleasure Practice. We broke into two groups after we got comfortable so that we could all have the chance to observe. The group that I was observing started contacting each other. Then moved in two separate lumps very slowly across the space.
In class this freedom was found as well, though these reactions to Pleasure Practice focused more on the relational. People were giggling and hugging. The minimum amount of contact instructed was eye contact, and one student said that she could not give eye contact without a smile. After we completed Pleasure Practice another student said that the name “pleasure” fit with the experience she had in process. Most evident was the idea of being able to read and understand another person’s boundaries from their body language. Thus, the insights had in the classroom were more about the possibility of what human contact can bring to a day or life (“human contact is just a really cool thing”) and less about what type of form or choreography can happen in that structured improvisation setting. These two varying examples of this same practice highlight the breadth of knowledge that can be gleaned from doing the same exercises over and over with new people.
Improvisation as artistic exploration and research has a few main goals. These goals include: methods of navigating within the technique of the art form, looking for the obvious and making it new, sharing dialogue with others, and a way of documenting. Nachmanovitch writes about how important good technique and structure are for a successful improvisation and play. “Improvisation is not ‘just anything’; it can have the same satisfying sense of structure and wholeness as a planned composition […] structure ignites spontaneity.” Within the Four Practices, Steinunn uses pedestrian or everyday dance movement and gives it limitation. She identifies the task: walk without a purpose versus walk with a purpose, and analyzes what that limitation taught the dancer based on her observations and the discussions. Nachmanovitch writes that, “If certain values are constrained within narrow limits, others are free to move more strongly.” Jenn Joy, in The Choreographic, also mentions the possibilities within limitation, she calls this “restraint…the disobedience to an impulse.” This initial impulse is where the body is comfortable, and it will stay there unless it is pushed to a tighter space. Through a practice in structured improvisation, Steinunn, like many choreographers, is trying to grasp where these freedoms come from and figure out how to use them in dance that expands the current field of dance.
Another way of finding the freedom of movement that Steinunn seeks in this research, stems from the ideas of André Lepecki in Choreopolice and Choreopolitics: or, the task of the dancer. Lepecki is writing about the never published work of the late Hannah Ardent, beginning with her quote: “we have arrived at a situation where we do not know—at least not yet—how to move politically.” Lepecki breaks this into two main points: the definition of “move politically” and the concept of “not yet.” First, moving politically is defined in this context as “a general orientation towards freedom.” This movement towards freedom is lost if it is not learned, rehearsed, nurtured, and above all experimented with, practiced, and experienced.” Lepecki writes that the dancer’s role is to find this political movement. The “not yet” presents the hope that finding this freedom can be done: That the dance still has something important to give to the society in which it resides. The “not yet” is the hope that within the structure of dance, more can be discovered. Steinunn read this and felt a hope in her crisis that there is in fact more to be done with dance, and that is in large part how she came up with the Four Practices she uses.
Nachmanovitch also states that most discoveries in science and in art come from someone recognizing a pattern or something else obvious, and highlighting it in a way that captivates others. The Party Practice is a great representation of this. The goal of this Practice is to understand and go back to the roots of why humans dance in the first place. It is recognizing the embodied and spiritual movement of free dance and attempting to figure out how to tangibly talk about, hold onto, and use that. People dance wildly at bars, in the streets, and in their homes every day—yet to Steinunn that grooving and the feeling it leaves in the body—is research. She also claims that this type of dancing has a place in the formal dance studio setting; it is not just for social contexts or the private setting, but for the professional dancer as well.
A big idea that Nachmanovitch focuses on is the idea that improvisation should not only be done alone. He credits the listening and observing of others as much as he credits the moments in improvisation where a chord is played or a shape is created in some exciting way. He also refers to this working with other bodies as a way of remembering what those special moments are. He talks about the challenge of writing about or recording these moments and the sad reality that they become rumors and tales generations later, if they survive at all.
One of the reasons that Steinunn uses the workshop setting to research the effectiveness of the Practices is that bodies are influenced by others, and that this is a good thing. In our own mini-Expressions in class a student highlighted this well in our discussion after People’s Practice. He wrote, “the collective body found a trend it liked (counter clockwise). I was curious if was I doing it naturally or reactive of the collective body.” During Pleasure Practice, ideas of social contracts were discussed—what does it mean to touch someone without words? What does it mean to make eye contact and not smile? Finally, students brought up intriguing questions of the possibilities that could be had if 1) everyone spoke different languages, how would our reliance on gesture be different 2) this research was taken to non-dance spaces more often like offices 3) importance of knowing each other and comfort. Overall, these discussions highlight the fact that the result of the Practice is different due to its group nature than if it were to be conducted alone.
Traces | Anthropologically, this concept stems from anthropologist E.B Tylor’s idea of “cultural survivals” and the Boasian concept of cultural relativism. As a concept, traces emphasize the knowledge that is held in the body and embodied practices—every day and ritualistic. “The trace is at once an analytical tool and an ethnographic site for inquiry” (Tylor 1871). This term is important to an anthropological approach in that it opens up knowledge exploration to things like ethnography rather than just a material culture approach. Traces of course can be material: footprints on a migratory trail, paint splatters from youths doing graffiti on trains, garbage, and so on. All of these are traces. Traces are expanded to the embodied, which then makes the intangible more tangible. Traces are also important to performance art studies, because of the same ephemeral element that anthropologist struggle with: how do you obtain the knowledge held in dance? How do you study or write about past dance or performance? Anthropologist and dance scholar, Deidre Sklar writes that, “cultural knowledge is embodied in movement, especially the highly stylized and codified movement.” Studying movement, thus can help scholars identify traces of culture that may otherwise be difficulty for the outside eye to see, or too obvious for the insider to make comment.
This idea knowledge is held in the body is evident in Steinunn’s work. Although we did not have much time in our class workshop, after each practice Steinunn would have us all sit and reflect, both talking and journaling. She wanted us to take special note of what our body experienced, rather than what our minds experienced. We had two full days to do these practices over and over, and thus as we grew more comfortable we found that our bodies did more of the work. In class, when answering the question: “what does a dancer do?” one student hit the nail on the head when she wrote, “a dancer is an artist whose body and mind are his/her media—creating bodily movement as self-expression, performance, and perhaps as one who passes down cultural knowledge and even entertainment.” In addition, students talked about the tension or even discomfort between their internal thoughts and what their bodies were instructed to do.
In the workshop over the summer we began to recognize these urges that are traces of societal values of productivity: jumping ahead, trying to plan next move, trying to organize the whole group, urge to leave a space rather than settle in it and see what happens. The purpose of the practices then, was to put new traces in our bodies, traces of rest and observation. Steinunn wanted us to be in “our bodies not our brains.” Thus she hoped that the practices would help us engage with and add to the knowledge in our bodies rather than our various cultural and societal positions. In the Production Practice we experienced the idea of letting our body do what it wants within the form: we were making “wave” and we created the shape and one dancer just started swaying as she waited for everyone to settle in their position, soon we were all exploring the form of the wave through this in-place movement. After a few minutes we were still flowing, and Stienunn called it, deciding that the movement within the form was the completed shape. If that participant had not listened to her instinct, or if another had tried to stop her by being firm in some way, we would have never expanded to the idea that a shape can be settled while still having movement. Steinunn described her excitement at the possibility of exploring and playing within these structures. Of course as a choreographer, she uses moving shapes all the time, but this movement expanded the possibilities of this formalized practice—because there was an imposed limitation and the bodies chose to dig into what spaces were left open within this framework.
This ties together Nachmanovitch’s concepts within improvisation alongside the role of traces. The dancer who started the flow within the wave said she was thinking about boat on a wave and decided to move as if she was floating on waves rather than just a swiggly line that we call a wave. As an Icelander, this body-memory or trace of what it is like to be on a boat is culturally relevant as well as interesting to Steinunn’s research. By limiting us to a shape, a possibility was opened up. That possibility was a trace that resides in many Icelanders bodies and it an obvious part of many Icelandic experiences, but within the context of this structured improvisation it became new and interesting.
(RE) Defining Dance through Dance Spaces |
Part of the theme across my time in Iceland, and with Steinunn in particular, was the idea that dance is not easily definable. This means that formal ideas of what contemporary dance is: movement pallet, where it takes place, how it is viewed, are not necessarily true. Joy writes that, “perhaps choreography invites a rethinking of orientation in relationship to space, language, to composition, to articulation, and to ethics.” Steinunn’s status as a choreographer guides her exploration of what dance can be and where it can be. At one point during the workshop the white studio space was brought up. Steinunn said she had purposely gotten that space for her residency because it is the studio with the most natural light in the whole city. She continued with her story about how most of the studios and performance spaces are in black boxes and in the winter, when there are only three to four hours of sunlight, going to work, working, and coming home in the dark is quite depressing. Another dancer piped in saying that the performances and improvisation sessions held in the white studios tend to feel more “raw” because they don’t have to rely on a lightning manager to create light. Even if just for the purpose of seeing, stage lights automatically create this performance feeling. The white studio, Steinunn agreed, allows for a freer exploration into the possibilities of movement. This attention to space also directly ties to the climate and geography of Iceland. For me, the studio was simply lovely and normal, to them it was a representation of summer. Thus, defining dance is often influenced by where it occurs—the space and the cultural setting.
Anna Halprin, an American choreographer from California, really championed the idea of moving in spaces that allow for the raw and free movement to emerge. In the book Radical Bodies by John Rockwall, her space is described:
A redwood deck, surrounded by Madrone trees on the slopes of Mt. Tamalspain Marin County. With a view down the valet and up the peal. That natural setting, open to the elements, provided the environmental backdrop that inspired Anna Halprin’s life long pursuit of radical body dancing.
Anna Halprin was interested in “cross pollinating” dance with other disciplines such as architecture, geography, and anthropology. Many choreographers through the ages have attempted to expand or even redefine dance through site-specific work or dance in a museum gallery. Steinunn takes “partying” and puts it back into the dance studio space. In our class workshop, we attempted to take both structured improvisation and “party” and place it in the classroom. Students discussed the tension that occurred when trying to let go and dance in a classroom setting: “reclaiming non-dance space is wildly uncomfortable.”
There is a discourse to be had between having limitations and obstructions or a particular setting and having the Practice feel too open. During People’s Practice, one student wrote that, “It was difficult to walk without a purpose, I wanted to fill the space as interestingly as I could, by going against the flow or finding places people hadn’t explored.” Another comment from the class wondered about the use of silence. Silence is a common expectation in a formal dance space: as dancer in class, as performer (unless using yells or breathing) and as an audience member. So using silence in this this context could be seen as counter to the goal of navigating expectations. But in this setting the silence does allow for introspection and paying attention to body, complimented by the discussion. So perhaps, this is a navigation of how to use this expectation of silence in dance space to the advantage of imagination, attention, and choreography. Finally, space works in two ways: the physical space needed for movement and the conceptual space opened for exploration and discussion: “spaces also serve as tools of thought, action, and power. Thus dancers contribute to the production of space not only by their physical participation but also by their ways of thinking and behaving.” The current realities of a space can be a mirror into the lived experience of those using the space. So a dance space or, in our case, the classroom space simultaneously offers a place for dance to physically occur and for thought and discussion to occur.
An Experiment in Documenting Dance Research |
For many years, there has been a question of how to archive or write about the performative and dance. As Baxmann wrote in The Body as Archive: On the Difficult Relationship Between Movement and History, since the 1930s, this question has been considered in a cross-disciplinary way. Marcel Mauss’s International Archive of Dance came from a ethnographic and scholarly perspective, and attempted to use museology, visual techniques, material culture, lecture, and writing to document movement methods across the world.
Since the largest part of Steinunn’s research resides in the bodies of other people, she has had to think of ways to document the work. She is (hopefully) writing a book on this experience. She also has a website where she can house other sorts of documentation. Outside of the workshop setting, she conducts round tables with her Nordic partners, professional dancers, and anyone who is interested in discussing her main question: what does a dancer do? She takes notes throughout these round tables as her documentation. Within the workshop setting, she has a camera on a tripod set up to record the practices in action. In my experience, she forgot the entire first day and finally remembered an hour into the second day. She mentioned that she is always concerned that people will react differently to the camera being on, and in our case there was one dancer who got much more nervous. Thus, she says that she often doesn’t remember to start with filming and instead she takes intense notes while she watches the workshop unfold. She wants the practices to take place naturally—so she sits in different spots of the studio throughout so that there is not a “front,” and so that participants do not “perform.” Clearly—recording movement in anyway is incomplete and since she wants to avoid the performative she has an extra challenge. That is why the majority of her notes come from the discussions she conducts in between practices. At the workshop we would sit for twenty minutes or more sharing what our bodies versus our minds had done or wanted to do throughout the practice. She again, takes detailed notes. She also opened the workshop by having us write our answer to “what does a dancer do?” on paper that was given to her.
The writing of dance and archiving of dance allows the choreography to be distributed through what Joy Jen calls an “economy of transversal ideas.” Thus, writing of dance and the choreographic are important for growth of the field. There are many challenges to recording this type of research/movement, especially if the camera inhibits rather than expands the opportunities. The biggest challenge to archiving any type of dance or dance research, is capturing the ephemeral and embodied experience through words. This of course has never stopped dancers and scholars from doing so. There are many approaches to doing this: complimenting words with photographs, talking biographically about a particular artist through dance, talking about a particular culture or place through dance, and so on. Even in formal notation systems, the emotive element of dance is the piece that remains missing. Another challenge is the question of “authenticity” and performativity within documentation. Phillip Auslander explains how performance art documentation can be in itself a performance. He says that photographs can be “an access point to the reality of the performance.” However, the use of photographs and video, or even writing about the event can also simply “look like documentation.” Docudance films and even ethnographic films may manipulate the dance, the sound, or the story line. The work that the archivist—be that the artist (Stieununn), the researcher (me), or a third party (student who partook in my mini-workshop)—must navigate is that of using the primary sources as they were intended.
This paper and the re-production of the workshop became work in sifting through the small amount of primary documentation I had, and portraying this work through words and an embodied experience for others. First, I have to address my subjectivity—was this desire to re-create this workshop in order to understand the research more fully and write on it what Foster calls the “impulse to archive?” Lepecki calls this desire and challenge, a “specifically choreographic will to archive” in that he believes it is not that the performance or experience is incomplete, but that its history is incomplete. I chose to experiment in this way in part because I wondered if it was possible as the non-expert on the research to teach this work, and in another sense because I was curious how it would work in a non-dance setting. My challenge lay both in how to discuss Steinunn’s work in a way that expresses the complexity in her simple approach and how to show her Practices in a very short amount of time. Recreating the workshop presented a few challenges for me: I had nothing to go off of besides my interview, Steinunn’s website, one twenty-second video I shot, and my fieldnotes. As I wrote I remembered more and more about the workshop. Each practice has many techniques and improvisations that Steinunn had us do. For my re-creation, I chose one element of each of the four practices. Furthermore, having sixteen hours to do these Practices and discuss them versus having thirty to forty minutes presented a big challenge. I could hardly fit all Four Practices, and I wanted to give students the time to take notes, for themselves and for my own data.
Conclusion |
Throughout this paper I presented the work of Steinunn Ketilsdóttir and the way that she approaches the expansion of dance within its technical structures. These structures include the definition of dance, the space where dance occurs, funding, and dancer/viewer expectation in dance. I have explored in depth her Four Practices and have explained how this experimentation moves beyond just bodies and into the physical space. Through a discussion of structured improvisation, traces, space, and the choreographic as well as the fieldnotes from my two personal experiences an understanding of the work of this research has been analyzed. I have further expressed how my work—both in the writing up of this embodied research approach and in my own mini workshop reinforced many of the writings and discussions on the challenges and approaches to archiving dance and choreographic art.
It has been my goal to use a cross-disciplinary approach focused on my own ethnographic research, dance scholarship, dance anthropology, and some of the art historical resources from this course. Overall, I hope that Steinunn’s work widened ideas regarding expectations and freedoms in dance and provided a tool for thinking about how structured practices can be historically complicated as well as vessels of potential in the realm of dance and performance art.
Works Cited
Auslander, Philiip. 2012. “The Performativity of Performance Documentation.” In Perform, Record, Repeat.
Baxmann, Inge. 2007. “The Body as Archive: On the Difficult Relationship between Movement and History.” Knowledge in Motion: Perspectives of Artistic and Scientific Research in Dance, 207–2018.
Joy, Jenn. 2014. “Introduction” The Choreographic. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Ketilsdóttir, Steinunn. 2016.” Steinunn Ketilsdóttir | Choreographer.” http://steinunnketilsdottir.com
Lefebvre, Henri, and Donald Nicholson-Smith. 2011. The Production of Space. Nachdr. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell.
Lepecki, André. 2013. “Choreopolice and Choreopolitics: Or, the Task of the Dancer.” TDR: The Drama Review.
Lepecki, André. 2010. “The Body as Archive: Will to Re-Enact and the Afterlives of Dances.” The Dance Research Journal 42 (2).
Nachmanovitch, Stephen. 2010. Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art. New York: Tarcher/Putnam.
Napolitano, Valentina. 2014. “Anthropology and Traces.” SAGE Social Science Collections.
Rockwell, John. 2017. Radical Bodies: Anna Halprin, Simone Forti, and Yvonne Rainer in California and New York, 1955-1972. Edited by Ninotchka Bennahum, Wendy Perron, Bruce Robertson, Simone Forti, and Morton Subotnick. Oakland, CA: University of California Press.
Sklar, Deidre. 1991. “On Dance Ethnography.” Dance Research Journal 23 (1): 6–10.
Tylor. E.B. 1971. Primitive Culture.
