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Choreography
Is the avant garde ignoring the now? by Isobel Houghton | |||||||
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In 1936 in a series of statements entitled “Affirmations” Martha Graham wrote; “No artist is ahead of his time. He is his time. It is just that others are behind the time.” The search for choreographers of greatness who will lead dance bravely into the 21st century, the endless debates about who is the future of ballet, modern, world, American etc etc ultimately dissolve into a homogenous cacophony of babble. Not because the question is not relevant, but rather because no answer is forthcoming, or rather certain facts are so often overlooked. In the world history of art the most intense periods of creativity, those times which throw up artists of importance and bravery, centre around major and huge upheavals within society - art seems to follow a Malthusian curve, and the history of dance is no different. If we are to examine the history of ballet and dance, those periods of greatest creativity, when choreographers blossomed, when the art form itself replicated and reproduced into new and diverse and intricate forms, we must look at the time they were created, because there we may find the key to their survival in the present. From the courts of the Medici Popes, to the Palace of the Sun King, from the French Revolution, to the Russian Revolution, from the Great War and the Wall Street Crash, World War Two and the Vietnam War - the path of dance’s flowering from the academic ballet, to the great innovators of modern dance has blossomed as society burned and was forced into comprehension of its potential for destruction and creativity. The pioneers of dance from Petipa and Fokine, through Nijinsky to Graham, Cunningham to Rainer, were not seeking to be avant garde, they were responding to society with the most powerful voice they new, their dance. And what of dance now, what of the choreographers now, what is the voice, the mood, the feeling of now? Unfortunately, I would argue it is apathy, or rather a desire to please, an unwillingness to get one’s hands bloody, to provoke and upset - I dream of going to a dance recital and being provoked and upset, there I might see the future of dance in the now. In a coup de theatre that is so ironic it is almost poetic, on the day that the greatest classical genius of them all, Petipa, allegedly said “I am finished”, after having seen the vogue for the new ballet of Fokine, unbeknownst to Petipa, Balanchine was born. Whether or not this is true, (and indeed history has shown Petipa was far too harsh on himself), it is true that dance as an organic art form is reflexive and reactive. Shocked at La Bayadere, a dance supposedly set in an Indian Fakir’s court yet potentially the most generic example of Russian classicism of them all, Fokine was inspired to set in motion his brand of realism in ballet, the Diaghilev era of course gave rise to Nijinksy, Nijinska, Balanchine, who would carry forward the torch of modernism. At the same time the traditional ballet was inspiring the work of Duncan, Fuller, Denishawn and Wigman and then would come the three pioneers Graham, Humphrey and Holm. But against this period of unparalleled creativity these seeds which germinated and grew in a period of less than fifty years of each other, the world had become a place where God was found to be dead. The advent of modernism runs irrevocably alongside the advent of man assuming the power within society to be God, to create and destroy with impunity, only the evolving of a collective moral conscience could save man from Armageddon, and against this backdrop of bittersweet despair, art and arguably above all art forms, dance, grew. Dance is blessed with the ability to convey the deepest truths, the most unspoken and darkest of emotions and desires without stating the literal fact, and it is in this power that the great choreographer is found. The power to convey through his instrument, the dancer, the irrevocable statement of his place, his view of the world. A sentiment epitomised through the title of Graham’s masterpiece Letter to the World. Dance is of course, too, an interplay, as a new branch of modernism arrives, the establishment of rather the established can redefine its art by reacting against the new by returning and revising its opinion of what it has achieved. This can be seen in Jerome Robbins creation of his masterpiece, Dances at a Gathering. The reaction of the Judson Church group to the then established modern dance of Graham et al found its credo in Yvonne Rainer and her manifesto The Mind is a Muscle, which called for the total abolition of virtuosity in favour of purity of movement, finding the truth in the simplest of motions. Robbins wrote of Dances: “I’m doing a fairly classical ballet to very old-fashioned and romantic music. In a way it is a revolt against the faddism of today. I have been looking around at dance - seeing a lot of the stuff at Judson Church and the rest of the avant-garde. And I find myself feeling just what is the matter with connecting, what’s the matter with love, what’s the matter with celebrating positive things? Why, I asked myself, does everything have to be separated and alienated so that there is this almost constant push to disconnect? The strange thing is that young people are for love. Is that bad?” The result, Dances at a Gathering, is anything but old-fashioned, it is a masterpiece set in the classical school, but carrying the eternal truth that while death is omnipresent, the eternal cycle of rebirth, the joy of love, of touch, as Yeats said “the doubtful joy”, doubtful maybe, but exquisite, is found in every step of the choreographers art, again the now inspired a work that existed into the future. A masterpiece created with an eye on the present, not the avant garde. The irony now is that the work of the Judson Church Group of Rainer, Paxton, Brown are becoming the elder statesman of present day modernism, the current season of Baryshnikov’s White Oak Project at Edinburgh, Present Past, is focusing exclusively on the choreography of this group. I wonder what the British eye, which at best has merely a passing knowledge of this movement will make of it? The choreographers art is inextricably linked to the dancer, however, perhaps the virtuosity of the modern dancer may actually inhibit rather than inspire the emergence of a choreographer that will carry through to the future. The audience expects hyperbolic feats of technique, the 32 fouettes are no longer a spell to blind a prince, the extension is no longer an act of benediction it is gymnastic titillation, are there any ballet choreographers around who will ignore the present mores of dancers and audiences and willingly go “back to basics”. It is untrue that dance under Communism produced marvels of choreographic genius, rather as an adaptable art form that willed itself to survive it grew in extending the limits of virtuosity, it existed, as only it knew how. However, the genius of the Petipa survived, despite his fears, because through movement he communicated an eternal truth that was avant garde, or rather timeless. In Giselle, the eponymous heroines, grande developpe a la seconde, followed by the grande rond de jambe communicate the exquisite bittersweet, upward yearning nature of love. Through those two simple academic movements Petipa told all we need to know of the transcendental, unstoppable spirituality of love. Romantic perhaps, but no less so than Symphonic Variations, or Monument for a Dead Boy. But I love Petipa because he is modern, and he seldom needs the tiresome freaks of design imposed on his work to update the classics. I believe the greatest crime of the Royal’s Sonnabend set for Sleeping Beauty is that it forcibly undercuts and destroys the power of the Rose adagio. In the original Messel design, the bourree of Aurora’s first entrance was the gentle overture to her growing into her greatness through the course of the adagio. The entrance enforced by Sonnabend, the grandiose descending of the steps spoils the impact of the adagio, finds Aurora already a crown princess. It renders the variations almost bathetic. It is the avant garde imposing its own manifesto of the classic, the eternal and as such destroys it till such a time as the choreographers work is once more returned to its rightful prominence. And what of the choreographers in Britain today? Matthew Hart and William Tuckett, two potentials for the title of choreographer most likely to… have been singularly disappointing Hart more so than Tuckett. Hart’s Aids ballet, Dances of Death was risible, simplistic and almost homophobic in its ultimate message of “You get Aids, you die”. If a choreographer is to attack this subject, then I need to know how his place in society, his view, his awareness of the issue is carried in the choreography. The laughable fight between the red (bad) virus and the white (good) antibodies of the corps de ballet, was only amusing in its naivety for moments, but where was the choreographer’s voice, where was his awareness that Aids is a disease, a tragedy, but a containable one. It was a hackneyed view and not worthy, not rooted in the now, but rather in a bathetic mode of tragedy. As an allegory on the destructive, nature of sexual love it was meaningless, it had none of the power of Graham’s Cave of the Heart to stir the loins and make the heart beat with undeniable, deathly nature of passion. A choreographic damp squib. Tuckett, after a few false starts, seemed to have found his feet with Peurt a Bal. It was a hopeful ballet, as here we saw the choreographer abstracting his art down to its barest bones, movement, which is what dance is. Like Ashton and Macmillan before him, the choreographer seemed to return back to basics to establish his credo. In Symphonic Variations, Ashton crystallised the style of the English School into purity and infinite beauty, abstract true, but it was beauty tinged with the mourning of the horrors of World War 2, if Theodor Adorno’s statement “After Auschwitz there can be no poetry” is true, then Variations is a new form of poetry, movement that dips its feet in the blood, cries at the smoke rising from Hiroshima, yet humbly and hopefully still dares to dream of beauty and truth. Likewise Macmillan’s Danses Concertantes, is a valid reaction of the first generation to come of age after the promises of hope after the War began to disintegrate, as the Cold war progressed, and bombs were pointed, and Korea and Vietnam loomed on the distance, the lyrical classicism becomes abstracted into sharp, accusatory exclamation. Yet Tuckett then denied his purity and returned to overblown narrative, there is nothing wrong with narrative, yet it would have been far better to extend the vocabulary of his choreographic art before resorting once more to an apathetic mess of pottage. It is ironic that the one young choreographer hotly tipped as being the one with the greatest potential on the world stage, Christopher Wheeldon, is British born and trained, yet had to move outside the confines of Britain to the New York City Ballet to find his voice, where he has since given up dancing to now be the resident Artistic Associate. It is specious and disingenuous to mourn his loss to America, for would such attention have been given to him here, would his talent have been nurtured, recognised and a position formed for him to find his voice? One is reminded of the fact that Balanchine himself, initially wanted to stay in Britain but was refused a visa, so was forced to make his home in the States. The fact is that with current funding policies in Britain the space and time needed for a choreographer to come to full bloom is so often not possible - a choreographer needs nurturing in the present if he is ever to form a canon of work which will survive into the future. Modern dance has fared no less well, the closure of LCDT, closed a symbol of hope. However, LCDT was always renowned not for its choreography, but rather the virtuosity of its dancers. By the time the Contemporary Dance Trust was established in the Graham mould in the UK, the modern dance had found its ultimate choreographic credo within the Judson church group. And when no choreographers could be found, the company folded. Because dance can continue, but it cannot progress without choreographers. It is a music box piano, but to move forward a pianist is needed. In 1979 Robin Howard, the guiding force and creator of the Contemporary Dance Trust gave a chillingly prescient interview to the Financial Times, in it he said: “We now do not have sufficient funds to venture into the unknown, which is what we should do and have done so well in the past. A short-term solution is to play safe. If we do so, we shall die. And deserve to die.” Howard knew that the unknown is the birth place of innovation, it is unfair to blame merely the choreography of LCDT for its demise that is only partly true. However, the crippling provisos placed on companies in order to secure funding from the Arts Council are in itself one of the greatest killers of creativity. I read with cynicism the Arts Council report on the future of dance. In it, it stated the two PC chestnuts it has trotted out continually, since day one. The codicils of education and ethnic awareness within companies, in order for them to be able to gain and maintain grants. Firstly, and unequivocally an artist cannot ever be an educator first. By this I mean art is not a moral issue. Creativity cannot be bound by the demands of suiting a moral perspective that is in line with a Government guideline; it cannot be constricted, confined to please. One of the greatest crippling demands on LCDT was the extensive touring and educational work it was obliged to carry out in order to receive its grant. Would Graham have swerved from her course due to disapproval over the overt sexual nature of the contraction, would Macmillan have had the girl in the Invitation be saved from rape, would Cunningham have changed the music or rather those “dreadful sounds in Rainforest, would Rainer, Brown, Paxton, Dunn have put the fancy steps and jumps back in, because that’s what kids in schools like to see? But the modern millennial artist must conform to a guideline laid down by Government watchdogs as to what his art must achieve. And then there is the question, what are they supposed to be educating people in? A choreographer as artist must first educate himself, and be damned of the consequences. Next the issue of ethnic “appeal”, how quaint, how thoughtful it all sounds and ultimately how utterly racist. A Government approved remit of what it is to belong to an ethnic minority in the year 2001. But who in Britain now is not a part of an ethnic minority, how can the experiences of any one person fit into a guideline. Jonzi D in the wonderful Aeroplane Man puts paid to this horribly cosy view that the Arts Council seems to have of ethnicity. His black British man goes in search of his “roots” only to discover that he is in fact as far divorced from his ancestors as he is from the generic white culture of modern Britain. The vastly exciting Akram Khan and the perennially exquisite Shobana Jayasingh, both deal through movement with the inherent contradictions of cultural collisions. However, for me the most important snub to this cosily deficient mentality of the Arts Council comes in an essay written by the great African American choreographer Rod Rodgers in the Sixties. Entitled, “Don’t Tell Me Who I Am”, he dealt with the criticism that as a black man his work did not deal exclusively with “black” issues and that he was somehow “betraying” his cultural heritage: “Whether one functions as a choreographer who also happens to be black, or as a black man who happens to be a choreographer is determined by one’s point of view at a given moment. The ideal point of view at any given moment, for the individual artist, is the one which best allows him to create the most profoundly exciting art. If he cannot produce beautiful and exciting art, there is no point in discussing his political or ideological commitments in relation to art.” Would that we lived in an environment where young choreographers could turn round to Arts Councils, whose provisos of funding were a Draconian abstraction of cod-socialist mores and say, “Don’t tell me who I am.” Because art, choreography is an irrevocable statement, and to be worthy cannot be bound by financial threats - though it is. So what rules in Britain today? This trend for reconstruction of ballet masterpieces. And where does that get us? Clever little evenings, instantly forgettable and won’t disturb the digestion of one’s post-theatre supper. Can you imagine the audience at the Theatre de Champs Elysee, pondering which main course to eat after the first showing of the Rite of Spring? Of course I know times have changed, and the modern audience may not react that way to anything today. But wouldn’t it be wonderful to imagine that there exists a choreographer with the power to stir the emotions, that all that is needed is the space and time for him/her to create? Where does it get us to create abstractions of Giselle, Swan Lake, Beauty etc etc. There exists this belief that AMP is the great white hope of modern British choreography, but can anyone reading this distil into mental phrases a continued passage of Bourne’s choreography as one can chill ones soul by recalling moments of Apollo, Giselle, Rainforest, Biped, Serenade. Bourne is a showman, and a very good one at that, but choreographer? I seriously contend his importance in the creation of movement that is art, language, social document. And then there are the witty, clinical cyber feats of Wayne MacGregor, yes I like Symbionts, and I believe that perhaps the interfacing between technology and the corporal could very well be the tone of our times. The now that is needed to be examined to create in the future. But then I saw Cunningham’s Biped, dealing with the same subject matter as MacGregor, indeed using similar technology in its creation, and MacGregor was left in the dust. Cunningham eschews novelty to rejoice in the implication of the emotional, even in his most abstract works. His range, his voice, his power, his ongoing creativity, his YOUTH. He is the greatest choreographer alive and working today. In his afterword to the book London Contemporary Dance Theatre - the first 21 Years, Howard wrote: "What will the dancer and choreographer in the year 2000 most benefit from, that we can give them today?” Dissolution, chaos, uncertainty? But has this ever been different? I don’t think so, but what is different is that the choreographer, the artist, is now all-too-often afraid to dip his or her hands into the mulch, to get their hands dirty, to immerse themselves in the visceral horrors and delights of the world they live in and from that create beauty that is a testament to that time. They want to please, they want a pat on the head, they are afraid to be bad, and in a climate of fear what can be produced? Because, above all, an artist can never be afraid to shock. I’ll end with words from Anna Sokolow from her seminal 1966 essay, The Rebel and the Bourgeois: " The founders of the modern dance were rebels. Their followers are bourgeois. The younger generation is too anxious to please, too eager to be accepted. For art this is death. To young dancers. I want to say: “Do what you feel you are, not what you think you ought to be. Go ahead and be a bastard. Then you can be an artist.” "
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