2. Modern Dance and the Cultural Turn to Action
History of dance modernism in US after WWII
Cultural history of the postwar period seen
through the lens of modern dance
Illuminate correlations between
form of ordinary movement and of the power of
movement to conduct progressive social change
Nonstandard interpretations
Choreography and Sit-ins were a form of Non
Violent Direct Action
3. QuickTime™ and a
decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
Revelations QuickTime™ and a
decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWJzSP7irwM
4. The Greensboro Four
Sit-ins Begin
QuickTime™ and a
decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
5. Contributions of Talley Beatty
Katherine Dunham and
Donald McKayle
Mourner’s Bench Tally Beatty
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkSKAst3NPI
Southland Katherine Dunham
Games Donald McKayle
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPstRLiU_2s
Rainbow ‘Round My Shoulder Donald McKayle
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goFEe5gxNUo
Slide 1 Greetings my fellow classmates My new perspectives assignment was from the book Chapt 6 The Uses of Action I: Talley Beatty, Katherine Dunham and Donald McKayle
Slide 2 The book presents case studies in which modern dances accomplished acts of social and cultural change by challenging normative distinction between the symbolic and the actual. This book examines a sea change that occurred during the postwar years in the way ordinary Americans used their bodies as agents of change. Sea Change is gradual transformation where form is retained but substance is replaced She focuses on the contribution of those in the modern dance community whose work represents a theoretical convergence of viewing the body’s movement in terms of action. Her methodology is from Raymond Williams’ notion of “structures of feeling”. It holds that expressive practices, like dance are often the first signs of cultural change…
Slide 3 Revelations Sunday January 31, 1960 92 nd Street YM-YW Hebrew Association ｷ Was what Rebekah Kowal described as “an aesthetic hybrid, synthesizing the movement of modern dance, ballet, jazz, and African-American vernacular in compelling scenes staged to gospel music sung live. ｷ Capture emotional dependability of Sunday service in small black churches in small Texas towns ｷ Three acts Pilgrim of Sorrow, Wade in the Water, Move, Members, Move ｷ 10 curtain calls/roar & Standing O
Slide 4 Monday February 1 1960 Greensboro, NC sit-ins begin downtown Greensboro Less than 24 hrs after performance (correlation?) 4 freshmen from all-black North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College “…bought sundries F. W. Woolworth’s five-and-dime store, then sat at the lunch counter and asked to be served. Jim Crow Laws were initiated in most states after the civil war, discriminated blacks from attending public schools use of public facilities, Restaurants, Theatres, Hotels ect… Trains/Buses segregated By Friday over 300 student protesters white/black Store had to close because of bomb threats 2 weeks of protests city officials agreed to negotiate Protesters ceased demonstrations Department store manager had not budge by April Sit-ins began again 45 arrested Black community boycotts variety stores, profits drop by 30%, and some managers give in, Lunch counters at Woolworth’s, S H Kress and Meyer’s department stores Kowal makes strong points that: ｷ “ Revelations proved efficacious in its ability both to represent and bring about change.” ｷ Greensboro protesters’ similarly galvanized community formation and social transformation ｷ Kowal feels that sit-ins were highly strategic forms of choreography, events coordinated in advance but carried out as spontaneous Kowal 2004 ｷ Kowal defends the point that these two occurrences are related in the fact that movement in dance and social choreographies served as a catalyst of social and cultural change. Her goal to show how modern dance artists participated alongside other Americans in the postwar cultural work of “World-making.” Doing something on stage was equivalent to doing it in the world “… Their Dances substantiated the emerging body politic in unexpected and transformative ways”
Slide 5 Chapter 6 examines the political effectiveness of McKayle's Rainbow revealed by two contexts: The modern dance model by McKayle himself along with Beatty and Dunham and the history of African-American protest at mid-century. Reflection as a Practice of Freedom Talley Beatty Mourner’s Bench 1947 Beatty refers to Mourner’s Bench as “a personal expression of grief” “a protest dance” A black statement of agency “ Here the citation of memory represented by enactments of reflection reconstructed a black-identified past in and through the performer’s body designating, therefore, the site of power in the action of the black body itself.” The solo is striking in its introspection as well as its virtuosity. Kowal gives almost a movement-by-movement description correlating the movement with her perception of meaning. Bottom page 207 Southland Katherine Dunham- Premiered in Chile 1951 Southland and Games set the climate for Rainbow Prologue “There is a deep stain, a mark of blood and shame which spreads from under the magnolia tree of the southland area and mingles with the perfume of the flowers. This is not all of America. It is not all of the south, but it is a living, present part.” About a black man wrongly accused of brutalizing a white woman, he is lynched on stage, 2 act is crowd comforting his lover. Games is a personal happening of Donald McKayle 1952 of children playing in the street, police brutalize a child. Southland and Games set the climate for Rainbow in that they portrayed unvarnished everyday elements of racial prejudice in the US Rainbow Round my Shoulder 1959 “ Grounded in the blues aesthetic, their work conjoined the expressive and the political, embodying blackness in ways that challenged aesthetic and social conventions concerning what black bodies could be and do.” Kowal focuses on the choreographers work in the context of the intensifying civil right movement and the emerging strategy of direct action protest; She investigates where the dance is not just a reflection but also an agent of transformation. Rainbow Round My Shoulder performed on National Television 1959 Lives of black men on a chain gang, road builders, break up bedrock with pickaxes, very hard labor Words Sung by Leon Bibb describing futile lives, dead-end dreams and stillborn desires showing through the modern dance aesthetic the loss of vitality, dignity, and potency. McKayle, “punishment that did not fit the crime, sometimes just being a black man and doing what you weren’t supposed to do” McKayle crafts the dance to show the black man’s coordination, might and imagination as meaningful actions that transcend their second-class status. It empowers through what Kowal calls the ‘dance embodiment’ Rainbow Round my Shoulder took actuality to a new level. McKayle’s work envisioned the capacity of prisoners on a chain gang individuals literally shackled by racism to transcend their given status through danced embodiment. The female signifies hope and freedom even if she is only in the men’s imagination
Slide 6 The blues aesthetic and/ black and blues ontology runs through each of the works previously mentioned. Black and Blues ontology reconstructs an oppressive, inequitable political, social, economic environment and denounces it. The result paradoxically energizes the oppressed reaffirming their humanity Action aided in breaking down the fourth wall between performers and audience Performing something as if it were true constituted a step along the way to making it true: in other words, the doing of an action made that action plausible even if it appeared to be improbable These Choreographers sought to redefine humanity through the lenses of their individualized worldviews.
