артефакта, lost in transcription?
sarah rosner asks some interesting questions in her post «artifacts of dance»:
Specifically, the idea that writing about a dance (or any other kind of translation/preservation) is a second type of “choreography” struck me as interesting, if not a little problematic. For me, it brought up issues of balance between the original work and the preserving element. Should the element be invisible? Another work of art in it’s own right? What is more helpful and “truthful” to the dance that’s being preserved. And then, what’s the best way to preserve dance? writing? video? motion capture? everything is problematic and there is clearly no right answer.there is a lot to unpack there, so lets begin at the start. but bear in mind i have as much info as you on the class discussion. i.e. none. i may be repeating info given here, but if i am that can only be a good thing.
writing as choreography
writing can be choreography because reading is an «interpretive» and «performative» act. think about a music score, if you can read the score and have a good sense of pitch you can «hear» the music. in reading the notation you are given and perform the structure.
the same is true for dance. in my MA course sheila and myself created such a performance work. using labanotation, we set out the choreography and hung the score in the performance space. the music for the performance ran on a loop. this was a cognitive reading with physical artifacts derived form the reading.
of course, if you could not read labanotation there was no performance or choreography for you.
to avoid comprehension issues (not everyone can read formal notations) we could construct a physical artifact. the artifact consists of two steel tubes bent into the shape of the paths i made with my hands whilst dancing. attached to each tube is a rope loop, the reader holds onto each loop and walks forward.
as the reader moves through the paths the choreographic trace is transposed onto their body. the rope slides along the tube and distally, but directly reiterates the choreograph. the composition (what they do with the rest of their body) is left up-to the reader/perfromer.
the basic notion is that the artifact must lead to a cognitive or physical reading to be choreography. this is related to post-structuralism and intertextuality, and «the re-birth of the author, through distributed authorship».
artifact as art
both examples i gave for «writing as choreography» could be considered art. imagine a large room filled with chromed tubes for multiple performers/readers. video, images, text (etc.) as documentation can also be art. conceptual art has many examples of such performance artifacts.
we could even consider action paintings a performative artifact e.g. «jackson pollock» . other examples would include «yves klein’s» living brushes and any artifact derived from movement.
«graphical music notation» has long been considered and arts practice as well as composition (both in the writing and reading). graphical dance notation holds a similar standing.
original work / preserving element
here i ask the question «what is the original work»? i would argue that the original dance work is not the performance, but the principles of the process and the kinespheric / spatial structure or map. within the process and maps lies the choreography.
this is not to claim that meaning lies within the text, or that the text is the work. the performer is the mediator of both meanings and the work, but each performance is a product of the dance work. a performance is not the dance work itself.
as tony is perhaps pointing to in the posts «reading highlights», «loci» and «memory space» the best preserving element is a map. a map that not only reveals the structure, but that teaches us how to navigate that particular map.
«cartography» is an art and a craft. to articulate the structure, process, and valid routes /methods of navigation is a complex task. today we still rely on physical and verbal methods to retain the original when remounting a dance work.
in this sense the preserving element is only invisible to the the audience of a performance. to mount the dance work requires something tangible and visible for the performer to learn from, and develop with.
preservation and truth
the performance of a work is not its truth, but if performed faithfully can be one of its truths. thus preserving performances is only part of the picture. yet, it is performances that we have most documentation of.
preserving the principles of the process, or the context(s) in which the work was created may be generally more truthful. here though we must consider how (or how not) different performers might impact on that process.
each map is a subjective truth that requires skills to read and navigate. in preserving a dance work the map, with its multiple points of entry and exit help us avoid tracing the dance. carbon copy replication is not truthful to, or preserving the original work.
what ever technologies and tools make the map readable and open are the best solutions. preserving from the instigation of the creative process is also useful.
in the end all works, however well mapped or persevered will change or be lost. that is the nature of artifacts and art. each work is dependent on a much wider set of contexts that we cannot hope to preserve.
the right answer seems to be that in attempting to preserve, we can gain a better insight into the works we are attempting to make. and as artists, that is worth a great deal. for the theorist, it can result in a more grounded theory and classification of dance praxes.
epilogue
i was wondering about posting this one, but tony’s post on the dance-tech list convinced me. one of the things i like about students is they ask or pose seemingly obvious questions. until you realise that no one has formally articulated them (or at least not in a single text).
this is an ongoing issue we have in dance, and a lack of new (critical) theory is not helping it. seeing tony’s student ask a question made me resolve to bring it up with my students. but, if i’m going to talk about it with my students, i should also feed my perspective back to tony’s students.
this could be an interesting strategy as tony pointed out. rather than just engaging with your class, you get (in)direct and distributed access to the dance-tech field. not a social network, but a learning and sharing network.