This document discusses postmodernism and its influence on performance. It defines postmodernity as a historical, social, and cultural condition, and postmodernism as the aesthetic products of this condition. Postmodernism is characterized by intertextuality, pastiche, and parody. It discusses how truth is individually shaped in postmodern thought. It then examines the influence of postmodernism on dance through the Judson Dance Theatre and artists like Trisha Brown, as well as on theatre through post-dramatic theatre and companies like Forced Entertainment and The Wooster Group.

1. Postmodern Originality
by Louise Douse
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UnderstandingPerformance

2. Postmodern
 Postmodernity
 The historical, social, cultural, political position and
condition
 Postmodernism
 the aesthetic, cultural products and practices of this
condition.
 After-Modernism (or parasitically attached to it)
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3. What does it feel like?
 In a postmodern world, truth and reality are
understood to be individually shaped by personal
history, social class, gender, culture, and religion.
 Moral/cultural relativism
 Post-truth politics
 Individualism
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4. How has the
postmodern condition
been theorised?
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Roland Barthes
French Philosopher
“[The text is a] multidimensional
space in which a variety of writings
none of them original, blend and
clash.The text is a tissue of
quotations drawn from the
innumerable centres of culture.”
Image-Music-Text (1977)

5. Originality
 Nothing new
 Culture of quotations
 Other histories
 Other cultures (cultural appropriation)
 Other forms of art/media
 Quoting without reference (stealing)
 The Death of the Author
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6. What are the characteristics/stylistic
features of Postmodernism?
 INTERTEXTUALITY – the meaning of cultural texts produced by the
reader as mosaics or pieces of other pre-existing cultural texts
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7. What are the characteristics/stylistic
features of Postmodernism?
 PASTICHE – a composition made up of bits of other works or styles, it
celebrates the other styles
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8. What are the characteristics/stylistic
features of Postmodernism?
 PARODY -work that imitates another work in order to critically comment
on the work itself or the subject of the work.
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9. Postmodernism in Dance
 Judson Dance Theatre
 A dance collective that was historically based at Judson Memorial
Church in Greenwich Village, New York during the sixties.
 The Judson Dance Theatre stemmed from a series of ‘Composition
workshops’ run by Robert Dunn (musician and dancer) who was inspired
by the ‘chance methods’ of Merce Cunningham and John Cage in the
late 1950’s . The results of these workshops culminated in A Concert of
Dance #1 (1962) held at the Judson Church.
Artists including;
 Yvonne Rainer, Steve Paxton, David Gordon, James Waring, Trisha Brown,
Fred Herko, Simone Forti, Lucinda Childs and Robert Morris.
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10. Trisha Brown (1936-2017)
 Developed accumulation techniques
 Trisha Brown’s solo piece Accumulation with
Talking plus Watermotor exemplifies the
accumulation of movement material,
through repetition of small units in
mathematical sequence – sometimes
known in minimalist art or music as ‘serial
form’
 An example of ‘serial form’ – an
accumulating, mathematical sequence
dictating the order of the material. Each
number would represent either a ‘motif’ or
‘phrase’ of movement
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12. DV8 Physical Theatre
 Formed in 1986
 Lloyd Newson – born in Australia
 Extemporary Dance Theatre – Emilyn Claid
 Physical Theatre – “DV8 Physical Theatre was set up and named in 1986
(before physical theatre was labeled for academic study). The name was
chosen as a result of the dissatisfaction felt by Lloyd about what was
happening in contemporary dance at the time.”
DV8 Physical Theatre Website (2010) FAQS
 The company is formed of dancers actors, singers and circus performers.
Each new work is cast according to its content, although some performers
have worked on more than one production. The company does not have
a permanent group of performers.
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14. Postmodernism in Theatre
 Post-dramatic theatre
 Lehmann defines this new genre as theatre beyond
drama – encompassing experimental, avant-garde,
subversive, radical, risk-taking and postmodern
strategies – or ‘theatre after theatre’ which seeks to
overrule social norms, conventional notions of
character, theatrical space, time and storyline.
Eva Brenner in Citron, Aronson-Lehavi and Zerbib
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15. Forced Entertainment
 Creative Team
Robin Arthur, Tim Etchells (Artistic Director), Richard Lowdon (Designer), Claire
Marshall, Cathy Naden, Terry O’Connor.
 Tim Etchells (born 1962) is a British artist and writer based in Sheffield and
London
 His work spans performance, video, photography, text projects, installation
and fiction. He is currently Professor of Performance & Writing at Lancaster
University.
 The dominant aesthetic in Bloody Mess is one of confusion, collision and
disconnection, in which the “characters and strands in the work [are] there to
collide with each other, rather than all become the same thing” (Etchells 2005)
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17. The Wooster Group
A New York theatre collective that evolved in 1980 out of The
Performance Group.
Director – Elizabeth LeCompte
“…the Group has taken modern classics (The Cocktail Party, Long Day’s
Journey into Night, Our Town and The Crucible) as raw material upon
which to construct theatre pieces. Out of these sources come fragments
of scenes, characters, dialog, and thematic material which are explored,
reworked, echoed, quoted, blended and juxtaposed with fragments
from popular, cultural and social history as well as events, ideas and
situations that emerge from the personal and collective experiences of
members of the Group.” (Aronson, A. 1985, p. 65-67)
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19. Bibiography
 Elam, K. (2002) The semiotics of theatre and drama. London: Routledge.
 Pavis, P. (2003) Analyzing performance: theater, dance, and film. Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press.
 Preson-Dunlop,V. & Sanchez-Colberg, A. (2010) Dance and the performative: a
choreological perspective: Laban and beyond. London: Dance Books.
 Storey, J. (2006) Cultural theory and popular culture: an introduction. Harlow: Pearson
Prentice Hall.
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