A few words of summary.
The conference Understanding Dance was a project opening a whole series of meetings – meetings of both practitioners and theoreticians of dance, together with the performing arts. It was an attempt to join the theoretical reflection and practical action.
Both the lectures and workshops (which also were aided by elements of a lecture) presented chosen aspects of performing arts (focusing mainly on dance), from tradition to contemporary media. Hence, in spite of a wide range and multi-plot references and exemplifications – aspects common for most of the presented papers could be observed. Out of the common spaces, three most important ones could be specified as follows:
Dance within the media
The first issue, appearing in all the texts, was the matter of contemporary media - like TV, Internet, video as well as the promotion market using a wide range of the newest media. In what way do they broaden access to the art of dance? How, on the other hand, do they influence its poetics, language, code? On what level is the mass-media phenomenon started and constructed? How does it change the report and the perception of such? The speeches revealed on what basis the formal aspects of each medium are transformed and root themselves into the structure of choreography and methods of work with dancers. The inevitable process of evolving of the traditional dance forms (like the kathak in Pallabi Chakravorty’s paper, or the river dance in the anthropological studies of Helena Wulff) was presented within two main trends:
a) returning to the roots – with the awareness of constant crossing and revising both the past and the present day
b) the culture remix – using Pallabi Chakravorthy’s expression – the translocation and the transgenic process of genres among forms, media, arts.
Media identity/real-life identity (?)
All the discussed processes influence significantly the identity of contemporary dancers. A specific identity is appearing, one we could call media identity. It is a processual construct which is determined by taking part in constantly changing formats, such as reality show, TV programs like You can dance, Mam talent (to mention the most popular ones in Poland only) or on the Internet: Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and other community web-sites. Each of those formats has a structured layout which extorts fitting into its frames, and the whole process requires fluent making use of the media identity. Therefore, the dancer often supplements their means of expression with thinking about the media image. Building up new images of the body is one of the crucial directives of mass culture, as they cross the borders of ethnicity, nationality, regionalism – to take the example of the Bollywood dancers, issue described by Pallabi Chakravorty. Using modern techologies, like Internet or streaming can also have practical impact on the field of teaching (e-learning, which was a subject of Roman Arndt's paper).
Choreography as the record of history/the memory of the body
Thirdly, appearing in all the presented papers was the issue of the memory of the body. It is well known to both theoreticians and practitioners of dance, it is also described in many essential scientific studies. The body of the dancer in the media situation is both a real and a virtual one. It is also a body extended by the possibilities of new technologies. However, it does not allow us to forget that choreography is above all a record of historical moments. A record of memory, awareness and cultural-historical identity. In the earlier issues we were dealing with media identity, here we touch something deeper – the somatic memory – something surely liable to changes, but still remaining in the body. Sometimes we need to make a journey into ourselves, in order to realize how complicated the historical-social-political processes and relations, in which our body has been and will be immersed, are (the problem was described by Helena Wulff while presenting the situation of the Irish dance).
The thoughts our lecturers followed create the base which opens up to a whole spectrum of various issues, like for example the process of shaping of a company and their methods of work (which was one of the themes of the lecture of Anya Peterson Royce) or the space-historical relations. My focus here is on nationalization, emancipation and globalization processes. All of them, though sometimes in a different sense, seem to have trans-cultural tinge. New debates, emerging from these phenomena and describing them from a new point of view are shaped (queer, gender, postcolonial studies).
From all the texts it follows how crucial and dominant in the contemporary world is the position the art of dance holds. On the one hand it is becoming desired art for the new media, and from the other one, using the body, it points at the ways to return to and re-define the tradition and culture.
Workshop presentations
A very important part of the conference were two presentations of certain pedagogical methods of work, the ways of starting in the body the levels of expression and articulating it. The participants of the workshops were the students of the Dance Department of the Krakow State Theatre School. The presentations were attempts to make us aware of:
a) the possibilities of the actor approaching the work on the role from the side of rhythm, movement or physical activity, which open more and more new strata of building tension and emotion (Jan Peszek)
b) the transformations within individual poetics, style, choreographic structures of specific elements, either of musical notation or movement connected with Polish folklore, and creative developing them (Jacek Łuminski).
Both of the spaces (theoretical and practical) were not only complementing each other, but coexisting as well – both on the theme and discourse levels. This, too, was a very important aspect of the conference.
Questions after the conference
Do we, in the present situation of the visual culture, face formal remix, the mix of Arts and mass-media spaces? Are we witnessing creation of new genres? If so – what is their nature? Are they genres of dance, media? To what extent are they in constant trans-location between these spaces? Which directions will the processes outlined during the conference follow? What new issues can in the following years arise? What problems will turn out to be the most crucial ones?
The conference Understanding Dance was a project opening a whole series of meetings – meetings of both practitioners and theoreticians of dance, together with the performing arts. It was an attempt to join the theoretical reflection and practical action.
Both the lectures and workshops (which also were aided by elements of a lecture) presented chosen aspects of performing arts (focusing mainly on dance), from tradition to contemporary media. Hence, in spite of a wide range and multi-plot references and exemplifications – aspects common for most of the presented papers could be observed. Out of the common spaces, three most important ones could be specified as follows:
Dance within the media
The first issue, appearing in all the texts, was the matter of contemporary media - like TV, Internet, video as well as the promotion market using a wide range of the newest media. In what way do they broaden access to the art of dance? How, on the other hand, do they influence its poetics, language, code? On what level is the mass-media phenomenon started and constructed? How does it change the report and the perception of such? The speeches revealed on what basis the formal aspects of each medium are transformed and root themselves into the structure of choreography and methods of work with dancers. The inevitable process of evolving of the traditional dance forms (like the kathak in Pallabi Chakravorty’s paper, or the river dance in the anthropological studies of Helena Wulff) was presented within two main trends:
a) returning to the roots – with the awareness of constant crossing and revising both the past and the present day
b) the culture remix – using Pallabi Chakravorthy’s expression – the translocation and the transgenic process of genres among forms, media, arts.
Media identity/real-life identity (?)
All the discussed processes influence significantly the identity of contemporary dancers. A specific identity is appearing, one we could call media identity. It is a processual construct which is determined by taking part in constantly changing formats, such as reality show, TV programs like You can dance, Mam talent (to mention the most popular ones in Poland only) or on the Internet: Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and other community web-sites. Each of those formats has a structured layout which extorts fitting into its frames, and the whole process requires fluent making use of the media identity. Therefore, the dancer often supplements their means of expression with thinking about the media image. Building up new images of the body is one of the crucial directives of mass culture, as they cross the borders of ethnicity, nationality, regionalism – to take the example of the Bollywood dancers, issue described by Pallabi Chakravorty. Using modern techologies, like Internet or streaming can also have practical impact on the field of teaching (e-learning, which was a subject of Roman Arndt's paper).
Choreography as the record of history/the memory of the body
Thirdly, appearing in all the presented papers was the issue of the memory of the body. It is well known to both theoreticians and practitioners of dance, it is also described in many essential scientific studies. The body of the dancer in the media situation is both a real and a virtual one. It is also a body extended by the possibilities of new technologies. However, it does not allow us to forget that choreography is above all a record of historical moments. A record of memory, awareness and cultural-historical identity. In the earlier issues we were dealing with media identity, here we touch something deeper – the somatic memory – something surely liable to changes, but still remaining in the body. Sometimes we need to make a journey into ourselves, in order to realize how complicated the historical-social-political processes and relations, in which our body has been and will be immersed, are (the problem was described by Helena Wulff while presenting the situation of the Irish dance).
The thoughts our lecturers followed create the base which opens up to a whole spectrum of various issues, like for example the process of shaping of a company and their methods of work (which was one of the themes of the lecture of Anya Peterson Royce) or the space-historical relations. My focus here is on nationalization, emancipation and globalization processes. All of them, though sometimes in a different sense, seem to have trans-cultural tinge. New debates, emerging from these phenomena and describing them from a new point of view are shaped (queer, gender, postcolonial studies).
From all the texts it follows how crucial and dominant in the contemporary world is the position the art of dance holds. On the one hand it is becoming desired art for the new media, and from the other one, using the body, it points at the ways to return to and re-define the tradition and culture.
Workshop presentations
A very important part of the conference were two presentations of certain pedagogical methods of work, the ways of starting in the body the levels of expression and articulating it. The participants of the workshops were the students of the Dance Department of the Krakow State Theatre School. The presentations were attempts to make us aware of:
a) the possibilities of the actor approaching the work on the role from the side of rhythm, movement or physical activity, which open more and more new strata of building tension and emotion (Jan Peszek)
b) the transformations within individual poetics, style, choreographic structures of specific elements, either of musical notation or movement connected with Polish folklore, and creative developing them (Jacek Łuminski).
Both of the spaces (theoretical and practical) were not only complementing each other, but coexisting as well – both on the theme and discourse levels. This, too, was a very important aspect of the conference.
Questions after the conference
Do we, in the present situation of the visual culture, face formal remix, the mix of Arts and mass-media spaces? Are we witnessing creation of new genres? If so – what is their nature? Are they genres of dance, media? To what extent are they in constant trans-location between these spaces? Which directions will the processes outlined during the conference follow? What new issues can in the following years arise? What problems will turn out to be the most crucial ones?
Dr. Agnieszka Jelewska
photo by Aleksander Joachimiak