14.02.22 Analysing Performance - Post-modernism
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This document provides an overview of post-modernism and how its principles inform performance, theater, and dance. It emerged in the 1940s as a reaction against modernism, rejecting logical thinking and embracing cultural diversity. In theater and dance, it challenges norms through deconstruction, discontinuity, and non-linear forms. Key features include intertextuality, pastiche, parody, and irony. Post-dramatic theater focuses on interaction over drama, using techniques like grotesque styles and empty space. In dance, it incorporates borrowing from other forms and playing with identity.
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14.02.22 Analysing Performance - Post-modernism
- 1. Post-Modernism byTasneem Ramadan and Louise Douse Week 3 Analysing Performance
- 2. Post-Modernism It emerged in 1940, but became popular in the 1950 and gained academic momentum in the latter parts of 1960 It was a departure from and a large reaction against the intellectual assumptions and values of Modernism It was influenced by WWII It was based on an unscientific, irrational thought process, and it rejected logical thinking It deliberately uses a mixture of conventional styles. Analysing Performance Week 3
- 3. Meta-narratives Scepticism – no “absolute truth” Education Family Religion Moral relativism Values cultural diversity and promotes tolerance Problematises moral objectivism Relative to a particular standpoint, without privilege Marxism Scientific progress Mastery of craft Dismisses common or shared values Nihilism – extreme pessimism, value destruction Implies obvious wrongs are acceptable Opposed to imperialism/authoritarianism Abandoned foundationalism Week 3 Analysing Performance
- 4. Simulacra, Simulation, and Hyperreality Interrogate the relationship among reality, symbols, and society Simulacra are copies that depict things that either had no reality to begin with, or that no longer have an original Simulation is the imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system over time Media no longer holds a mirror to society. Reality has become constructed by mass media – we are living in a post-truth world Life imitates advertising, a life that is mediated = Hyperreality Analysing Performance Week 3
- 5. Philosophy of the Art Post-modernists rejected the aesthetics upon which modern art was based; the idea that art is something "special" and should be in an "elevated from" A collapse in the distinction between high culture and mass or popular culture, and between art and everyday life Definition of art was stretched to include anything, and art was accessible by everyone Analysing Performance Week 3 Pink Panther by Jeff Koons (1988)
- 6. Characteristics of the Art Explored artistic experimentation with new media and new art forms due to technological developments Refused to recognise the authority of any single style or definition of what art should be (Anti- authoritarianism) Mixed genres and styles Focused on pop culture. Week 3 Analysing Performance Vasarely in Texas Sky by Angelo Accardi
- 7. What are the stylistic features of Post- Modernism? INTERTEXTUALITY – the meaning of cultural texts produced by the reader as mosaics or pieces of other pre-existing cultural texts PASTICHE – a composition made up of bits of other works or styles, it celebrates the other styles PARODY -work that imitates another work in order to critically comment on the work itself or the subject of the work. IRONY - a gap or incongruity between what a performer or author says/communicates, and what is generally understood JUXTAPOSITION - an act or instance of placing two things close together or side by side. This is often done in order to highlight contrast and incongruity FRAGMENTATION - conscious highlighting of the discontinuous, disparate elements of the structure NON-LINEARITY -events portrayed in a non-chronological manner. Week 3 Analysing Performance
- 8. So how do these ideas inform performance, theatre and dance? Analysing Performance Week 3
- 9. Post-Modern Theatre The accepted norms of seeing and representing the world are challenged and disregarded, while experimental theatrical perceptions and representations are created Each new performance of a theatrical piece is a new Gestalt, a unique spectacle with no intent on methodically repeating a play Post-modern productions are centred around highlighting the fallibility of definite truth, while encouraging audience to reach their own individual understanding It raises questions rather than attempting to give answers Understanding Performance Week 9 Mama, Big Bird and the Cat by by Margaret Chan (2015)
- 10. Post-dramatic Theatre (1970-): A Theatre Without Drama Post-dramatic theatre tradition emerged in the 1970s and 1980s Hans-Thies Lehmann defines this new genre as theatre beyond drama – encompassing experimental, avant-garde, subversive, radical, risk-taking and post-modern strategies – or ‘theatre after theatre’ which seeks to overrule social norms, conventional notions of character, theatrical space, time and storyline A theatre that no longer focuses on the dramatic text, or have dramatic text as its primary signifier, but rather it forms new theatre aesthetics Understanding Performance Week 9 Odyssey by Robert Wilson (2012)
- 11. Key Stylistic Features Post-Modern Theatre Minimalism Maximalism Randomness Deconstruction Discontinuity Empty space Heterogeneity Non-textuality Pluralism Multi-modality/Magical realism Mediation Nihilism Post-dramatic Theatre Grotesque Multi-modality Deconstruction Non-textuality Anti-mimetic Empty space Overcrowded space Silence No hierarchy among theatre elements Hybridity Rejection of simple, logical and causal No plot at all; concentrates fully on the interaction between the performer and the audience Week 9 Understanding Performance
- 12. Post-Modernism 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. Week 9 Understanding Performance
- 13. Key stylistic features The main features of postmodern dance: Borrowing/stealing Referencing other cultural forms Parody/pastiche/re-creation Challenging stereotypes Irony, juxtaposition Playing with identity representation Using new technologies to distort/disrupt Leaving in editing/improv Repetition, non-linear form Understanding Performance Week 3
- 14. Bibliography Baudrillard, J. (1994) Simulacra and Simulation. Translated from the French by Sheila Faria Glaser. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Elam, K. (2002) The Semiotics of Theatre and Drama. London: Routledge. Lehmann, H. (2006) Postdramatic Theatre. Translated from the German by Karen Jürs-Munby. London: Routledge. Lyotard, J. (1984) The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Translated from the French by Geoffrey Bennington & Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 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. Week 9 Understanding Performance