Reading Dancing: Bodies and Subjects in Contemporary American Dance

What is sexuality? How can you speak about sexuality without a concept of the unconscious? In a footnote, Jones disregards Lacan's formulas of sexual difference--allegedly because of his "misogyny," though one could also argue that any true "engagement" and understanding of Lacanian theory would be both too disruptive and too complex and problematic for her book, for the models she wants to work with. But her superficial and clumsy reading of Lacan is the same as every other "philosopher" she quotes.

My quesion is: is "Lacan" and "psychoanalysis," perhaps even "the phallus", the truly repressed and excluded middle of Jones's own form of postmodernism? As Modernism represses the potential for its own disruption and dispersal--where is it in Jones work? I think its in the highly UNtheorized relation to analysis and anaytic concepts. Perhaps she does not wish to deal with the "phallus" precisely because she is so identified with it?

The simultaneous "visible and invisible" quality of her problematic relation to psychoanalytic concepts (particularly, but not only those of Lacan), is epitomized right at the beginning by her choice of Schneeman pulling a scroll out of her vagina. It doesn't take a genius (or Merleau-Ponty, or any "French poststructuralist philosopher") to understand she's constructing not a penis, but a phallus, veiled in the form of a text (a book on Body Art?)(or vice versa? What is the relationship between the phallus, writing, and a hole?). The iconic power of this image speaks to the "subject position" of Jones herself, I believe, and it is precisely this position which goes unacknowledged and unrecognized in all her conscious representations of herself. Not that there's necessarily anything wrong with that, given the ironic (or is it?) work of Schneeman. Whatever the case, Jones misses an opportunity to TRULY implicate herself in her writing.

This is just a very tedious and tiresome book-typical for academe, and typical that Jones herself is utterly blind to HER positioning in the University, of which she is so obviously a product.

With this rigorous, incisive, and politically informed thesis, Jones develops a stunning series of analytical re-readings: from the action painting of Jackson Pollock--filmed by Hans Namuth; the erotic/violent/contemplative body sculpture of Vito Acconci; the feminist performances of Hannah Wilke, who marks sexuality, vitality, and mortality with equal measure of intelligence, humor, and courage; to the intersection of body and technology as exemplified by the works of Gary Hill, James Luna, Orlan, Bob Flanagan/Sheree Rose, Maureen Connor, Laurie Anderson, Lyle Ashton Harris, and Laura Aguilar. Other artists covered extensively in Body Art include Chris Burden, Yves Klein, Carolee Schneemann, Yayoi Kusama, Lynda Benglis, Marina Abramovic and Ulay, Adrian Piper, and Niki de Saint Phalle. The depth and breadth of Jones's theoretical references that particularize her portraits of these artists makes for the reading of this book a difficult but stimulating pleasure.

Provocatively argued and elegantly expressed, Body Art/Performing the Subject is a must-read for those interested in the debates over embodiment, subjectivity, performance, feminism, and theories of identity. The intensity of Jones's writing is the heat--and the cool--of a philosophical motion.

Still, Amelia Jones' Body Art is a necessary book if one is interested in taking a peek at body and performance art debates. While it does not compare favorably to Schneider's rigourous and well-written dialogue with postmodern and performance theories nor to Goldberg's more traditional yet fascinating take on performance art, Body Art: Performing the Subject remains as an intelligent contribution to the history of performance and body art.

Body Ascendant: Modernism and the Physical Imperative (PAJ Books)

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Body Ascendant: Modernism and the Physical Imperative (PAJ Books)
Harold B. Segel
Manufacturer: The Johns Hopkins University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0801858216

The revival of the Olympic Games in 1896 was just one result of the unparalleled interest in physical culture that consumed Europe and America in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Various national physical education movements enjoyed extraordinary success, including the German Turnverein, the Czech Sokol, and Scouting in England and America. Dance, outdoor spectacle, and massive political rallies reflected the turn away from language toward more gestural, mythic, and body-oriented ways of communicating. This preoccupation with physicality could be seen in the era's growing exultation in war, blood sport, and high adventure -- and, in its most extreme form, in the racist cult of the body emerging in Hitler's Germany.

In Body Ascendant, Harold Segel shows that this obsession with physical culture resonated widely through the modernist movement and traces its profound influence on the arts in the early twentieth century. Segel examines the emergence of modern dance and its impact on virtually all the other arts. He describes the shift from speech to gesture in modern drama and the revival of serious artistic interest in pantomime, a trend that culminated in Max Reinhardt's spectacular productions of The Miracle in London and New York. And he shows how bold attempts to revitalize literary language paralleled a new emphasis on the direct experience of the writer -- the more adventurous the life, the greater the literary appeal.

Characterizing the modernist man of letters as a self-styled man of action, Segel reviews the careers of such writers as Gabriele D'Annunzio, F. T. Marinetti, Nikolai Gumilyov, Ernst Jünger, Ernest Hemingway, Henry de Montherlant, and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. He offers a broad overview of the various manifestations of the modernist preoccupation with physicality, including the disparagement of Christianity and Judaism for their focus on spiritual life. He clearly establishes the disturbing compatibility between the era's artistic and athletic celebration of body and the eventual rise of totalitarian nationalism and racism. The dark side of Nazi emphasis on physical perfection as essential to ideal Germanness, Segel notes, was the consistent portrayal of the Jew as physically and racially inferior.

Movement is our first language, our universal language. Expression of body movement is the very basis of life as the nineteen contributors to The Body Can Speak: Essays on Creative Movement Education with Emphasis on Dance and Drama attest. Students use their bodies as an instrument of expression, and movement as medium; this means investigating space, energy, time, and motion in order to gain insight into these basic principles. At the same time they gain essential awareness of the self. Such work stimulates the senses and intellect, and develops a tangible new vision to satisfy the human need for aesthetic and artistic expression.

As editor of this collection, accomplished dancer and artistic director Annelise Mertz provides both an aesthetic appreciation for creative movement education as well as practical pedagogy for incorporating dance and drama into contemporary curriculum. Mertz has assembled here a definitive body of work from fellow artists and former students that speaks to the need to actively promote art as part of education.

The book gives voice to accomplished teachers, actors, dancers, directors, authors, and choreographers who share their experiences while they address creative movement education from preschool through college. Forty-eight photographs add an illuminating visual dimension to this wealth of stimulating ideas. The Body Can Speak provides a balanced and varied mosaic, with each essay offering evidence that creative movement education is vital for human development.

Contributors include Becky Engler-Hicks, Ruth Grauert, Anna Halprin, Joanna G. Harris, Margaret N. H’Doubler, Michael Hoeye, Murray Louis, Annelise Mertz, Jaime Nisenbaum, Carol North, Jeff Rehg, Shirley Ririe, G. Hoffman Soto, Emma D. Sheehy, Harold Taylor, Branislav Tomich, Dorothy M. Vislocky, and Joan J. Woodbury.

Like the earlier books, this guide puts you in the role of facilitator rather than demonstrator. Using the dance construction models provided, you'll explain the material, teach the necessary skills, direct the action, and assess the outcomes . . . letting your students focus on the creative work.

Building Dances, Second Edition, follows the same winning approach that made the first edition so popular. It takes you step by step through the choreographic process, with sample lesson plans, warm-up ideas, and seven easy steps to follow when building a dance, plus even more great material:

· A convenient, expanded, ready-to-use deck of Deal-A-Dance cards · Updated dance-building activities, called Dance Construction Models, reformatted and expanded to include loads of new information and six new activities · An expanded glossary explaining important dance terms in everyday language · New forms and checklists to make the assessment process easier for you and your students

This edition contains a total of 15 Dance Construction Models, including 6 never before published. Each construction model provides concrete ideas to help students shape dance movements, perhaps to create a scene, communicate a story, foster an idea, or interpret a piece of music. And now the Dance Construction Models have been redesigned to make them even easier to use! Each one includes a description of the activity or procedure, an example, cross-references to the national standards for dance and for physical education, easy adaptations for three different grade levels (grades K-4, 5-8, and 9-12), and criteria for student assessments. You'll find four types of sample rubrics for each one, with specific criteria for movement skills, cognitive skills, choreographic and creative process, and social and aesthetic skills.

The unique Deal-a-Dance cards—one of the most popular Dance Construction Models—have also been expanded and reformatted to get students even more involved in creating and assessing their own work. The cards provide more than 230 movement ideas to get the creative juices flowing. Each card presents a definition of a selected movement term, a description of that movement, multiple suggestions for students to try, challenges that encourage them to put movements together to form phrases and dances, and a self-evaluation question. The cards are excellent hands-on tools that allow students to work at their own pace, either individually or in small groups. You can use them for a single lesson, a unit, or an entire semester of work.

This edition also contains new ideas to help you connect dance to other disciplines and increase students' engagement, plus new criteria for writing rubrics and suggestions on how to expand simple dances into whole productions for PTA and other student performance settings.

Whether you're a physical education teacher, drama coach, music teacher, dance teacher, classroom teacher, or recreation specialist, this book will help you stimulate your students' imaginations. Use it alone or together with the companion resource, Building More Dances, to help your students experience the joy of building their own dances.

Impossible Bodies investigates issues of ethnicity, gender and sexuality in contemporary Hollywood. Examining stars from Clint Eastwood and Arnold Schwarzenegger to Whoopi Goldberg, Jennifer Lopez and Dolly Parton, Chris Holmlund focuses on actors whose physique or appearance puts them at the margins of Hollywood film, and yet who occupy shifting and key positions in contemporary mainstream cinema. Grouped into three sections, "gesturing towards genres," "siding with sidekicks" and "staring at stars," chapters examine a range of "impossible bodies" on film from the Pumping Iron documentaries to The Quick and the Dead.

This volume addresses disability in theater, and features all new work, including critical essays, interviews, personal essays, and an original play. It fills a gap in scholarship while promoting the profile of disability in theater. Peering Behind the Curtain examines the issues surrounding disability in many well-known plays, including Children of a Lesser God, The Elephant Man, 'night Mother, and Wit, as well as an original play by James McDonald.

Since the 1960s, visual art practices--from body art to minimalism--have taken contemporary art outside the museum and gallery by embracing theatricality and performance and exploding the boundaries set by traditional art criticism. Such practices prompt us to reassess our ways of contructing meaning from art, making us receptive to the element of performance both in the processes of art production, and in the act of interpretation itself. Performing the Body/Performing the Text explores the new performativity in art theory and practice, examining ways of rethinking interpretive processes in visual culture. This collection undertakes two parallel projects: exploring art practices which perform the subject, and examining ways in which modes of performativity in contemporary art offers new models for interpreting artworks. Demonstrating how modernist art criticism attempts to fix the work with more stable sets of aesthetic meanings, the contributors argue that interpretation needs to be recognised as much more dynamic and contingent. It does not come `naturally' at the moment of contact with the artwork, but is worked out as an ongoing, open performance between artists and spectators, with meaning circulating fluidly in the complex web of connections between artists, patrons, collectors, and between both specialised and non-specialised viewers within the arena of encounter. Offering its own performance script, and embracing both canonical `fine' artists such as Manet, De Kooning and Jasper Johns, and performance artists such as Vito Acconci, Gunter Brus and the Sacred Naked Nature Girls, Performing the Body/Performing the Text offers radical re-readings of art works and points confidently towards new models for understanding art.

The recipient of the annual Award for Outstanding Book in Theatre Practice and Pedagogy from the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, This Is My Body realigns representational practices in the early Middle Ages with current debates on the nature of representation. Michal Kobialkai's study views the medieval concept of representation as having been in flux and crossed by different modes of seeing, until it was stabilized by the constitutions of the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215. Kobialka argues that the concept of representation in the early Middle Ages had little to do with the tradition that considers representation in terms of Aristotle or Plato; rather, it was enshrined in the interpretation of Hoc est corpus meum [This is my body] -- the words spoken by Christ to the apostles at the Last Supper -- and in establishing the visibility of the body of Christ that had disappeared from view.
Michal Kobialka is Professor in the Department of Theatre Arts and Dance at the University of Minnesota.

When a Gesture Was Expected encourages a deeper appreciation of ancient Greek poetry and prose by showing where a nod of the head or a wave of the hand can complete meaning in epic poetry and in tragedy, comedy, oratory, and in works of history and philosophy. All these works anticipated performing readers, and, as a result, they included prompts, places where a gesture could complete a sentence or amplify or comment on the written words. In this radical and highly accessible book, Alan Boegehold urges all readers to supplement the traditional avenues of classical philology with an awareness of the uses of nonverbal communication in Hellenic antiquity. This additional resource helps to explain some persistently confusing syntaxes and to make translations more accurate. It also imparts a living breath to these immortal texts.

Where part of a work appears to be missing, or the syntax is irregular, or the words seem contradictory or perverse--without evidence of copyists' errors or physical damage--an ancient author may have been assuming that a performing reader would make the necessary clarifying gesture. Boegehold offers analyses of many such instances in selected passages ranging from Homer to Aeschylus to Plato. He also presents a review of sources of information about such gestures in antiquity as well as thirty illustrations, some documenting millennia-long continuities in nonverbal communication.