Dance Production Research Articles

Dance2Music-Diffusion: leveraging latent diffusion models for music generation from dance videos

With the rapid development of social networks, short videos have become a popular form of content, especially dance videos. In this context, research on automatically generating music for dance videos shows significant practical value. However, existing studies face challenges such as limited richness in music timbre and lack of synchronization with dance movements. In this paper, we propose Dance2Music-Diffusion, a novel framework for music generation from dance videos using latent diffusion models. Our approach includes a motion encoder module for extracting motion features and a music diffusion generation module for generating latent music representations. By integrating dance type monitoring and latent diffusion techniques, our framework outperforms existing methods in generating complex and rich dance music. We conducted objective and subjective evaluations of the results produced by various existing models on the AIST++ dataset. Our framework shows outstanding performance in terms of beat recall rate, consistency with GT beats, and coordination with dance movements. This work represents the state of the art in automatic music generation from dance videos, is easy to train, and has implications for enhancing entertainment experiences and inspiring innovative dance productions. Sample videos of our generated music and dance can be viewed at https://youtu.be/eCvLdLdkX-Y. The code is available at https://github.com/hellto/dance2music-diffusion.

The Memeplexo “conceptual dance” in the cities of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro

The aim is to explore the universe of scenic production in dance known as Conceptual Dance, limited to what is insisted in the cities of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, from the 2000s onwards. In it, modeling takes place with elements such as the presence of scenic speech, the refusal of the current notion of step and choreography, the refusal of the association of dance as the stricto sensu place of mobility, among other formative themes for another understanding of the dancing body. The study aims to map such constituents present in dance production that can be called conceptual dance in works by Cristian Duarte (SP), Gustavo Círiaco (RJ), Marcela Levi (RJ) and Marta Soares (SP). We want to produce critical materiality in dance in the light of Memetic Theory and discuss which Cultural Units, Memes, of Conceptual Dance are present in a certain Brazilian contemporary dance.

Use of American Sign Language and Deaf Participants in Dance Theater: Considerations in Practice

ABSTRACT Productions can be made more accessible for Deaf and hard of hearing (DHoH) dancers, performers, and audiences. This article provides ideas and guidelines on how to include and accommodate them. Reflecting on our experiences developing the dance theatrical production of “Within Dreams,” we describe the need for making space for DHoH individuals in various areas of dance productions in higher education: in participation, patronage, and the use of American Sign Language (ASL) in dance pieces. Our hope is that elucidating what we learned makes it easier for other companies and universities to explore and incorporate thoughtful and successful relationships between sign languages, deaf, and dance.

¿Retorno al espectáculo? Anotaciones sobre el proceso de cambio en la “danza mexicana”: el caso de la Escuela Nacional de Danza, 1932-1947

Much of the historiography of dance in Mexico has pointed out that the dance production of the Escuela de Danza (ED), attached to the Secretaría de Educación Pública (SEP), lost relevance in the face of the onslaught of new cultural projects privileged by the Mexican state since the late 1930s, all aimed at building "Mexican dance" in artistic terms. The aim of this article is to propose an initial approach to the dynamics of the scenic creation of the DE -the Escuela Nacional de Danza (END) since 1938- in terms of the dance of the spectacle. This perspective can open new questions to deepen the study of this institution and contribute to the analysis of the field of dance in Mexico. First, I offer some important notes on "Mexican dance" and the dance of the spectacle in Mexico. Next, I address the case of the ED, from its foundation in 1932 until 1947, the year in which the Academia de la Danza Mexicana (ADM) was created, replacing it as the leading institution in the creation of the national dance language. At this point, I point out elements that allow me to propose the process of returning to the logic of the spectacle, from the incorporation of its production into the tourism promotion plan of the government of Manuel Avila Camacho.

Environmental themes in Chinese dance theater: experience and perspectives

This article highlights the involvement of Chinese dance theater in environmental protection. The author analyzes the ecological concepts of the work of three outstanding Chinese choreographers Yang Liping, Wang Yuanyuan, Tong Ruirui, whose works consistently embody the idea of the development of beautiful China, the ecological balance between human and nature, and the humankind’s adaptation to the new conditions of urban digital civilization. The purpose of the study is to investigate the existing experience of implementing Environmental themes in Chinese dance theater, as well as to outline the role of the Chinese ballet theater in the development of environmental consciousness. The research materials were the following stage works: “Pilgrimage to Lhasa”, “Two trees”, “Fire”, “Daughter of the country”, “Spirit of the Peacock”, “Romantic peacock”, “Echoes of Shangrila”, “Dynamic Yunnan”, “The Spirit of the Birds” (director and choreographer Yang Liping); “Haze” (director and choreographer Wang Yuanyuan); “Deep Memory”, “The World of Flowers”, “Then”, “The Earth”, “Goddess of Luo River”; ecological trilogy “Soaring Wings: Journey of the Crested Ibis”, “The Origin of the Big River”, “Deep AI You” (director and choreographer Tong Ruirui). The conclusions summarize the main characteristics of studied artists’ performances on environmental themes, as well as outline the prospects for further promotion of environmental awareness by means of dance theater. According to the author, the dance theater of China can continue to participate in environmental protection actively. The following forms of work turned out to be the most promising: further staging of choreographic performances on ecological topics, ecological production of the plays, open-air performances in natural areas and parks, original dance events in rural areas, choreographic open-air master classes, access to eco-responsible dance productions in online format, participation of ballet dancers in complex activities (ecological festivals, environmental photo sessions, media-programs or performances etc.).

“Dancing Steps of #WeToo Resistance”: Choreography of Masculinity, Sexuality, and Violence on an Israeli Stage

ABSTRACT Israeli masculinity has been researched by diverse disciplines such as sociology, army studies, gender studies, and more. The dominant theme of such research has been to identify Israeli masculinity as heteronormative and aggressive, and usually discusses it via a nationalistic or religious lens, basing its interpretation on macho, militaristic, and heterosexual values. The current study suggests another perspective for exploring Israeli masculinity by examining two dance productions created by male choreographers and performed by male dancers: Beasts by Ido Tadmor (2000) and But the Virgin Was More Available by Javier de Protos (2002). Both performances expose a homosexual dynamic, reclaims feminine symbols, and exposes silenced public issues such as rape perpetuated against men. These pioneer performances thereby challenge the heteronormative constructions of gender identities and sexualities and present a performance of masculinity which opposes hegemonic perceptions, which are based on heterosexual and machoistic values. I conclude that these modern choreographic productions can be considered political cultural acts in the Israeli public sphere that give a voice to gendered discourse otherwise silenced by Israeli society at large.

Artistic Comparisons of Art Forms Through The Nutcracker: Legitimizing Hip Hop

Hip Hop is an art form that has spanned the past few decades, imbued with rich culture, history, and movement. Yet, the art form is not as appreciated in society and in academia as art forms such as ballet. The aim of this study is to evaluate the qualitative and artistic aspects of Hip Hop and ballet to determine the success of both art forms and thereby argue for the legitimacy of Hip Hop as an art form. The comparison was analyzed through a content analysis of different versions of The Nutcracker, a highly esteemed dance production. The first phase of this study examined the development of Hip Hop and ballet, current research touching on the legitimacy of both art forms, and the development of The Nutcracker and past practices used to evaluate movement. The second phase involved the development of a rubric based on past performance evaluations to analyze a Hip Hop version and a traditional ballet version of The Nutcracker. Both versions were assessed through an online format because of the reachability of such a medium. The rubric was separated into three categories: dynamics, expressiveness, and technique, and findings showed that both dances received an overall score of 2.72 out of 3 points, with both dances falling short on different criteria in the rubric. It was concluded that the content analysis could help to advance the legitimacy of Hip Hop to match that of ballet due to the equivalent artistic successes of both art forms.

Representing National Culture on the Dance Stage: A Chapter from the History of Hungarian Ballet between the Two World Wars

In the case of a mixture of dance languages, especially in dance productions that are the result of a conscious creative process, the interpretation of the symbolic content and message of the dance language elements becomes important. It is in this context that the dance art endeavours of the 19th and 20th centuries in Hungary can be examined, which aimed at staging folk dance culture on the one hand, and at developing a modern language of dance art by using folk dance culture as a source of inspiration on the other. The underlying motivations behind these dance art endeavours could be different, as they could be born in the spirit of modernism or traditionalism, or they could be the manifestation of political-social artistic aspirations, or the two different motivations could overlap. Taking these aspects into account, my study seeks to answer the question of why and how the need for a stage work to function as a national representation of Hungarianness emerged in the history of Hungarian ballet.

Dancing Women: Choreographing Corporeal Histories of Hindi Cinema by Usha Iyer

Reviewed by: Dancing Women: Choreographing Corporeal Histories of Hindi Cinema by Usha Iyer Namrata Rele Sathe (bio) Dancing Women: Choreographing Corporeal Histories of Hindi Cinema by Usha Iyer. Oxford University Press. 2020. 288 pages. $140 hardcover; $38.95 paper; also available in e-book. In Dancing Women: Choreographing Corporeal Histories of Hindi Cinema, Usha Iyer deconstructs the spectacle of the dancing body in Hindi cinema to reveal the industrial and material realities it conceals. Iyer’s project deviates from previous studies of Hindi cinematic song-and-dance, which have primarily focused on the ideological dimensions of these sequences. Instead, Iyer is more interested in the industry practices that, in her words, “[alert] us to questions of virtuosity, labor, and pleasure undergirding the production and reception of popular Hindi film dance.”1 Locating her study between the 1930s and 1990s, Iyer deploys the dancer-actress as an “analytical category” to explore the “construction of gender, stardom and spectacle” in dance sequences.2 Iyer decodes the star texts of various dancer-actresses, including those of Sadhona Bose, Vyjayanthimala, and Madhuri Dixit, to explicate the “social norms for female performance” that informed the reception of their dancing bodies and the ways in which these actresses sought to “challenge or subvert these through their movement vocabulary.”3 Iyer’s comprehensive and meticulous study is [End Page 199] strengthened by vivid descriptions of the dance sequences that the author analyzes. Take, for example, this elegant description of renowned dancer-actress Helen’s famous dance sequence from the film Caravan (Nasir Hussain, 1971), “Piya Tu Ab Toh Aaja” (Come here my love): “With her elegantly splayed fingers, [Helen] harnesses the camera into a crane shot that follows her as she traverses the space of the set, climbing stairs, sprinting into a gilded cage, gliding down a slide, and emerging in the next match-on-dancing-action shot before the ready, waiting camera to inaugurate the sung part of the song with her trademark sequin-encrusted shimmy.”4 In the introduction, “A Corporeal History of Hindi Film Dance,” Iyer presents the book’s central theoretical concept of the choreomusicking body, which the author defines as “the many bodies that produce the on-screen performing body.”5 The choreomusicking body concept brings into focus the collaborative work of the on-screen dancer(s) as well as off-screen professionals who contribute to what we finally witness on film. This is vital research, Iyer argues, as it serves to unearth the forgotten work of those performers who were part of authoring some of the most spectacular and memorable dance sequences in the history of Hindi cinema. These include classic sequences such as Vyjayanthimala’s sensuous turn in “Main Kya Karoon Ram” (What am I to do, oh God!) from Sangam (Union, Raj Kapoor, 1964) and Madhuri Dixit’s superhit dance number “Ek Do Teen” (One, two, three) from Tezaab (Acid, N. Chandra, 1988) to more recent hits such as the larger-than-life set piece dances of Om Shanti Om (Farah Khan, 2007). This chapter also provides an overview of the history of dance in Hindi cinema, starting from its pre-sound days, to demonstrate how Hindi cinematic dance evolved as a heterogeneous form derived from folk, classical, and international influences. In chapter 1, titled “Dance Musicalization and the Choreomusicking Body: Corporealizing Theoretical Frameworks of Film Dance and Music,” Iyer outlines a taxonomy of song sequence performances based on the activities of the on-screen actors and their relation to space and mise-en-scène. Iyer introduces the concept of dance musicalization, wherein the author argues that the “inclusion of dancer-actors may alter the music composed in popular Hindi films so that it responds to their dancing skills and bodily comportment.”6 The song-and-dance sequences are classified into two major types: the narrative number and the production number. Iyer’s focus is on the production number, an explicitly constructed dance spectacle that contributes to the construction of the female star text. The chapter centers choreomusicology as an analytical approach to posit that dance and music are not binary but instead exist as “two sensory planes [that] are seen as being in a state of mutual...

Intertextual Aspects of Productions of Ukrainian Folk-Stage Choreography

The purpose of the article is to reveal the specificity of intertextuality in the choreographic text of Ukrainian folk stage dance productions. The research methodology is determined by the complexity and multifacetedness of the production of folk stage choreography as an artistic work and is represented by a combination of various research approaches, namely interdisciplinary, systemic, and cultural. The purpose of the study led to the use of comparative, structural-semiotic, hermeneutic, and intertextual analysis methods widely adapted in modern humanitarian science, the main principle of which is to consider the choreographic text as an open system that enters into various relationships with other systems. Intertextual analysis plays an important role in revealing the concept of a choreographic work, its relevance is based on the idea of dialogic essence and continuity of culture. Scientific novelty. The performance of folk stage choreography is studied through the prism of the concept of intertextuality of Yu. Kristeva and theoretical approaches to the study of the text of R. Barthes; the role of the choreographer-director and the audience in the context of the creation and interpretation of the choreographic text is considered; the concept of “intertextuality” in the context of the choreographic text of the production of folk stage choreography is clarified; it was found that the character of intertextuality directly depends on the specifics of communication, which is determined by the nature of the choreographic text of folk-stage forms. Conclusions. As a result of the extrapolation of Yu. Kristeva's concept of intertextuality and theoretical approaches to the study of R. Barth's text to folk-stage choreography, it was found that: the choreographic text of a folk-stage performance is created by means of synthesising various quotes that refer to a variety of cultural sources; in the multidimensional space of the folk stage production, the process of systematic birth of meaning and its release takes place; the concept of intertextuality in the context of the production of folk stage choreography blurs the contours of the choreographic text, turning it into an infinite artistic dimension of connections and associations. The conducted analysis allows us to define the phenomenon of intertextuality of folk-stage choreography performances as a special choreographic intertextual space, in the middle of which there is accumulation, coexistence and constant interaction of all the diversity of vocabulary of authentic and folk-stage dance. In its middle, any element of a folk dance is immersed in a general cultural context and correlates with an array of other choreographic texts, multiplying its own content, relevance and interpretive possibilities. Intertextual interactions in the choreographic text of a folk-stage dance provide an opportunity for the choreographer-director to enter the continuum of eternal themes of folk culture, enter into an artistic dialogue with the past achievements of dance culture and, thus, reflect their own vision of the scene-content part of the folk-stage dance, which, in turn, expands the figurative system of the new choreographic work, emphasises its multi-layeredness and serves as a basis for various interpretations. The choreographer-producer of the folk stage dance interacts not only with the reality surrounding them, but also with the entire corpus of their previous and contemporary choreographic works, and most importantly with folk dance primary sources, being in a state of permanent dialogue with them. The text of a folk stage choreographic production consists of various elements that come from different cultures, enter into a relationship of dialogue, parody, discussion with each other – all this multiplicity is focused in a certain point, which is the viewer. The viewer’s role in the interpretation of the choreographic text is crucial, as their previous experience, cultural and educational background will undoubtedly influence the amount of meaning they can obtain when viewing the choreographic work. Accordingly, the choreographic text acquires unity not in its origin, but in its purpose. The analysis of the manifestation of intertextuality as one of the fundamental techniques in the productions of folk stage choreography requires considering them as works that consist of texts that are actualised in a specific semiotic context and contribute to the preservation of Ukrainian folk dance culture in particular and the cultural memory of Ukrainians in general.
 Key words: improvisation, dance improvisation, improvisation in choreography, dance.

Corporeal Politics: Dancing East Asia ed. by Katherine Mezur and Emily Wilcox

Reviewed by: Corporeal Politics: Dancing East Asia ed. by Katherine Mezur and Emily Wilcox Fangfei Miao CORPOREAL POLITICS: DANCING EAST ASIA. Edited by Katherine Mezur and Emily Wilcox. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2020; pp 355. Corporeal Politics: Dancing East Asia is the first English-language anthology that focuses on dance and performance histories in East Asia. The editors Katherine Mezur and Emily Wilcox situate the anthology in the intersection of East Asian studies and dance studies and define East Asia as "a [geographic] place, a transnational community, and a political idea" that is under constant scholarly debate (Wilcox 2020, 7). Using "corporeal politics" as the overarching methodology, this book endeavors to exhibit the rich potential of dancing bodies in generating new knowledge for area studies. The diverse backgrounds of the contributors promote an interdisciplinary, transnational, and cross-cultural research of dance. However, several paradoxical features of the volume complicates its purported goals and reinforces hegemonies that it seeks to dismantle. Led by scholars of the global minority and produced from within the Euro-American academic setting, the anthology risks racializing the cultural Other in East Asia. Thus instead of demonstrating a way forward, the anthology stokes the question of how to include research of East Asian dance in the English-language academic world. The methodology of "corporeal politics" focuses on "offering politicized readings of dancing bodies" and "taking dance as an art that makes the politics of bodies visible, palpable, and transformable" (Wilcox 2020, 12). The editors adopt this methodology to uncover five body politics shared by dance performance in China, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and North Korea and structure the book accordingly in five parts: Contested Genealogies, Decolonizing Migration, Militarization and Empire, Socialist Aesthetics, and Collective Technologies. The contributors examine historically influential or previously overlooked dance figures, milestone or unnoticed dance works, performance events in pedestrian contexts, history of a dance style, and transcultural encounters of dancing bodies. Based on archival and ethnographic works, the chapters investigate body in performance as the site for political intervention, where nationalism, racism, gender politics, and questions of "the modern" entangle with one another. The last two decades have witnessed increasing scholarly attention to performing bodies in East Asian studies. Dance has, however, continued to be under-represented within this conversation. Corporeal Politics fills this void, albeit by repeating some of the missteps reminiscent of area studies' forays into Asia. It is worthwhile to remind ourselves that area studies emerged in the aid of American expansionism and speaks directly to the US's political and economic concerns. Several scholars have questioned the innate limitations of area studies that centers whiteness and privileges Euro-America (Masao and Harootunian 2002; Yapp 2021). This anthology seems to uncritically overlook these limitations. "Corporeal politics" as an analytical tool centers Euro-American perspectives. The critical apparatus approaches the performing bodies of the non-Western Other solely for political meanings to make these bodies fully knowable in the West. In other words, the volume seems more concerned about facilitating Western comprehension of the Asian Other. Nevertheless, Corporeal Politics showcases a stretching tension between two facets of East Asia: its relations to the West and its internal interactions. For the East-West relation, the volume defies a postcolonial framework that tends to read dance in former colonies as either submissive to colonial maneuver or completely resistive to imperialism, but instead demonstrates a more complex interaction between East Asia and the "advanced" West. In Catherine Yeh's chapter, the West functions as a source for artistic inspirations that can stimulate domestic cultural transformation. Yeh argues that the transcultural encounter with modern dance during Qi Ru-shan's visit to Europe in the 1920s inspired him to innovate Peking Opera by inserting more dances to it. Together with Chinese Peking Opera master Mei Lan-Fang, Qi designed new choreographies of Chinese conventional dance inspired by the modern dance he saw to "dancify" Peking Opera as a method of modernization. Comparatively, for Okju Son, the West galvanized new self-identification and encouraged dance production based on East Asian traditions in opposition to the Western counterparts. Son suggests that the performance opportunities in Germany stimulated Park Yeong-in, a Korean-Japanese...

Shaker Fever: America's Twentieth-Century Fascination with a Communitarian Sect

The Shakers, a small, communal, and celibate pietistic sect of Christianity, were already in serious decline when, in the years 1925 to 1965, they were rediscovered and made to represent what various twentieth-century American actors saw in them. This is the phenomenon explored exceedingly well by William D. Moore in Shaker Fever, a book that, like the Shaker enthusiasts themselves, tells us more about the middle decades of the twentieth century than about the Shakers. First came the collectors, who simply wanted to possess historically significant objects, or, like the driven Faith Andrews and Edward Deming Andrews, wanted to be the leading experts on the Shakers through their material culture. Soon came the artists and designers, who saw in Shaker furniture and objects the foretaste of modern design's clean lines and emphasis on use. Then came dramatic and dance productions that performed the Shakers, often with sexual undertones or...

Digital production and realization for traditional dance movements based on Motion Capture Technology

Traditional dance is China's national intangible cultural heritage and is a precious cultural treasure of the Chinese nation. Motion capture technology (Mocap) is a hot research topic in the digital field in recent years, covering the digital fields of physical animation, gait analysis and biomechanics. This paper briefly explains the principle of optical motion capture technology, explores the technical characteristics of motion capture technology, analyzes the advantages of optical motion capture technology in realizing the digital production of traditional dance in combination with the current situation and problems of traditional dance, and designs a technical route for digital production of traditional dance based on motion capture technology. The route is applied to an example production to verify its effectiveness and feasibility.

O estado da produção do conhecimento científico sobre Dança: um recenseamento em periódicos da Educação Física (1987- 2020)

Abstract The present study aims to register the production of scientific articles about dance in national Physical Education journals. For this, we carried out a content analysis of articles published in 26 selected journals between 1987 and August 2020. We found 363 articles published in the proposed period, focusing on subjects, webqualis, and varied bibliographic references. Thus, it is possible to see where the national dance productions are, their highlights, and their main bibliographic references. In the end, we found that the discussions about dance and educational aspects are predominant, as well as the use of bibliographic references with a certain theoretical and practical proximity to dancing activities.

Charlotte Salomon and the Theatre of Memory by Griselda Pollock

Reviewed by: Charlotte Salomon and the Theatre of Memory by Griselda Pollock Julia Watson (bio) Charlotte Salomon and the Theatre of Memory Griselda Pollock Yale University Press, 2018, 544 pp. ISBN 9780300100723, $60 hardcover. Eminent British art historian Griselda Pollock's study of Charlotte Salomon's vast visual-textual-musical work Leben? oder Theatre? (Life? or Theatre?) is unquestionably the most sustained, informative, and insightful work on Salomon's Life? or Theatre? to date. Each chapter in Charlotte Salomon and the Theatre of Memory evinces extensive research, rich theorizations, and brilliant analysis, drawing on feminist and Jewish studies, psychoanalysis, and theoretical concepts from Walter Benjamin, Hannah Arendt, Bracha Ettinger, and Roland Barthes, as well as Freud, Lacan, and Derrida. While Pollock's book appears to be a "single artist" study, it is in fact a much larger intervention into the relationship between the practices of feminist Modernism as part of "art's expanded histories" and the cataclysm of racist fascism in the mid-twentieth century (11). It also offers a provocative challenge to those of us working in auto/biographical studies on how we might recontextualize narration, enrich the discussion of automediality in visual-textual life narrative, and use archival research and wide-ranging theoretical approaches to situate particular artists and writers within the major political and social movements of their time. As interest in Salomon's extraordinary and enigmatic work has grown over the past three decades, parts of it have been shown with increasing frequency: the vast complete work was exhibited at the Jewish Historical Museum (JHM) in 2017–2018 for the centenary of Salomon's birth.1 There have also been operas, theatrical performances, and dance productions based on her work. Biographical studies include seven films and a novel, French writer David Foenkinos's 2014 Charlotte, which was translated into English and German—acclaimed by some, but dismissed by others (including Pollock and myself). Mini-reproductions of one of Salomon's painted self-portraits now appear on magnets and tote bags. Although this rush of attention brought Life? or Theatre? worldwide recognition, it has also been glossed as a work of tragic victimage—a perspective vigorously disputed in Pollock's study. Charlotte Salomon and the Theatre of Memory is a handsome volume. Its 7 x 10 inch heavy-stock, case-bound pages include 324 illustrations (most in full color), many of them details of individual paintings; it is printed with generous gutters for annotations. Illustrations are helpfully placed on the pages of the text discussing them, and they are repeated in a different size if alluded to frequently. The book is structured in twelve chapters preceded by a preface and introduction, and concludes with an appendix of Pollock's personal history related to the project, copious endnotes, a list of illustrations, a bibliography, and an index. The preface, "To the Memory of the Nameless," opens with a full-page photograph and discussion of "Passages," the glass-and-steel staircase monument to Walter Benjamin in Port Bou, Spain, where he took his life in 1940 when he was unable to obtain a transit visa to the US. A phrase from one of his last manuscripts is [End Page 125] incised on it: "Historical reconstruction is devoted to the memory of the nameless" (8). A central argument of Pollock's study is that Salomon was "culturally nameless at the point at which she created the work for which her name is now remembered" (9), which impelled her quest to "find a name for myself," as noted in what her biographer Mary Lowenthal Felstiner called her "postscript," the painted-word pages at the end of Life? or Theatre?. Pollock's treatment of Life? or Theatre? is deliberately achronological; each chapter begins with an exploration of one painting from Life? or Theatre? and extends its thematic, aesthetic, and historical implications to related paintings throughout Salomon's work. Pollock is distinctly critical of readings that view Charlotte Salomon's life and death as the core of Life? or Theatre?, arguing that such critical readings—drawn out of and then read back into the work—reduce its accomplishment as a work engaged with the "Event" of the Holocaust and the "Everyday" traumas of...

Review: A Revolution in Movement: Dancers, Painters, and the Image of Modern Mexico, by K. Mitchell Snow

Review: A Revolution in Movement: Dancers, Painters, and the Image of Modern Mexico, by K. Mitchell Snow

El surgimiento del contact improvisation en el laboratorio estético-político de los años 60 y 70

ABSTRACT This text reflects on the emergence of contact improvisation and the changes generated by postmodern dance in the American aesthetic-political context of the 60s and 70s. New modes of dance production developed by the New York neo-avant-garde of that period are addressed; the experimental attitude of the artists; and their interest in collaborative forms, among others. Based on the research results of my doctoral thesis, the literature on an emblematic discipline of postmodern dance, about which there are few publications in Spanish, is expanded. Further study may open imaginative horizons for new laboratory practices.

Imported Sophistication: The Ballets Russes Tours of the 1930s–50s and Toronto's Quest for Cultural Significance

Imported Sophistication: The Ballets Russes Tours of the 1930s–50s and Toronto's Quest for Cultural Significance

ARCHITECTURAL SPACE IN DANCE AS AN ARTISTIC AND FIGURATIVE SYSTEM

The study examines the expressive means of dance and architecture, establishes common and specific areas in the nature of their artistic language, identifies the extent of interaction between architectural principles with dance dramaturgy and choreographic composition, and analyzes examples of interpretation of dance production solutions in the architectural space. Through a simultaneous review, the author examines the expressive means of dance and architecture, establishing the common and the specific in the expressive and pictorial nature of their artistic language. The focus is on identifying the degree of influence of architectural principles on the dance drama, choreographic composition, and the reverse impact. The analysis provides examples of the interpretation of dance staging solutions in the architectural space, including innovative modern practices of the 20th‑21st centuries. The artistic and imaginative metamorphoses of staged choreographic solutions occurring in different kinds of architectural spaces are considered. Starting with the perspectivism of the scenery on the stage and the light architecture of the 18th century, the author moves on to the monumental construction of the large stage performance of the 19th century and concludes with the choreographic experiments of the early 20th century. The article points out that modern times offer the most curious design solutions. There are examples of bold, original methods of interaction between choreography and architecture: dances are staged directly in the interiors of buildings, bypassing the traditional stage platform. The implied idea of human movement in space, encompassing the viewer, appears here because of successively changing impressions. Finally, the author explores the directorial approach, where the choreography itself masters and constructs the architecture, helping the viewer to perceive themselves as if within its own spatial structure. This peculiar artistic and visual synthesis appears in the dynamics of genre and style of the author’s stage context. The study of the specifics of ballet as a dramatic phenomenon seems to be a fundamental research task, because, more than any other theatrics genre, it is the ballet that provided extremely diversified artistic samples of space and stage creativity in the heritage of the 20th century, and probably, will continue to do so in the 21st. The question of dance interpretation in the architectural space is a significant independent subject of research in connection with the structure and evolution of the artistic image in contemporary choreographic art. Against the background of postmodernist modern style trends as a global creative principle of post-culture, this topic includes broad general aesthetic associations. It is vital to the understanding of the artistic process in contemporary art in general.

Problems of cliche in the context of creativity of choreographer-director of modern dance

The purpose of the article is to identify the specifics of the use of clichéd expressive means in the process of creating a production of modern choreography and to determine the ways to get rid of clichés in the context of philosophical and worldview types of choreographic life. Methodology. In order to identify the peculiarities of the use of clichéd means of expression in the performances of modern dance, the typological method, the method of structural-semantic and textual analysis was applied. Scientific novelty. The problem of the use of clichéd expressive means by choreographers-directors of modern dance is investigated; the features of the use of clichéd forms of visual expressiveness are considered on the basis of modern choreography productions; based on the analysis of the theoretical works of the leading choreographers of the 20th century. the approaches to avoiding the use of clichés in the process of staging modern dance have been identified. Conclusions. Certain lexical elements of modern dance, compositional features, and visual means of expressiveness of choreographic performances in their own semantics are clichéd, since, as a result of the frequent use of choreographers-directors (usually due to positioning as necessary elements of the text of the choreographic performance, which provide an easy and accurate way of transmitting the encoded information) have lost their imagery, and their semantic content has gradually decreased. In contemporary dance productions, the cliché is a kind of sign of the choreographic text, which has its own conceptual content and structurally organized form, providing a certain meaning to the concept placed in this cliché. This meaning can be interpreted as an element of the semantic system, the internal structure of which is associated with its relationship with other elements of this structure and reflect the system of connections and relationships between objects and phenomena of reality existing outside a separate sign in the form of a converted form of this objective content, which largely depends on the projected on the iconic image created by the choreographer of the viewer's social experience. The meaning of the choreographic cliché is considered as a result of the process of determination, when a “psychic image” appears in the viewer's mind, the presence of which is manifested through a visual signification and is fixed in the signs of the dance text. Changes in the content of the cliché as a sign (its meaning) create differences of an individual and social nature, reflecting the choreographer's ideas about the surrounding reality. The choreographer-director of contemporary dance comprehends and rethinks life in accordance with his own philosophical and worldview principles, revealing life concepts that are closer to a paradox and distant from the established logic. Seeing life as a force, the choreographer constantly strives for awakening in order to free himself from disciplinary individualizations.