Thinking Out Loud: The Study Group

FINAL study group notes.

2010-05-11T17:49:00.000-07:00

Thinking Out Loud
Tuesday May 11th, 2010

Butler
- If we begin to think about the material of the body as being informed or constructed by regulatory norms then what is ‘at stake’:
o Power can affect the matter of bodies (i.e. dance teacher pressing on your back when you’re bent over affects your flexibility)
o Performance acts out those things that norms already
o Sex is not the object on which performance is placed, but is in fact at the mercy of norms itself
o Process is not something that happens to me, it is something that I am part of (I assume it, I don’t undergo it) and I am not me until that process has happened
o Assuming a sex is a process influenced by discourse, and discourse of the heterosexual imperative favours certain possibilities (straight male and female) and which excludes a bunch of other possibilities

Other things that came out:
- Next year: similar syllabus but find better articles and a better approach
- May also be a secondary study group that covers one text over the course of the year
- “I gotta use words when I talk to you” – there is a problem in speaking in that you are going to end up saying something (when we speak out against or mock stereotypes, we in some way give them credence simply by speaking them)
- How subtle a regulatory norm can have an affect on a baby? If boy and girl babies were left alone in a room to develop, does the material of their anatomy affect the way they learn to move (would they develop the same way or differently)?
- We can’t know … there’s no possible human without the social – there is no blank slate, there is only social construct
- Evolutionary biologists and constructionists (like her) don’t seem to see eye-to-eye
- If we can learn new languages when we are adults (construct a new language as opposed to the one we learn first as mother tongue), what about learning a new gender?
- Perhaps the complexity of the idea of assuming a new gender late in life (in late adulthood, for example) speaks to the extent to which these gender
- Football player who changes gender can’t walk in high heels and muscles must change in order to allow him to do it (material of the body can and does actually change)
- Idea that we need to exclude and create other/abnormal/abject so that it can circumscribe what is normal; and idea that otherness is always within me because I need it to help me define how I am different from you
Thinking about next year’s study group…
- Might be nice to do more reading aloud next year? Helps you to hear it. Nice equalizer. Even if we all have different subjective experiences, at least we have this paper in common!
- Is there a benefit to having some kind of a guiding question that we examine in conjuction with the articles (for example, along with just working to uncover Butler’s ideas, we also having a leading question like “what is my opinion about the way that dance reinforces the gendering of bodies”
- Better: One article per topic. Spreading articles out over two sessions. Primary articles.
- Weren’t successful at introducing a practitioner or an art piece or an art process
- Context for the articles ahead of time would be helpful to situate reading
- Favourites? What is the contemporary? (Agamben) and Emancipated Spectator (Ranciere) were Jacob and Leora’s favourites.
- High hopes for the Dave Hickey article but we strayed too far into just talking about our thoughts about the topic that the author is writing on. Close readings are nice because they always literally bring us back to the actual text. Only so far off we can go before we can be gently nudged back to the page.

Notes on Butler from April 13th.

2010-04-26T12:00:00.000-07:00

Judith Butler (Introduction to Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex”)

Definitions of Sex, Gender, and Material

- Materiality of the body – the physical substance of my body

- “Sex” as something different than both material and gender – so where does it fit in?

- “Sex is between the legs, gender is between the ears” (she is saying it is more complicated than this because material is between the legs, gender is between the ears, sex is somewhere in between)

- Perhaps also, that this sex is what I choose to present but society won’t let me perform that gender

- Runner in South Africa who’s gender is materially questionable (if she isn’t performing it, and we still can’t locate her

Where discourse fits in
- Discursive practices – the talking which can emerge from both received wisdom and assumptions

- I.e. Discourse (and cultural context) has shaped my male sex not just my male gender

- How is biology itself a discourse?

- When people say “Judith, you’re suggesting that only because you spoke it, it became so”, she defends herself by arguing that while discourse doesn’t cause sex, sex can’t be disassociated from discourse

- Association and/or correlation is different than causality (causality occupies time in a different way than association/correlation)

- Regulatory ideal – what keeps the norms in place (on the most basic level, these are things like imposing which washroom you can use based on your sex, what body hair is acceptable, what clothing is acceptable, etc)

Gender Performativity

- Idea that gender is performed (i.e. it is an action it is not a being)

- What is common (ex. heterosexuality) is not necessarily natural (because what is common can still be highly performed thing and require a lot of reiteration)

- Problem: for gendering to be undone, doesn’t it require performativity in the reverse way? In other words, women trained for so many years to dance in a feminine way would have to perform as a male dancer.

- These regulations are what demarcate and produce the bodies it controls (regulation in ballet that dancers are tall and skinny is what produces people that become dancers that are tall and skinny – professional ballet selects for that and so bodies shaped in that way are rewarded, reinforces ideal)

- Note, she doesn’t deny sex as being a fact, she just seems to deny that it is simple

- If I understand this is a process in which there is always a choice being made (my arm is doing this, my arm is doing this again, my arm is doing this again, my arm is doing this again) then there is the potential for change.

- She is also really involved in ideas about disability (what happens to these bodies that do not fit within the norms of the hegemonic force)

- Page 6: “or do these very oppositions need to be rethought such that if “sex” is a fiction, it is one within whose necessities we live, without which life itself would be unthinkable?”

o Understanding that I am always negotiating my gender, but if I have to negotiate my sex all the time to, isn’t that just … well, too much? Doesn’t it make life completely daunting?

o Note that she doesn’t say it’s unfortunate – seems she isn’t critiquing this, she’s just stating it

- Argument for an underlying reality of one’s sex: it does seem to be likely (even if it’s not certain) that the moment we are born that we are naturally inclined to behave according to either male or female gender identity. This may be evidenced by the fact that the same percentage of people across counties, ethnicities, etc are homosexual (so not culturally produced).

- Rebuttal: statistical likelihood is different than an essential character (most humans run, but I don’t have to be able to run to be a human)

- Even if there was an underlying real sex, the desire to take on a role (question of gender performativity) is very different

- Matter or material doesn’t have sex (it is just the concrete flesh of a human) but sex is materialization of matter

- Argument that you can’t actually have a “culturally alive” being until it has been subjected to materialization (I can’t say I am “I” until I am sexed)

- Language is having a tough time catching up to fluidity that has always been present in concepts of sex and gender

- Butler also connected to analysis world and idea that “we are invented by our language” and so to psychoanalyze our culture, we must look at how we speak about ourselves

Butler and Dance

- Dance has very specific regulations (men must be able to lift, for example … and all the rules about women)

- Is this better now? The impact of these regulations on bodies in dance is that things get very gendered, very early, etc. This is where this article becomes relevant to us in the dance world, perhaps.

- Paradox: the gendering of female bodies is essentially un-gendering of female bodies (de-sexing and massive performance of gender)

- Movement in dance towards using things like momentum to lift, so women can do it (techniques allow reversal of traditional gender roles)

- Can art form evolve so that people aren’t required to perform gender to such an extreme form?

Why does she write like this?

Or, on Philosphy and the lived life.

- Her language is a specific code and it is an unfamiliar one to us (perhaps it is because it is more efficient for those who understand it)

- She argues that “writing clearly can make author too reliant on common sense, make language lose its potential to shape the world and shake up the status quo”

- Like Walter Benjamin, who writes in poetry so each word/sentence is a journey in and of itself

- Perhaps her immediate audience is small but the unknowable ripple effects can somehow be traced back to her

- If astrophysicist had to write for me, they’d never get anything done.

- She is not a “scientific popularizer” or a “bridge writer” – that’s not her role

- Maybe if we looked at her work as an artistic practice we would accept and perhaps welcome the obscurity of it (whereas we don’t accept as much fog in academics, the way we do in conceptual art, visual art, contemporary dance, etc)

- Thinking about people who have tiny followings (john cage) but that have immeasurable impact on fields (hip-hop, sampling, etc)

- Experiment and small scale is no guarantee of success, but state funds experimental theatre knowing that although 80% of it will end up in the garbage but the ones that don’t, have importance in terms of stretching the norms and regulations.

- (On a side note, there seems to have been this cultural shift so that audiences now want to understand things quickly and clearly (even moreso than they used to)

- Does this have real-life relevance? Argument that young queer youth hit university and read butler and suddenly feel okay.

- Idea that her text performs her argument (she is trying to show that gender, sex, identity, etc, is blurry and foggy … and so her language does this, makes it foggy)

- Why do we need to be forced to spend so much time and effort in reading?

- Reading process as reminiscent of Alexander Technique (I don’t know what she’s trying to say as I’m reading, or even by the end of reading it, but in the process I learn something about the subject)

- Back to Freire: be a subject when you are reading, and because each word is a praxis, it has the potential to change the world.

- Argument that feelings about value of this kind of writing is influenced by context: in an academic world, we are against this kind of writing (‘get on stage and show me what you mean’) but in an entirely performance-focused world, don’t ignore that your impulses come from somewhere.

- Would you want to see the musical based on this article?

- How do you present ideas to people that are very resistant to or fearful of them?

- Green baby clothing (gender neutral) costs more than blue or pink. What does that mean? That poor families won’t have access to baby clothes.

- The difficulty is also about the medium (it is written, so it can afford to be much more dense)

- Not everything is focused on (nor do they feel responsible for) sending a message to an inexperience audience that isn’t familiar with the medium, argument, terminology, vocabulary, etc.

FINAL study group for the year: May 11th!

2010-04-26T11:06:00.000-07:00

Spring has sprung and we are nearing the end of the 2009-2010 season here at Dancemakers. The time has come for our last Thinking Out Loud study group for the year.

For the first half of study group we will be revisiting the dense but exciting world of Judith Butler by discussing the introduction in her book Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex which you can get by clicking here. Just read the introduction (up to page 12 in the "book", which is really page 12-23 of the word document). We're then going to back to the very first article we looked at, Paulo Freire's Act of Study which you can get here. Aaaarg has changed their website around a bit, so if you get confused with the downloading process, and would rather just have a hard copy, we have them available here at the Dancemakers office.

The idea is that - by returning to Freire - we will have a chance to revisit the impetus for the study group, evaluate our inaugural year, and think about how we might want to shape next year's study group to keep us all interested and excited.

Study group meets at 6:30 at Dancemakers. We’ll be in the office - for a cozy, intimate last night together for the season. Snacks and beer/wine as per usual. Maybe more beer/wine since it will be a so long of sorts, and a celebration of a year of being together while we think about challenging ideas and talk on the fly.

Join us! And please RSVP if you can.

March 30th POSTPONED!

2010-03-25T12:11:00.000-07:00

Hi all,

Unfortunately, for a whole slew of reasons (ranging from new babies to Passover to room booking problems) we have to postpone the next Thinking Out Loud session. So instead of meeting this Tuesday, we will meet on Tuesday April 13th at 6:30pm at Dancemakers. We will be in the Baker studio just down the hall from where normally are - but don't worry, there will be signs up.

The topics/readings will stay the same as what we had planned, which means we'll all just get some more time to read and reread and analyze.

Sorry for the last minute change, everyone!

Time to Prep for March 30 Study Group!

2010-03-15T12:10:00.000-07:00

For the first half of study group, we'll return to An anthropological introduction to YouTube and Margaux Williamson's video Dance Dance Revolutions Co. / Tomboyfriend's End of Poverty and continue our discussion of amateurism and aesthetics.

After the break, we’re moving on to discuss gender. We’re going to try and do a close reading of the introduction to Judith Butler’s book Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex which you can get by clicking here. Read just until halfway through page 12. Alternatively, hard copies of the article are available in the Dancemakers office.

If you’re interested, I also came across this article entitled Techno Bodies: Muscling with Gender in Contemporary Dance from a book called Choreographing Difference. It might inform your thinking and reflecting.

Study group meets at 6:30 at Dancemakers. We’ll be in the studio. Snacks and beer/wine will be a feature as always.

March 2nd: YouTube and Ideas of Amateurism

2010-03-15T08:56:00.000-07:00

Excuse the fact that my computer ran out of batteries and thus, the notes get sparse and are mostly quotes or concepts that made a strong impression. Maybe this is what notes should always be done? ...

80% of youtube videos have under 100 views
(interesting because ones we tend to know about are the more popular ones)

(Sidenote: can you sort by viewcount? Least relevant?)

We also don’t know how the ones that are there on the opening page, how they come to be there.

Rules of youtube?
Interest when amateur performance line is blurred with professional performance.
Idea of context collapse (when you remove home video status there becomes moral question – like cute kids in rural towns driving becomes front page stories)

What were the rules that emerged when watching videos of teenagers dancing in their basements?
- they all have to be crappy quality (she missed it when an editor brightened it up)
- they last as long as the song

She was excited by the new palate in the world (naturalistic)
Took videos of teenagers dancing off youtube, made something else with it, set it to new song, etc.
On the day she displayed it at Harbourfront, she posted it on Youtube and contacted all the participants.

Interesting intersection with Rogoff article – by pulling them together, it becomes about “collectivity”
Loves idea that all over the world teenagers were dancing in their basement in a similar way (not about monoculture … but what is that similarity about?)
Some people seem to think it’s a bad thing. Some don't.

Are you hopeful that there is some kind of universality? Is that what part of your joy in people doing things in the similar ways?

Yes. Growing up, moving around, Margeaux always thought “wow, we could do things in so many ways, why do we all build houses in the same way, all over the world. Oh, wait, it’s because we all innately start to do things the same way.” Relief in the idea that we all bring a certain internal order to the way we organize things.

Steven Pinker.

Even when kids are being made fun of, it is not one kid. It is in groups.

What does this kind of amateur culture and dance in public space, do to the “legitimate” field?

Used to be “filter then publish” … now it’s “publish then filter”

“I make art that is accessible in medium, not necessarily in message”.

Is the body as a medium inaccessible? (compared to internet)

March 2nd: Revisiting the idea of "WE" (Rogoff)

2010-03-15T08:34:00.000-07:00

I was drawn to this article because my assumption that “collectivity is positive in art practice” was sort of rattled by the Ranciere article (Emancipated Spectator).

Is everything just a failure to be a collective?
(this article does seem to argue that collectivity is an ideal)

To argue against any kind of isolation seems a bit unnecessary now that art has become so participatory.

In the making of the thing, you have to deal with other people (and the audience) – even if you are a director with a whip, a dictator, not interested in creating collectively.

Isn’t there always a tension between individual and collective (monkeys – if they have strong physical relationship with the mother, they go exploring. If not, they are less adventurous.) Important to have people with different amounts of interest in collective.

‘Seems to be quite a move towards individualization right now.’
‘Really? I thought we were coming out of it.’

People are fearful of “being the director” and of being authoritative. But it is useful to have someone who is in charge, is an expert.

Power of participation and mutuality (mob mentality of post-gold medal game).
Yes, we have history to prove that collectivity can produce scary things, but there is also the flipside:
Emergent care in group situations (power of collectivity) … also at Olympics.

Usefulness of rules. Structure enables creativity. Rules breed freedom.

‘There are always rules, so if you don’t say what they are, people are left out’

Does an orchestra need an conductor?

Creating a valuable feedback loop – the usefulness of the outside eye, just because they are outside me. Importance of sharing as part of process.

Dynamic system that is always at play. Rehearsal as way of being where contribution is from many directions. Giving authority to participants (giving permission to people that don’t necessarily have expertise).

Difference between collectivity (in performance setting) and collaboration (in rehearsal setting).

Collaboration allows you to learn to communicate more, allows other people to help you define yourself in a way.

‘Seems like I can forget that working in isolation is also important‘

Difference between working collaboratively (having someone to push against) and working in isolation ... and constraints/rules as an artist individually versus an artist working within a group

Developing understanding of my rules with different people.

Fatigue of collaboration?

Edward de Bono: more Noble Prize winners per capita in Britain because they work alone (can sit with ideas and not have to translate them into some kind of vague/common language).

Isolation as a way to concentrate and distill your thoughts/style/artistic choices without coming into contact with limiting thoughts/assumptions/etc of others.

When you do have essential moment of contact after this isolated bout, it is very important that it is something helpful.

Improvisation as common tool in dance.

Mathematicians: when you solve a problem, ‘what do I do now’?

Is improvisation a means or an end?

Misha’s birthday party? What is difference between process and performance if collectivity is just coming together for arbitrary event?

Movement towards art as event (where there are two groups with different characteristics)?

Word arbitrary is difficult! Does I just like rules, but what the rules actually are is irrelevant?
(I just like temporary arbitrary rules like “no talking” for no reason)

Jacob: arbitrary = “without instruction”

Arendt quote:
"What keeps people together after the fleeting moment of actions has passed (what we today call 'organisation'), and what at the same time they keep alive through remaining together, is power".

What is my presence/practice as a spectator, as an artist?

Question: when there is no one to tell you what to see, how do you know what to go to?
(is it generational? Older people were used to having some kind of sense from somewhere of what there was to see, and what to see … )

DO we experience collectivity (like we do with the Olympics) at the theatre?

“To speak of collectivities is to de-nativise community, to argue it away from the numerous essential roots of place and race and kinship structures that have for so long been the glue that has held it together.”

So collectivity is not about a native community (my essentiality/origin/expertise is not what bring me into contact/conversation with other people) … but about my choice to arbitrarily come to this artistic event.

What’s wrong with fatigue?
It sometimes starts to feel like it would just be easier to go with someone’s rules, or to do it yourself … not to have to negotiate shared rules.

Without collaboration, I won’t get out of bed. I’m too lazy all by myself.

Is a committee a collaboration?

Everything is power (even your ability to speak in public)

Everything should be done at the appropriate level (if they can be done on a certain rung of the ladder, it shouldn’t be made/done higher up on the food chain).

People tend to delegate upwards (here are the problems, let someone above me fix it).

‘Resources and people become the laws’.

Things can fall apart when people don’t know the rules (people don’t know in what capacity they are being invited to participate if it’s not communicated) – citing “relational aesthetic piece gone wrong” at the power plant.

Artist in Vienna who ended up killing himself after trying to do collaborative work with a bunch of prostitutes (no one talks about the ethics)!

Rogoff meet Hickey ... on Wordle

2010-02-18T12:15:00.001-08:00

Check it out here....

February 2nd Recap - Part Two: Rogoff.

2010-02-17T06:40:00.000-08:00

Part 2 - WE: Communities, Mutualities, Participations (Irit Rogoff)

Reviewing my notes from our discussion around this article, I am struck by how scattered they feel to me. I wonder whether it is because I found the article rather impenetrable or because my brain was fatigued and having trouble both thinking its own thoughts and capturing others’ at the same time.

Random flashes.
- Idea that meaning is present in the interconnectedness
- Idea of “mediality” (as opposed to reality)
- Hopeful movement from critique→criticism→criticality (proposal to define criticality as something that is moving and changing is maybe a better way to approach it than “critical standpoint” from which there are values …. because in some areas of life, lack of criticality is paralyzing and in others, certain kind of criticality has paralyzed it)
- If I try to tell a story about what I just experienced, I will miss some details; idea that audience won’t get anything unless everything is explained
- Both writers (Hickey and Rogoff) discuss their topics (beauty and community) as action and relationship, think of them as an ongoing process
- People have a fear of things being arbitrary when you talk about relativism (it doesn’t matter what I say, it’s all relative); but what we do have to land us is the social.
- Idea that we look at things differently but that the differences are not arbitrary.

Transforming the world via community cliff-jumping.
- Flash: “one does not learn something new unless one unlearns something old. Otherwise one is simply adding information and not rethinking a structure.”
- This requires a lot of risk, scary that we have to give something up and sit in limbo in order to create the kind of collective space that can actually be critical
- We have emotional attachements to the things we think are true; art as site for us to uncover and restructure our entire way of thinking (similar to psychoanalysis)
- Maybe this article is calling for psychoanalysis on a community level (re-envisioning)?
- “This is us, we who are supposed to say we as if we know what we are saying and who we are talking about”
- “The reason I would wish to think of 'art' in relation to such a 'space of appearance' is recognition that when something called 'art' becomes an open interconnective field, then the potential to engage with it as a form of cultural participation RATHER than as a form of either reification, of representation or of contemplative edification, comes into being.”
- Rather is the problematic word there (we did a lot of work with “Emancipated Spectator” to unpack the polarity between spectatorship as bad and participation as good, and here it seems we’ve moved back to “spectatorship is bad”)
- We all seem to like these ideas in theory. Does the fear enter the picture because we know we will need put these things into practice? Real-world practicalities make this desire to investigate and reimagine everything seem daunting … “I’d never get through my day, if I was always trying to reimagine how to do things.”

Call for “working with no models”.
- Is working without models about time? Political act happens in the present, no planning of space and time for it; no directionality in preparation for it.
- Constant desire for potentiality – is it born out of the fact that people are trying to protect themselves from the disappointment of whatever results when something is actually chosen or realized?
- Is the desire to keep potential open an easy way to not have to be rigorous in one’s artistic practice; a way to make excuses for not committing to anything?
- We seem to have this idea of wanting things to be organized in a rhizome-like way (decentralized), as compared to model of world as a tree (which has a base/centre). But is decentralizing control in this way related to too much potentiality?
- Maybe too much potentiality slows the process of growing one singular thing (editor’s note: to me, this is related to our discussion around relational aesthetics and the question of “what is the artist’s responsibility?”)

February 2nd Recap: Hickey.

2010-02-17T06:38:00.000-08:00

Thinking Out Loud – February 2nd, 2010

If there’s one thing influencing my note-taking, note-revising, and note-posting these days, it’s the idea that everything is process and in process. I can’t seem to make my way out of this never-ending action - interpretation and re-interpretation, structuring and restructuring - and just settle on the thing. Every time I reopen my notes thinking they are “finished enough” I discover that today I want to make different connections, choose different quotes, use a different structure. It harkens back to Agamben’s “What is the Contemporary” article and my question: how do we deal with the fact that every work is situated in a particular time and place, and yet by the time the works is ready or complete, the time and place has already changed? well, without further ado, here are my notes from the last Thinking Out Loud session, in one particular incarnation, at this particular junction of time and space.

Part 1 – Dave Hickey (Vernacular of Beauty)

Intention.
- Important distinction between “what it looks like” and “what it means”
- Where does intention fit in? Can beauty reside within intention?
- What is the difference between having an intention and successfully realizing one’s intention? If we are going to evaluate based on the intention, does it matter whether or not the intention was achieved?
- Is it even possible to perceive intention in a work?
- When an artist makes a work, can they discover intention after (“I want the work itself to tell me what it’s about”)?
- Some artists claim art-making “is not about intention” as an excuse for not being rigorous with their practice.

For the last time, what is beauty? Maybe our “definition” is somewhere in this brainstorm.
- Is beauty a judgement or an experience?
- Beauty as something communal, something that involves influence from others, related to received knowledge and brainwashing, etc.
- Black and white wall experiment as proof of the role of influence or suggestion on our experiences
- How does relativism come into play (we talk about beauty as this hierarchical thing)?
- Personal engagement or relationship to something as where we locate meaning; is this the closest we can get to idea of “universal beauty”?
- “Beauty is what the object and I agree on”
- Manmade beauty – and where is that in relation to what is beautiful in nature?
- How we experience or understand beauty as something that shifts with time?
- Beauty as a safe place? Beauty as power to be dangerous.
- Space between beauty and pleasure.
- Struggle or resolution of struggle as what makes something beautiful?
- Beauty about when one is authentic with one’s search. Through struggle, there is some kind of engagement with it on part of artist, which becomes beautiful to audience.
- Beauty as reception of something in a certain way. Then there is this question of is that beauty important?
- Why do we need to come to a consensus? To figure out how to use it? Do we need a consensus? What happens if we say “There is no consensus about what beauty is, but I’m still going to set out to create something beautiful”

Which leads us to …. the use of beauty.

Beauty as Functional.
- Foucault has this idea that we don’t even see the world as it is, we see it as others want us to for their purposes (for example, in the current economic climate in North America, we are encouraged to value profit over caring for ones’ neighbour)
- This raises an important for artists: “Do I know or understand enough about the world enough to even say anything? “
- “A good friend is someone who unsettles you”
- Is our job as artists still to shatter beauty with ugliness to offset all those “others” that are trying to manipulate us with beauty?
- Can we use beauty to unsettle?
- It seems unfortunate for artists to sacrifice our access to beauty (artists shouldn’t give that power up)
- Questions: “how do you let beauty back in?” “Can we ever get beauty back?”
- How might an advertiser’s intention manifest differently than an artist’s?
- Problem as an artist who needs to sell work of how we brand ourselves.
- Is what is a comfort and what is unsettling also depend on context? (i.e. are magazines and tv a comfort because they invisibly reinforce your world and what is familiar to you … and it is only when they become foreign and thus visible to you that they are unsettling?)
- When the argument becomes visible, you cannot be seduced by it as much. Intention is revealed. As we become aware of platform from which we are experiencing things, we move towards new level of criticism.
- Boiling pot of water and the frog metaphor. If boiling water is contemporary dance, how do you throw people in that pot, and get them to stay? Make it beautiful? Then beauty becomes a functional tool.
- Do we need a Vanna White (a beautiful thing directing people’s gaze to the object)? If work itself is not beautiful, isn’t that enough?
- Importance of welcoming people to engage with things they don’t have ‘expertise’ around and giving permission to people to just have experience

Criticism.
- Relational aesthetics: there is only a relationship, there is not an object around which we meet… so what do we evaluate or critique? It becomes about ethics: we evaluate based on how artist treats the people involved (not about how aesthetically pleasing it is)
- When ethics become more important than product, isn’t it better to not have people wondering about your soul, but just worrying about your appearance?
- Challenging question: maybe being under authorial rule of king is more useful than being under constant self-censorship (maybe it makes resistance more possible)
- Do I want to be judged on both my appearance and my soul?

Study Group March 2

2010-02-11T10:22:00.000-08:00

We'll return to WE: Collectivities, Mutualities, and Participations by Irit Rogoff for the first half.

After the break, we'll take a pause in our readings to spend some time with Youtube and questions of "amateur" production and aesthetics.

We'll reference An anthropological introduction to YouTube and Margaux Williamson's video Dance Dance Revolutions Co. / Tomboyfriend's End of Poverty, made mostly from clips of teenagers dancing in their basements. Feel free to add links of "amauteur" performance in the comments.

Study group meets at 6:30 at Dancemakers. In March we'll be in the office.

(it's true that conversations are better if you've read the readings or watched the videos, just gives us something solid to talk about...)

Part 4. Dave Hickey and Beauty.

2010-02-02T11:27:00.000-08:00

Background
- Text from the article comes from a book “Invisible Dragon” published around 1993, which he pulled off the market when people got so angry about it.
- When he heard it was selling on ebay for about $500, Hickey thought it was ridiculous so he allowed it to be published
- Writings are largely centered around Robert Mapplethorpe, National Endowment Fund issue (series of photographs created a huge controversy)

What is beauty?
- “Beauty is not a ~~doing~~ thing. The Beautiful is a thing. To images, beauty is the agency that causes visual pleasure in the beholder” (David Hickey)
- What do we think this means/how do we feel about it?
- Maybe it means beauty is about our relationship to the thing: so that it’s a process or an agency – not inherent in the object, but not post-reflection – somewhere in between (“comes before our analytical reflective engagement thing”)
- Object is thus not arbitrary, and our initial response to things as beautiful doesn’t necessarily change
- It seems to come down to the degree of pleasure that one has in engaging with something

How do notions of context affect beauty?
- What happens when we put the subject (the central artistic object) that we are all relating to in a different context (i.e. idea of it retaining its cosmetic superstructure, but when is object obsolete?)
- Idea that the thing in and of itself doesn’t change, but somehow the thing in and of itself does (the work is not in the physical attributes itself)
- What happens when an object or piece “transcends time”? Does the object lose its value if it loses its political relevance? It retains its beauty.
- Doesn’t context require some kind of knowledge?
- How much is a gut response to what is “beautiful” a socialized response (question of beauty as nature or nurture)?
- Hickey asserts that language is cultural and rhetoric is a technique/craft -- so maybe he is not trying to deal with a universal definition of beauty, but is creating something “beautiful” for people with the same points of reference
- Who’s to say that response to Mapplethorpe photos in 1983 was any different than to the painting during the reformation?
- How do we deal with the fact that there isn’t a standard notion of beauty?
- Mapplethorpe seems to be appropriating beauty and directing our gaze towards the way we perceive beauty

Beauty, Argument, & Mapplethorpe Photographs.
- Two different functions of art: academies/education world teaches that art should be a critique of mainstream (is sanctioned); beautiful celebration of marginal culture/practice, etc (is not sanctioned)
- In the case of the photos: an acknowledgement of its own controversy and corruption would have somehow required less litigation; power is in its beauty, not in its content (rough, dirty, grimy, etc)
- It was the unapologetic attitude of artist towards his work that made it so contentious (it does not ask forgiveness form its audience)
- Declaration that the work is “corrupt” is actually the antithesis to beauty of them
- Mapplethorpe was putting his own world out there – did he know it was going to be controversial, and was it an “argument”?
- Can you express your idea of beauty with making an “argument” for it?

Beauty, Advertising Culture, and Art.
- Could we have even had this discussion before advertising culture, which uses what is “cool” or “beautiful” to manipulate us into buying things (making argument invisible)?
- Perhaps:
- Hickey asserts that art has given away beauty to capitalist world - and that that’s a bad idea!
- Perhaps for a while we have aspired to make art stripped of all beauty in order to respond to/get away from advertising (didn’t want art that looked like advertising)
- Have we now developed enough criticality that we can reintroduce beauty?

Where does an image’s argument fit in? Can beauty and critique coexist?
- An image and its argument: there’s this question of what it looks like versus what it means (where is the argument?)
- We have learned to critique the beautiful, we have learned to distrust it
- Perhaps outside of its argument, an object can be beautiful but not vital?
- Perhaps the problem in advertising (versus art) is with the hiding of the argument?
If I deny I am making an argument, it makes it very difficult for you to argue back with me? However, if I acknowledge that I am making an argument, I emancipate you to disagree with me?
- Question: when we are engaging with something beautiful is it on some level an uncritical knowing or outside of knowledge?
- Perhaps we tried to get rid of beautiful thing that “obscures the truth” (we had this idea that in order to move away from advertising, mass media, influence, etc, that we had to get rid of beauty)
- Why? Maybe because the dominant story of beauty is an “uncritical one” (so to become critical, people have avoided beauty) – article as call for not needing to avoid beauty
- How much pleasure can we have and still be critical?
- Why do we have to get rid of pleasure? Why can’t we have generosity with beauty and then have our gaze re-focused (perhaps this is part of the pendulum swinging backwards)?
- Beauty = virtuosity of performance?
- It was suggested that the article feels hopeful because it means we can create beautiful things that still have some kind of a function

Online conversations. Who knew?

2010-02-01T09:30:00.000-08:00

On the eve of the next Thinking Out Loud (info here)
I wanted to draw attention to a great discussion in the comments around Ranciere. Two people I don't know having a great conversation about the reading - very nice and exactly what we hoped for. Perhaps we need to Skype in from Argentina.

Speaking of spectatorship... WHITE CABIN @ the Theatre Centre

2010-01-23T13:52:00.000-08:00

Considering all the talk about spectatorship around Thinking Out Loud (what with the Emancipated Spectator article and all), I think it's pretty exciting that the celebrated Russian theatre company AKHE is bringing their piece of highly physical theatre White Cabin to the Theatre Centre next week.

This is what their say about their show:
"Can a spectator influence what is happening on stage simply by his or her presence? Can the action onstage influence the very will of the spectator and the desire for self enrichment? Is it possible to project the action onstage directly into the mind and soul of the spectator? The female protagonist of this multimedia piece faces all of these questions and many more. Her co-performers provoke her, creating magical situations where the simplest reactions are projected into a metaphorical, decidedly absurd realm.

Check out the Theatre Centre site to get tickets.

February 2nd Readings

2010-01-19T19:56:00.000-08:00

Our January 2010 Thinking Out Loud launched us with avengence into a new year of thinking and creating. It was a delightfully large group on a very snowy day and the discussion was certainly stimulating.

So, onto our next one! Here's the info.

Date: Tuesday February 2nd - 6:30pm
Place: Dancemakers and the Centre for Creation
Articles: Enter the Dragon: On the Vernacular of Beauty - Dave Hickey (before the break)
AND
WE: Collectivities, Mutualities, and Participations - Irit Rogoff (after the break)

Both are available on aaaarg by following the links, or at the Dancemakers office.

If you want to read the intro to Hickey's book (where the beauty article comes from), check it out here and feel free to read up some background on the Mapplethorpe controversy here. If you are perplexed like I was about Jean Luc Nancy (who Rogoff refers and responds to a lot in the second article, check out some basic wikipedia info here or if you have about two weeks to kill and are feeling inspired, his book Being Singular Plural is here. Of course, none of this supplemental reading is required ... it's just there if you're curious and looking for some more information.

The new format (we spend the first half of the session revisiting an article from the last study group session, and start discussing a new article after the break) was interesting so we are going to try it again. This means we'll get to revisit the Dave Hickey article. Don't worry if you missed the last discussion about it, though - come even if you've never been before! You can also read up about what we discussed on this blog, where the notes are posted (also feel free to comment on them, or start tangential discussions)! We want you and your art practice thoughts with us - at the study group and on the blog.

Oh, and let us know you're coming! There may be cookies, but there may be something even more exciting. Then again, cookies are always pretty good. So is beer and wine, which we will have there (suggested donation).

Part 3. So what is Ranciere proposing?

2010-01-16T21:17:00.000-08:00

- What does an “active” spectator look like?
- What does work look like when it’s made with the intention of emancipating spectators, or for emancipated spectators? (and are they emancipated when they arrive, or only after the work)?

[Problem that everything can become a question of how emancipated am I in every moment (ticket sales, marketing, etc)?]

- When we are creating for emancipated spectators, or in order to encourage emancipated spectatorship, what is an artist’s responsibility?

- No practice in the article, only philosophy
- No implied style (rather, are you creating an ethos for something?)

- Perhaps artist provides:
1. a work and
2. a time and space for audience to freely experience, engage with this work

- Ranciere doesn’t define object in the middle where we meet (the work is the third term) but suggests that if we put the work at the centre, it frees us to not have a dichotomous relationship
- Community or active learning experience for the audience

- Suggestion that when Ranciere says “looking is not acting” it is not a statement of truth … he seems to be saying:

watching (and analysis) can be participation

Part 2. Spectacle and Emancipation.

2010-01-15T20:11:00.000-08:00

Spectacle.
- What is a spectacle?
- Is there a way for the subject/performance to not be spectacle?
- There is this concern:

“If I’m not part of the subject, maybe it is a spectacle”

- If this is true, is it a bad thing?

How do you choose artistic content?

- Is content just a meeting place for an exchange, or does the content matter in and of itself?

- How much can you engage with 3rd item (subject) … as opposed to just engaging with each other as performer/audience?

Where is meaning?

- If everyone in the room (artists and audience) is engaging with a work and trying to understand what it is?

- Someone suggested that perhaps performers contribute their particular competencies and a desire to investigate what subject means with a new audience, audience contributes their intelligence and desire to investigate new subject?

"Just because you get everyone to walk around the space, doesn’t mean you’re part of it"

- Spectacle of advertising and mass media as being in opposition to individual experience, wants to impose experience in order to persuade you of something
- Hickey seems to be trying to emancipate the word “spectacle” as well – he challenges our understanding/definition of it as negative, suggests that looking and acting have never been separate – we just think about them that way.

Emancipation.
- Who is the more “emancipated spectator”? The dancer who goes in to watch contemporary dance with an understanding of what the art/culture is or the person who goes in with no familiarity with the art/culture?
- What expectations does an audience come in with?
- One person argued you just engage and unconsciously analyze (in other words, maybe there is no way to detect emancipation, we are just articulating something that already happens)

“maybe the emancipation doesn’t have to be self-conscious”

- Do audiences resist being emancipated? Maybe there is fear in the freedom to enter a performance as an emancipated spectator

(“there is comfort in knowing what the rules are, and knowing what my role is as an audience member is - if you change that rule and give me authority, I don’t know what to do anymore and feel uncomfortable”)

- What is the community construct around staying in your seat? Why don’t we leave? Respect for performers? Is it reputation? Pressure?

- If you don’t know you’re emancipated, are you? If I don’t know I’m free to leave at any time, am I emancipated?

- Is the safety of rules for the purpose of commodification?

- We’ve been discussing the “we as performers are imparting our expertise to you lesser audience people” inequality but there is also the reverse inequality we need to consider: “emancipated” audiences who have power to value or devalue artistic product (kick over set, throw tomatoes, etc) – if we give audience power, they use it to purchase art of their choosing.

Is this also a problem?

- Discussion of Jacob Wren show at Harbourfront

(demanded emancipated audience – i.e. demanded participation from very beginning and had loose boundaries ... but one audience member became very destructive)

- Potential of the internet to emancipate spectators?

(story of child looking for mouse attached to the television as indicator of people’s basic assumption these days that they can participate in entertainment)

Part I. Of several. Flashes from TOL January 5th.

2010-01-14T21:49:00.000-08:00

I'm rolling out these notes in stages because there's a lot here to digest. We returned to Ranciere's mama article "The Emancipated Spectator" and revisited what flashed for people off the bat.

In general, I'd say it can be focused into themes:
1) Encouraging pedagogical models
2) Reclaiming words like ignorant and spectacle
3) Assumptions - deconstructing and reevaluating them
4) Are we ready to do virtuosic things for audiences again?

Click below to see what - in relation to these themes - jumped out at people upon their first reading.

More...

- “He reinforced my concerns about teaching as a hierarchical relationship which is present in so many artistic training programs”
- How do you put subject-focused non-hierarchical approach to learning in an artistic setting?
- Interesting that he used the word “ignorant” in a good way, when it normally has an immediately negative connotation. Proposal that he is using word to make a point (and to reclaim it)?
- We all learned to speak language as children (and not through a hierarchical approach), so perhaps if we bring this kind of inherent intelligence we all have to artistic processes and performances, we can engage with a certain amount of equality? I.e. Through engagement rather than through enforced learning (the way we learn language)
- Ranciere works through of a set of assumptions (like spectatorship is bad) which he then goes on to debunk (reference to all the dichotomies that he deconstructs)
- Pulling apart of idea that community is good in order to complexify it (instead of just assuming there is some inherent good in community)
- Challenging the role of the spectator has been making the rounds in dance in Europe – relational aesthetics practices have become common, a way to rebel against the hierarchical
- Maybe this was a necessary response to the unconscious pacifiying of the audience that happened before, and next, we can say “okay, we understand this differently” and now we can go back to making plays and have audiences observe again
- Is there room for virtuosity again? Return (not full swing) back to observership

January 5 Readings

2010-01-01T13:26:00.000-08:00

The study group continues to be fun and useful. So great to have a space to talk about art and art making in a way we don't often get to. If you haven't been before, please know you're always welcome. And you have been before, welcome back.

Date: January 5th - 6:30pm
Place: Dancemakers and the Centre for Creation
Articles: The Emancipated Spectator - Jacques Ranciere
Enter the Dragon: On the Vernacular of Beauty - Dave Hickey

Both are available on aaaarg by following the links, or at the Dancemakers office (We're closed after the 22nd and reopen the 4th.) Some background on the Mapplethorpe controversy is here, and the Introduction to the Hickey book is here. Neither are necessary, but if you find them useful, it's nice to have them.

New format (thanks to Leora for the suggestion)
In an effort to keep discussions going and to allow for some more thinking time, we're changing up the structure a bit.We'll split the session up so the first half is about last months reading and the second half is about a new reading, which in turn will be discussed at the beginning of the following month.
For example:

On January 5th we will spend the first half talking about the December articles, with special attention to The Emancipated Spectator, because we didn't spend much time on it. Rough notes on the session are on the Thinking Out Loud blog.Then we'll start discussing Dave Hickey's Enter the Dragon: On the Vernacular of Beauty
Then in February, we'll come back to Hickey and then start the new one.

We hope this format will allow for added reflection and a deeper conversation into each reading. We're also going to experiment with only one article per session to keep the discussion focused and the reading load lighter.
Also, anyone is able to join the conversation who haven't been before - while we will build on the conversation for the previous time, we'll make sure to include newcomers.

And this format makes the blog more useful we hope. The notes from last time are up - please comment, question or add tangents in comments section. We want the blog to be a space for conversations to continue and happen between sessions.

ok, I think that's all.
we love when you rsvp (there's cookies to count)

Notes from December 1

2009-12-14T15:28:00.000-08:00

Note on Notes:

These are rough and provisional traces of a discussion - they are almost all questions, the evidance of thinking out loud.

Please join us on January 5th for a continuation of the discussion on Ranciere's Emancipated Spectator, and the start of a discussion of Dave Hickeys "Enter the Dragon: On the Vernacular of Beauty"

Thinking out loud – December 1st, 2009

Articles

"Relational Form" by Nicolas Bourriaud >> "The Social Turn: Collaboration and Its Discontents" by Claire Bishop >> "The Emancipated Spectator" by Jacques Ranciere

We had questions around relationship with audience. Bourriaud’s article provides the foundation, Bishop article provides a critique, and then – since both those articles are so practice-oriented and we wanted something more theoretical – the Ranciere article speaks to why we might want to work this way and consider these ideas.

FLASHES: (from Friere)

Relation to Marxist theory – difficulty and confusion of collectivity in this era Question of working in commercial theatre: how do you create art with meaning, if you have to sell it?
Passivity of spectatorship as being problematic
Bourriaud asserts the importance of evaluating within social and political context
Shift in purpose of theatre: Are we making things to teach? To provoke? To engage? To mollify?
Bishop says “this is about post-communism” and artists that are looking for a form of artistic revolt when revolution no longer seems possible; an attempt to resist commodification.
Different shared experience when viewing performance and visual art :: you can talk to someone in the present about your experience while viewing a painting, which you are not able to do in a performance.

There was then a wide ranging discussion that we’ll attempt to summarize with categories of Ethics/Politics, Aesthetics/Form and Audience. These categories are so interrelated that it’s difficult to pick and dangerous to forget the interplay , but hopefully useful to tracking thoughts. We were jumping like crazy, which was a good thing.

AUDIENCE:

what happens to collectivity when an audience is diverse? Are relational pursuits there to grapple with this unpredictability, because we can’t rely on anticipated experience?
What can you assume about an audience’s collective experience? Maybe nothing – maybe you have to provide them with everything they need in the space and in the piece itself? Imperative for work to contain all of the information required in order to engage with the work?
People making the work actually become the audience in a very specific way. When you’re doing the work, the community becomes the most immediate audience. Denying authorship (“don’t worry about getting my inside jokes, make up your own”) as a way of dissolving audience/performer boundary.
Relational work as creating a world you inhabit, rather than a world you watch.

FORM/AESTHETICS:

Is there a difference in purpose between visual and performing arts – how does possibility of ownership of visual art object affect its role, compared to un-own-able performance?
What does RA do to the notion of craft – is that scary?
Discussion of the table set-up as being “crafted” but not to be “observed” – intentionally loose. Common idea that craft is “best if not even noticeable” – value is in what it facilitates, not in the thing itself.
Consultative and dialogic art necessitates shift in our understanding of what art is, away from visual/sensory.
Modernist goal: to blur lines between life and art.
Can art fall out of function, if life becomes too much like art or vice versa.
Is Youtube making the practice of art-making as a specialized profession redundant? Idea of art making itself redundant is also in Emancipated Spectator.
At the unachievable limit of what relational could be (utopian ideal) would there be no audience and no author?
Is it not ancient, that art was a function of life (women sitting around weaving) and we are oddballs who have created this elite “away from people” kind of art?
Is Bishop saying: there is a difference being an artist that is mostly like a social worker, and one who enagages with a conflict but does it through their artistic choices?
Where does aesthetics go when you are developing relational work? What are we allowed to evaluate? The process (maybe there becomes a “virtuosity of ethics”, a question of “how good a collaborator you are”)? The resulting object?
There is still an artistic object – an aesthetic manifestation of the relations, so even if you aren’t evaluating relation, you are evaluating product; still responsible aesthetically for time and space as an artist. So if you are still shaping/manipulating time and space, where does the ethics come in?
Is it about the making of it being collaborative? If the structure is in place where someone is still in control, if it is still being imposed by an authorial voice, can it be?
Art-making as a “game” in Bourraiud. Is art really a game between all people and all periods, or is it a game between all ARTISTS and all periods?
Is there a useful difference between creativity (finding expression) and critical creation (public money, public stage)?
Comparison with sporting events (rules become a container in which you can recognize the situation, be it war, basketball game, a party).

“Sometimes I want the aesthetic”. Question of aesthetics of naturalism. Being "human" in the performance space (specific aesthetic way of being).
Problematic word: technique … what is it good for?

Do you express the same contemporary ideas differently in a different disciplines? specific work (in dance you are responding to dance history, what power has been in dance, etc … whereas in relational art one responds to visual art lineage? Or maybe not)
Having separate “pure dance brain” based on “is it beautiful?” like a platonic ideal (aspiring to them), whereas relational aesthetics is talking about it in relation to something (engaging with those ideals but grappling with them)?
If we could think about artists marrying the dance and relational practices, confusing notions of spectatorship:

Forsythe (deconstructs ballet, process is very time-specific; he hates what is being done to his pieces out of the time and place that they were conceived in) – relational in the process, but crafted with trained dancers for an audience
Continentale in Montreal last summer (“guerilla dance”)
iPod dance parties – act of dance used
Ame Henderson and Kaleb Robertson’s Noise Complaints where people were attempting to learn choreography
Huge practice of dance in public space.

Ballet and modern share an aesthetic (dance involves a notion of body in space) even if they have different takes on that aesthetic. Relational work as breaking from this aesthetic entirely and moving beyond it so that dance can be about the quality of a relationship, atmosphere, or experience … not about what it actually looks like, but rather the experience of “looking” at it or participating in it.

Definition of aesthetics?

POLITICS/ETHICS

Brecht’s quote “Art is not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.” – authorial claim of hammer wielder doesn’t work anymore in relational work.
How do you un-structure the power dynamic in art (and society)? Notion of democracy is that everyone’s voice has a place, and yet we give up that voice in a voting system (not possible in practice what is possible in theory).
Making manifest power, bringing into the visible something; never completely dismisses its history.
Question: How are relational works proposed to communities? In diverse ways, and with an attempt to make it part of the process (it is part of the work of the artist to figure this out). What are the ethics of this kind of work work?
Using exploitation to make the point (Santiago Sierra).
There are ethical requirements in the academic world, but there’s no ethics “overseer” in the art world – how do we deal with this?
Is it important to be explicit to be clear about the rules?
Rules that are arbitrary make you overly authoritarian. Do you need to create rules that work towards an end that you understand?
Some kind of contract is made, so there is room for criticality.

KG’s Elapse I+II (link under performances) - Proposal was impossible; people take agency within “game” that you set up for them, and play depending on their willingness - the pleasure of installing rules is that people like to break them (idea of having rules generating a kind of freedom).

What parameters do we use to evaluate relational work. Is the critic extinguished – and does that even matter? Shift of focus from product to process in community arts? Goal is the process, not the artifact. Difference between “community enhancing” art practices, and art done with community. Critiquing relationship with community, versus artifact.

Radical (for some) statement in Ranciere is that “spectatorship is bad”, capitalist, part of an oppressive regime.

Some questions over morning coffee...

2009-12-07T19:42:00.001-08:00

Our inspiring relational aesthetics study group the other night, my own surfacing "what do I actually do at Dancemakers?" question, and my "wait a second, what does anyone at Dancemakers do and how do they do it?", led to a long Jacob and Leora tete-a-tete over coffee, lots of Wordle, and dabblings in Autosummarize (in Microsoft Word) and We Feel Fine. A million questions emerged, including:

- Is relational aesthetics work essentially a practice intended to make the world better, a revolution of a kind?

- There is a problem in the creating of new work, that it is already outdated by the time we are creating it (which speaks to the conundrum in the "What is the Contemporary" article of how we locate the exact moment that something, like fashion, is contemporary). If I try to make a dance about the latest internet fad (google, facebook, wordle, etc), it is already irrelevant when I perform it. How do we deal with this?

- How does the idea of collaboration confuse the traditional notion of "choreography" in dance as something imposed on a dancers' body? If it used to be that a dancers' body was a choreographers' tool, how does power work in a collaboration? If the "best idea" wins, who gets to decide what that is?

- If an artist were to use material generated from a program like We Feel Fine (which could be described as a simple "context collectors", how does the artist provide a frame that moves it into the realm of expression, and then beyond self-expression into a place of complicating something familiar?

And finally:
Sometimes I like to see people onstage complete the impossible with seeming effortlessness and grace.
Sometimes I like to see people onstage struggle as they attempt to complete the impossible and not be sure whether or not they will actually manage.

Which, why, and when?

And is to complete the impossible gracefully denying something about the reality of what's going on? What does that mean?

Jacob's notebook

2009-12-02T13:34:00.000-08:00

more (typed) notes on last nights great discussion on Relational Aesthetic and Ranciere to follow.

"Let art save democracy!"

2009-11-26T13:38:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone,

When I came into the office this morning to do some more preparation for our upcoming relational aesthetics study group, Michael slipped me this fascinating article.

If you're feeling relationally inspired, check it out on line or there is also a hard copy available in the Dancemakers office. I like it because while it's very much on topic, it was written by architects who approach the topic with different preoccupations and curiousities than I do and venture into a whole other set of practical applications.

It comes from a research conference called "The Museum of Conflict - Art as Political Strategy in Post-Communist Europe" which focused on two major questions:

How does the institutional museum reflect ways in which contemporary art is used as a representation of political change?

Can art take over the location of power, being 'a symbol of openness and democracy?'

Enjoy!

Coming up...Thinking Out Loud 3

2009-11-10T15:29:00.000-08:00

(Kari Pederson)

It's about that time again...we are looking forward to our third Thinking Out Loud this December 1st at 6:30. Whether you have attended a previous TOL event or if this will be your first we wold love to have you join us for an evening of interesting and relaxed conversation, snacks and refreshments at Dancemakers. Tell your friends, lovers, colleagues and teachers - everyone is welcome.

In our upcoming TOL we will be contemplating the changing relationships between spectator, artist and participant through these articles:

"Relational Form" by Nicolas Bourriaud (1998) (with a particular focus on the section titled 'Artwork As Social Interstice'
"The Emancipated Spectator" by Jacques Ranciere (2004)
"The Social Turn: Collaboration and Its Discontents" by Claire Bishop (2006)

(click the title for a pdf or find a hardcopy, and a photocopier, in the Dancemakers office)

We hope to see you there. Please RSVP and join us at the Dancermakers’ Centre for Creation on December 1st at 6:30.

Bring your curiosity, openness, some spare change for drinks and anyone you know who might be interested in snacks and stimulating conversation.

Long-awaited-eagerly-anticipated Study Group #2 Notes

2009-11-05T09:40:00.001-08:00

Things have been buzzing here at Dancemakers, but finally, for your perusal, here are the notes Kari and I compiled from our awesome second Thinking Out Loud session, all about the ideas of contemporariness, reconstruction, and modernism.

Notes from Thinking Out Loud #2 - Monday, October 19, 2009

Here are our notes from the last TOL! Dancemakers has been very busy lately and we have been discussing new articles for next TOL, which falls on December 1st. We will post them soon - but for now, see below:

“What is the Contemporary?” – Giorgio Agamben

“How Modern Is Modernism? The Relevance of Reconstruction”
- André Lepecki

“Reconstructing Dance: Taking an Active Interest in the Legacy of Dance” - a short essay from the Goethe-Institute website

“What Is Contemporary?”

What connections to The Act of Study (TOL’s first article by Paulo Freire) arose while reading this article?
- Being Agamben’s “contemporary” is like being what Freire calls a subject (an ideal learner). It is not static but a process.

Using Freire’s concept of a flash idea, what flashed while reading “What Is Contemporary?”
- I thought about how I’ve come to where I am and how I can use others’ work as a filtration system to learn about where I am and what is contemporary to me. For instance I prefer contemporary work but it’s lineage is not forgotten. It’s like a line of evolution that you can cut into. Peggy Baker is an example of this: I’m not a fan of her work but I’m a fan of her student’s work.
- if I prefer the contemporary, why would I want to read the “pre _____” if there is a “post _____”,? For instance, why learn about modernism if we are post-modern?

Thoughts on the article’s form:
- Elitist or academic
- Poetic and hard to grasp.
- Inspiring but daunting – if I do what he is asking of me I can’t do things like buy my groceries
- “Contemporary” as an idealism
- A higher call to action – like a manifesto to become more “contemporary” (by Agamben’s definition)

So what is meant by “contemporary”?:
- Is he saying that contemporary-ness is not about “nowness” but more so a state of being?
- Being contemporary is knowing what to look back on
- Breaking down the word as “con” = (connotation) against, “temp” = time – “contemporary” meaning against time? Does this create a paradox of being contemporary as being both intimate and impersonal simultaneously
- OR “con” = “with” (the Latin preposition), “temp” = time – “contemporary” meaning with time
- Indescribable – the metaphor of never being able to describe the ground beneath your foot, until you move your foot

How is the complex term “contemporary” appropriated by popular culture?
- “contemporary” dance section of So You Think You Can Dance
- School of Contemporary Arts

In relation to Agamben’s lightness/darkness reference:
- Lightness/darkness as the good/bad: perhaps it is actually the darkness that is more graspable because we are all able to feel the darkness within ourselves.
- Perhaps what he meant by light and dark is not infused with value but instead a different system of interpreting our experiences
- Lightness/Darkness as what is illuminated and what is less illuminated: understood through Jacques Ranciere quote: “A political act gives audience to a voice that isn’t usually heard” – to be contemporary is to find what isn’t illuminated
- metaphor of an actor on a stage with lights shining in their eyes and sometimes you need to shield your eyes from the light in order to see

Lost in translation:
I wonder what is the essential quality that one is trying to bring forth in a recreation and how does it translate. For instance, perhaps the aesthetic of femininity is interpreted differently in 1960 than in 1990 by dancer, creator, audience, etc. Also, what was radical and meaningful once may not have the same political resonance today. Do presenters get stuck wanting to preserve it’s “radical” quality? However it can be interesting to see something that was political once.

Who is Giorgio Agamben? What is the context of this article?
- He was giving a one-year seminar – the inaugural talk in post-grad seminar and this article was his introduction. He decided to publish it.
- When looking at Italian source, someone found out that Italians were critical about fact that it was published.

What is the relationship between “contemporary” and “modern”?
- Important and enjoyable to just stop and consider what these terms mean
- What is the difference between modern and contemporary dance? Perhaps “modern dance” is a style of dance that dates, roughly, from the 1920’s – 1960’s – starting with Martha Graham, Mary Wigman and ending with Merce Cunningham (still clean lines, formations, etc)
- People have tried to call post-modern “contemporary” so that it is not located in a particular time
- If “modern” is associated with an epoch – roughly the first half of the 20th century - style of dance (modern dance) or style of art (modern art) then maybe contemporary is an attempt to not become affiliated with a particular style
- There was a time that we thought that “modernism” was over and we called it “post-modern” but as time passes we have more perspective and realize that “post-modern” is actually another stage of “modernism”. Is it possible to create a word whose meaning will constantly alongside us and not freeze in time? For instance “modern” once meant “new” and now it is an old style.
- Is “contemporary dance” becoming frozen in time as the name of a style or codification that is defined by works starting at the end of Merce Cunningham until now?

How does what is believed to be “cultural” or “traditional” dance fit into this question of contemporariness?
- Cultural dances as being frozen in time. When in the continual evolution of flamenco is the form frozen as flamenco? Is it possible for flamenco to be contemporary if it is a continual process and subjective?
- Contemporary folk dance = hip hop? Hip-hop as dance of the folk.
Soyouthinkyoudontfolkdance.com
- Has Graham has become traditional dance? It’s moved from being tacit to being explicit. Graham became codified, notated and explicit – whereas the contemporary is the tacit
- Japanese Noh theatre – a style of theatre that is passed down generationally in which the movements are fixed and unchanging and this is what is prized – it is hoped that it does not automatically become more contemporary when done today. Is it possible that this is perfect replication and that this is not contemporary or is it necessarily contemporary because it is danced by today’s dancers? Is there change that we just cannot detect?

“How Modern Is Modernism? The Relevance of Reconstruction.”
and
“Reconstructing Dance: Taking an Active Interest in the Legacy of Dance”

On archive and recreation:
- My work has always been about archive and recreation, but most of us always decide to change it. When people were recreating Baroque they didn’t have the visual technology to see the original piece and needed to interpret words into dance. Even though we do have that visual technology now to recreate a piece much more accurately we are choosing to take creative liberty with recreations.
- On one hand it is exciting that we have the technology to archive work. On the other hand if we archive everything, works are at the danger of losing it’s ephemerality

Is it enough to take a body (that is contemporary) and impose historical choreography on it – can this be contemporary? Is this interesting?

Deborah Hay
- made solo pieces to give away.
http://www.deborahhay.com/

William Forsythe
http://www.theforsythecompany.com/
- produced instructional videos.
- What happens when you get so detailed with the DVD instructions technically, that it’s not useful anymore to capturing whatever is that invisible element?

Trio A
- a loose choreography intended for appropriation and use – but finally a 5th generation seemed too distant for the creator - Yvonne Rainer.

Is there a dance word equivalent to the theatre term “adaptation”?
- Is there a difference between adaptation and reconstruction – how do you know the difference, is it important to know?
- Reconstruction is rare in dance
- Maybe it depends on the intention of the “recreator”.
- Does doing reconstruction allow us to look for differences between now and then?
- What is a “remount”? Is it about time? Is something a “remount” when it hasn’t been a long time since the original premiered? Is it about authority? Does a repeated piece become a “remount” when it is done by the same authority of the original – like the same dance company?
- Is there a difference in the dance world to the theatre world in finding a term to define that unchanging quality of a piece when it is performed by different companies or different performers in a different time?

Repeating works can create a canon.
- When we repeat a piece often it’s because it is part of a canon or it may become included in the canon. Is canonifying a problem?
- What sort of canon are we creating in Canada?

Why does (what is known as) the Canadian contemporary dance community (at large) shy away from visiting older works?
- Could it be a decision influenced by the economic climate of dance (funding)?
- There seems to be a quest for the new in dance – but what does that mean?
- Dance seems like the only art form where we really don’t have a constant engagement with the old (read old books, listen to old music, see old movies, etc)
- Unwillingness to revisit old work as devaluing role of artist
- Maybe there is a crisis of choreographer as author. Graham authored things. In recreating her piece how does the whole process of transmission change, as the question of who the author is blurs
- Is it important to learn the roots of what you study in dance?
- It seems backwards that we are not trying harder to learn what we have evolved from.

Why is there a hierarchy of ‘newest’ most ‘innovative’ or ‘unique’.
- Why is there such an imperative towards the new? Disturbing.
- Why are we so determined to do new – especially since it can never really be the same anyway?

When is a concept or a person’s legacy frozen?
- Is Graham defined by her work from the 40’s or from the 90's? We need to keep in mind that she changes. Also, how do we understand Graham’s work in context of her time?
- In a proper reconstruction do I need to make major changes to situate it not, the way it was then?

The Wooster Group, from NYC, had a show that addressed the complexity of trying to reproduce a work
http://www.thewoostergroup.org/
- Poor Theatre was a piece where actors “re-created” in real time, on stage, a video of the original peice

Oct 19 update

2009-10-15T07:56:00.000-07:00

(Jacob Zimmer)

Looking forward to the second study group on Monday.

The last one was great - a set of wonderful but radically incomplete notes are posted below - please comment, add, jump off from etc...

Rereading the What is the contemporary? article – I want to acknowledge that it’s pretty dense and there is a lot of language that requires second (or more) readings and liberal use of a dictionary. But this excites me. And it excites me in relationship to last weeks reading of The Act of Study. I’ve been thinking about marking the ideas or sentences that flash or pop out to me and connect with my preoccupations. We’ll work through the ideas and writing together through our own responses, a process I’m looking forward to. So, no fear, we're in it together.

I also wanted to link to another article that, I think, addresses some of the same issues with an explicit tie in to practice, specifically Martha Graham. We’ll focus on What is the contemporary? But the other two will be a tie in to dance practice.

To access the new article, just click here: How modern is modernism? The Relevance of Reconstruction. An Essay by André Lepecki about the Martha Graham Retrospective. As always, this new article is available in hard copy at the Dancemakers office.
We’ll still be looking at Reconstructing Dance: Taking an Active Interest in the Legacy of Dance: a short essay/website from the Goethe-Institut website.

Your RSVP’s and thoughts are more than welcome.

Next Thinking Out Loud October 19

2009-10-13T08:51:00.000-07:00

Our inaugural Thinking Out Loud – the Study Group session last Tuesday was fantastic. Thanks to everyone who came.

If you weren't there, we hope you can make it out to the next one, so we can share ideas and pretzels with you, too.

All you need to do is RSVP and show up (with some spare change for a beer or a glass of wine). Feel free to bring some dinner with you to eat during our discussion, or on the break we promise we will take around 7:45pm

The next meeting will take place on Monday October 19th at 6:30pm. We will once again be gathering in the studio at Dancermakers’ Centre for Creation (click here for a map/directions) on the 3rd floor.

We will be discussing Giorgio Agamben article What is the contemporary? which can be found on the a.aaaarg.org website by clicking here (you will need to register for the website in order to access the pdf – do it.)

We’ll also look at Reconstructing Dance: Taking an Active Interest in the Legacy of Dance: a short essay/website from the Goethe-Institut website.

and How modern is modernism? The Relevance of Reconstruction. An Essay by André Lepecki about the Martha Graham Retrospective

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Alternatively, swing by the Dancemakers office if you’d rather pick up a hard copy of both articles.

It’s a bit more challenging read – but we think worth it and good for conversation.
Although this next meeting is on a Monday, future dates for Thinking Out Loud are all Tuesdays:

December 1, January 5, February 2, March 2, March 30, and April 27.

Please continue to spread the word to friends, colleagues, teachers, and so on, if you think this might tickle their fancy.

We look forward to another stimulating exchange!
Jacob, Megan, Kari and Leora
Dancemakers & The Dance Current

Notes from the first Thinking Out Loud!

2009-10-13T08:31:00.000-07:00

(by Kari Pederson)

An eclectic and insightful group met on September 29th for the first of the Thinking Out Loud series. We had an interesting conversation rooted in Paulo Freire's "The Act of Study" from his book The politics of education: culture, power and liberation (1985). I've taken the liberty of posting Leora's notes from the evening (thanks Leora!). The notes are great and I've added links to help to fill in some blanks for those of you who weren't able to make the first TOL. It was an excellent start to the series and I think we would all agree that Freire's article will continue to inform our creative and critical learning process!

Thinking Out Loud: The Study Group - Notes - September 29, 2009

how to bring Freire’s concept of learning to every day artistic and non-artistic practices?

article written as a manifesto. makes you want to read on. what is a manifesto? call to action? set of beliefs articulated with conviction?

empty space ... is a problem in dance training that there is no room for elevation beyond empirical? (empirical = derived from experiment, observation, rather than theory)

mastery = knowledge + silence/personal ownership?
(as opposed to consuming + regurgitating)

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bibliographies. idea of placing articles, ideas, works in socio-politico-historical context by reading bibliography, understanding what situates author in his/her life at time of writing.

dialectical relationship: is tension in dialogue between reader/author where learning occurs?

do we have a responsibility to contextualize?
to whom?

artist biographies vs. program notes
what are the artists reading/doing that brought them to this point?
can this information replace “contextualizing” of descriptive writing about piece?
people’s different habits around reading programs before/after seeing work.

do some forms of art (text-based theatre) limit our potential to flash because they keep us so busy (with the words for example), and involved in the world onstage?

what are the rituals around form (dance class structure, “uniforms”, etc)?
how does this affect learning?
what happens when you remove the ritual of form (doing a tendu on top of a mountain at sunrise by yourself instead of in dance class at the barre wearing a leotard)?

are audiences consuming art mindlessly? what can artists demand from audiences?
how to cultivate a curious audience?

curiosity vs. criticality. indulging in/addressing one’s own preoccupations vs. discovering one’s thoughts on author’s thinking?
(critical: “characterized by careful, exact evaluation and judgment”, “marked by a tendency to find and call attention to errors and flaws”)

flashes as having value when we return with them to author’s total thinking?
(as opposed to daydreaming)

definition of “political” – is every work political, whether or not its aware of its politics? i.e. are politics inherently imbedded in every expression, or does a work need to explicitly being trying to rebel/revolt/make heard a silenced voice in order to be political?

is So You Think You Can Dance political?

are politics of a work least obvious to you when they are in line with the voice of your community?

Jacques Ranciere (The Emancipated Spectator (2004), The Ignorant Schoolmaster: Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipation (1991))

keep coming back to quote on pg. 2:
“seriously studying a text calls for an analysis of the study of the one who, through studying, wrote it” - Paulo Freire

how do you create a 50% show, where audience meets you halfway? (reference to Jerome Bell)

is there value in sitting with and observing discomfort, lack of interest in a piece, etc? is the learning located in discovering what does/doesn’t engage you and what that might tell you about yourself as a subject-learner?

where in learning does space fit in?

silence?

re-envisioning of the class structure and pedagogy (ritualized hierarchy as oppressive)?

teacher as catalyst to thinking about old things new ways (gateway to the flashes), as learner you can receive it passively or actively

agency.

communication as communing.

Richard Pochinko's clown concept: circle around performer, circle around audience, circle in the middle where they meet is where performance happens. this “inter-subjective” space as where “subject learning” happens?

and then ...

2009-10-07T19:57:00.000-07:00

As a result of the symposium and the roundtable discussion, Jacob Zimmer (dramaturge and animateur at Dancemakers) and Megan Andrews (publisher/founding editor of The Dance Current) began working together to develop Jacob's study group concept. Thinking Out Loud is the collaborative initiative that resulted.

It's an experiment.

We meet monthly (we being a small and fluctuating group of interested artists and arts professionals from across disciplines, practices and generations) to discuss an article or two that we circulate in advance of the meeting. Jacob and Megan facilitate the discussion, with the help of Dancemakers' interns Kari Pederson and Leora Morris. Participants help shape the discussion and suggest readings. Following the meetings, we'll post some reflections here and anyone is welcome to comment.

Reading Writing Dancing: Symposium 2009

2009-08-10T09:00:00.000-07:00

From May 7th through 9th, 2009, the Reading Writing Dancing symposium, led by Associate Professor and dance writer Carol Anderson, was held at York University in collaboration with the York dance department, The Dance Current magazine and the Society for Canadian Dance Studies. The three-day event included panel discussions and presentations on dance writing in the mainstream press, the relationship between writers and editors and ways of thinking and writing about aboriginal dance practices. A group of dance writers, included well-published dance writer/author Carol Anderson, gathered to read from recent reviews, essays and books. Guest speaker Veronica Tennant, from Toronto, presented her work in dance film and video and O Vertigo artistic director and choreographer Ginette Laurin, from Montréal, presented her recent film of Le Chambre Blanche and discussed her choreographic process.

About twenty people, including artists, writers, scholars and educators from a range of forms and practices, came together on Saturday, May 9th, 2009, for a two-hour facilitated discussion led by Megan Andrews, Publisher/Founding Editor of The Dance Current magazine. The structured conversation worked through a series of five questions considering the future of critical discourse about dance in Canada.
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1- What do we think are the core elements in a robust critical ecology?

having ways to articulate/negotiate boundaries and concepts; having the ability to wrestle with the question: what is dance?

an awareness of frames of presentation, and the practice of different forms

resources

modelling & cultivating & practicing respectful statements of critical opinions & debate

a diversity of voices, ages, practices, etc.

knowledge about the history of critical reflection; tools for analysis, argumentation, etc.

reflexive practices of writing that engage with context

confidence

collaborations, partnerships, networks, gatherings

consciousness & questioning; the need for advocacy as an agenda in dance writing

a social approach: dialogue; what do we include – exclude in identifying a "dance community"

embracing and recognizing different ways of writing: artists' writing, historical, critical, journalistic

connections with other forms of writing, other disciplines and other areas of interest

understanding of the importance of editing

consideration of issues of language translation

awareness of the relationship of textual style to the dance

education, knowledge of contexts

empowering artists to write

strategies to bridge within the community around learning to write

documenting, archiving and preservation
- archiving the body of writing to make it accessible
- documenting/chronicling the art as it happens

a heightened awareness of word choice and the power of word choice

awareness of readership: general readers, youth, scholars, artists, etc.

strategies to bridge to the general public

that there is the possibility of a career

access points to the discussion

2- Where do we see potential?

in modeling the culture / skills we seek

in creating a culture of supportive risk-taking

in multi media developments & “fit” of kind of writing to mode/medium of dissemination

in the possibility of the articulate dancer/artist/writer

in writer-reader-editor-groups at different scales and intimacies

in mentorships – intergenerational & within generations

in this type of gathering (the Reading Writing Dancing symposium as a whole), which moves us toward a community of dance writers – linked online and/or in person

in the education system to cultivate knowledge & tools – critical analysis with reference to writing

in online video as educational tool

3- What exists in the field already?

magazines, resources, organizations;
websites, journals, books, anthologies
a symposium -- conferences – nascent conversation
ad hoc zines
dialogic reviews
technology – internet
education: elementary, high school, pre-pro, colleges, universities, undergraduate, graduate
curricula: dance, dance writing
writers – editors – readers- publishers
types of writing
the living body of knowledge – “intangible cultural heritage” – UNESCO

A preliminary list of organizations engaged in writing, discourse, education, publishing:

• Dance Collection Danse
• Soceity for Canadian Dance Studies
• The Dance Current
• York University + other universities / colleges
• MERGE
• Dancemakers
• Eponymous
• Dance Umbrella of Ontario + other dance management organizations
• Dancepassport
• Canada Dance Festival
• The Dance Centre (Vancouver)
• Arts Alive
• CDA – Research & Writing Standing Council
• Bibliotheque de la danse – Chorème
• UNESCO
• Dance International
• writers' personal blogs
• Dance And the Child International: proceedings / papers
• Canadian dance authors
• dance presenter networks
• Banff Centre - press and archives
• Trent University - archives

4- What's missing?

awareness of specifics of languages, word choice, frames, with respect to different forms and practices

awareness of the problems with “Canadian” insularity

awareness of Canada’s dance reputation abroad

knowledge of/awareness of dance with the other arts & social histories

quality – of writer education, writing, editing, reader education, the dance-making itself

education

a culture of nourishing & valuing “our cultures”

candidness in conversation

peer-reviewed scholarly journal in Canada

awareness of potential publics & how to engage them

understanding of ethics, writer-editor relationships and editorial/journalistic practice

exposure to dance and dance writing from abroad

reader responses to writing

international reference points/contexts as writers

representation of diversity in the writing

advocacy to mainstream media

exposure and access; avenues of dissemination

understanding of varied approaches & ways of thinking

editorial support for dance and dance writing in the mainstream media

5- How do we cultivate - can we identify any - priorities?

start small gatherings (discussion/reading groups) & large gathering; use technologies

develop a network or list of contacts for a large community

cultivate a writing/writer network

establish a peer-reviewed scholarly journal

(*Thanks to Brittany Duggan, assistant to the editor, for typing up the notes from the roundtable meeting.)