Chapter 11 Outline, plus Tharp from Chapter 12

• Postmodernism and the Judson Church: "What is Art?"
• 'Happenings" brought together cutting edge dancers, poets, painters, sculptors and composers--lines between the art forms were minimized or erased.
• Dancers also "absorbed ideas that were circulating in the developing field of movement therapy, which invoked the idea of reintegrating body and mind" (Reynolds 395).
  
  Anna Halprin was one of the first to incorporate this idea. "Her primary tool was improvisation, out of which she developed 'scores' for performances based ont he 'real experience' of her dancers" (Reynolds 396).
• Halprin often performed outdoors and avoid traditional dance technique. Formed the Dancers Workshop group based in California. Work was based on a pre-arranged framework based on dancers' improvisational skills and sometimes included the audience members.
• "When dancers who had attended Halprin's workshops and participated in such events aligned themselves with Robert Dunn and members of the new movement developing at Judson Church (first performance 1962), these ideas, along with Halprin's belief that the processes of art are more significant than its end products, were woven into the fabric of the postmodern revolt" (396).
  
  Robert Dunn was originally an accompanist with Cunningham. Included ideas for Zen Buddhism and elements of Bauhaus educational theory..."his highly personal amalgam of sources produced an atmosphere in which sponteneity took precedence over intellectual discipline" (Reynolds 397).
• Used "game plans," notes, graphs and drawings in trying to develop non-intuitive possibilities.
• Encouraged non-judgmental analysis.
• Early students of Dunn included Paul Berenson, Marni Mahaffay, Simone Forti, Steve Paxton, Yvonne Rainer.
• Rejected traditions of ballet and modern.
• "A new 'open' vocabulary developed, legitimizing movement that had always been excluded from dance lexicons as having no theatrical content" (398).
• Skilled dancers were not required and explored "what isn't dance?"
• Regulars included: Trisha Brown, Deborah Hay, David Gordon, Remy Charlip along with artists Robert Morris and Robert Rauschenberg.
• Second Judson Church group included Meredith Monk, Kenneth King and Phoebe Neville.
  
  Postmodernism
• Main currents of thought "included the equalization or democratization of every aspect of dance, a new immediacy, emphasis on process, and objectivity about the body. All of these attitudes derived fromt eh initial revocation of older dance forms in favor of an open vocabulary" (Reynolds 401).
• Note particularly the last paragraph on p.401 which summarizes the postmodern movement: reality as process.
• "By objectifying the creative process and by treating their dances as events in which the process occurring and the act of moving were of the greatest interest, postmodernists drew attention to the body as a vehicle; corporeality became a way of thinking and the subject of close observation" (402).
• Deliberate negation of any kind of virtuosity became a hallmark.
• "The rebels were more thinkers than dancers, and in their sometimes strident efforts to 'pin down' the essence of dance, the last thing on their minds was concession to the audience" (422).
• "If Judson had failed to produce an enduring body of work, it was because a historical repoertory was not on anyone's mind; instant obsolescence, in fact, had been one of the keynotes of the first wave of experimentation, and the prevailing mood was hostile to anything recoverable or permanent.....For those who lived through the period, there was a certain spearheading of creative options and performance practice; [they] were so thoroughly absorbed in later choreographic activity that they are no longer visible" (423).
  
  Simone Forti and her husband Robert Morris connected Judson Church to the West Coast. They tended to "focus on a single phenomenon, such as crawling over a cluster of boides or balancing a seesaw" (Reynolds 403).
  
  Yvonne Rainer "has been called the most prolific and polemical of the Judson choreographers, as well as the most advertuous...at the outset of the movement, hers was the most clearly defined statement of revolt, and the resourcefulness and aplomb with which she demonstrated her heady ideas attracted many followers" (Reynolds 403).
• Studied Graham and ballet initially, then composition with Robert Dunn.
• The "No" manifesto (404-405).
• Trio A (1966) described in detail (405). It was altered to suit the performers and taught is to students, "giving them permission to pass it on until she finally saw at fifth-generation version that was barely recognizable....Along the way she established another postmodern trademark by eliminating the imaginary 'somewhere' of the wings and keeping dancers onstage as observers throughout" (405).
• Continuous Project--Altered Daily (1969) led to the formation of a group called the Grand Union in which members took turns at leadership (Dunn, Gordon, Dunn, Brown, Rainer, Paxton and others).
• Eventually left dance and shifted to film-making.
  
  Steve Paxton "often allowed chance to 'go all the way' in determining the movements of his dances, and his use of pedestrian activities also made his work accessible to untrained performers, whom he encouraged to retain their individuality" (Reynolds 406).
• Primary focus was form in its own right.
• Creator of contact improvisation: "...a useful technique for releasing an uncensored flow of movement was improvisational interaction between two people touching each other, with both participants sharing responsibility for what they experienced. Forming a 'mutually moving mass' that involved close body contact and a sensitive give and take in teh placement of weight, partners engaged in a constant exchange of active and passive roles" (408).
  
  Trisha Brown graduated from Mills College with a degree in dance. Connected with the postmodernists through a workshop with Anna Halprin. Work is characterized by "her unpredictable floppy collapses, sudden bursts of energy, and loose flyaway movements that were nevertheless under strict control that set her apart" (Reynolds 408).
• "Brown was mainly interested in finding logical reductive systems for choreographing, and with this in mind she began to subject her well-developed improvisational skills to formal constraints and novel formulas for ordering material" (409).
• Equipment pieces in the late 60s and early 70s to alter gravity: Skymap (1969); Roof Piece (1971)
• Early 70s, moved away from constraints of equipment to mathematically ordered solos called accumulations, reflective of the idea of minimalism: Accumulation (1971); Primary Accumulation (1972); Group Primary Accumulation (early 70s).
• Mid-70s "returned to the bold motor phrases and fluid gestures for which she had been known. Her methodological expertise, acquired over fifteen years of experimentation, remained part of her creative process but became less evident in the final product, as she learned to conceal geometry in a diversity of movement and shifting dynamics" (410-411).
• Often collaborated with painters and composers such as Rauschenberg, Donald Judd and Laurie Anderson.
  
  David Gordon studied in Robert Dunn's workshop and was "more interested in theatrics than construction, and his first works resembled miniature happenings wittily embellished with elliptical dialogue and outrageous non sequiteurs. They were examples of what was becoming known as 'performance art'--theatrical events realized through an often loose-structured combination of elements from the visual and performing arts, frequently laced with pithy political or social references" (Reynolds 411).
• Random Breakfast (1963) satirized the Judson Church movement.
• Married to Valda Setterfield, ballet trained and later a Cunningham dancer.
• Involved with Grand Union from its inception.
• Work often had spoken accompaniment.
• Formed the Pickup Company when Grand Union disbanded in 1976, "training dancers in a technique of understatement that concealed the careful design underlying his work...Of all the Judson choreographers, Gordon was the most unpredictable..." (412).
  
  Meredith Monk graduated from the dance program at Sarah Lawrence and joined Dunn's workshop in 1964. "She preserved an alternative point of view: the idea of visionary performance art that made use of studied theatrical effects and poetic fantasy....Monk was not interested in chance or improvisational formats, nor was she drawn to displaying the processes underlying her choreography as part of its meaning, although like many postmodernists she used a reduced step vocabulary and avoided virtuosity in dance technique...[she evoked] the state of a waking dream" (Reynolds 413).
• Also composed the distinctive vocal accompaniment. Work was presented in alternative spaces such as museums.
• Education of a Girlchild (1973) was a "nonverbal opera" typical of her work
• "My work rearranges mental habits. It cannot be 'figured out' while the audience is watching and hearing it. It is created to use the mind in another way" (Monk quoted in Reynolds 416).
  
  Lucinda Childs's Street Dance (1964) was typical of the time. See description by Dunn in Reynolds (416-417). Comparable to the Pop Art movement in visual arts.
• Work was quite radical, and often did not include dance steps. Stopped choreographing for 5 years in 1968. "When she resumed, her basic concerns were unchanged, but instead of using objects to initiate form she abandoned props and concentrated on choreographic shapes and relationships in increasingly complex (but still minimalistic) configurations, organized according to a strict geometry" (Reynolds 417).
• Collaborated extensively with Philip Glass and Robert Wilson.
  
  Douglas Dunn originally danced for Cunningham and was a member of Grand Union. Dealt with removing the distinction between art and realtity. "Dunn was highly eclectic, but his reputation rested in part on this kind of personal minimalism" (Reynolds 418).
  
  Kenneth King was a performance artist from the Judson Church. "For King dance was the cutting edge of philosophical inquiry, and his densely packed 'transmedia' dances were as labyrinthine and abtruse as the systems of thought they targeted....Dance phrases were meticulously programmed as to their structural and organizational options, with prerehearsed units that were to be broken down, repeated, and combined improvisationally during performance" (Reynolds 419).
  
  Twyla Tharp danced for Paul Taylor from 1963-65 then began her own work. "Her canny strategies, invented to suit specific alternative spaces--including among others, a railroad station, a basketball court, and a lawn in New York's Central Park--made her work made her work distinct from that of other formalists....Tharp concentrated on those elements she decided could not be eliminated: space, time and the 'basis of all movement," which she identified as the right angle, the diagonal, the spiral and the circle. In addition her dances had to have a beginning, a middle, and and end. (It did not have to have musical accompaniment)" (Reynolds 420).
• Tank Dive (1965) first work (420-421).
• Did not reject virtuosic movement like her peers in Judson Church.
• The Fugue (1970) was her final experiment in minimalism. "After this Tharp became intent on developing a carefully organized style of dancing that she could call her own, based on a strong classical foundation and the daring to deploy it recklessly, without losing control. In the process of accomplishing this, she astonished postmodern reductionists by reintroducing such elements as music, smart costumes, showmanship, and scenery" (433).
• Eight Jelly Rolls (1971) "Tharp's six-woman company...twisted and shook and lunged and stomped: her signature vocabulary of syncopated shuffles and glides, shoulders and hips veering in opposite directions, turned conventional notions of jazz dancing upside down" (480).
• Deuce Coupe (1973) created for Joffery Ballet.
• Push Comes to Shove (1976) and Bach Partita (1983) were created for ABT.
• The Catherine Wheel (1981)
• Also success on Broadway (Movin' Out) and film (Hair, Jesus Christ, Superstar)
• "Tharp's idiom, with its references to popular forms, swept away most of the ideological dividing lines that purportedly separated various types of dancing....in spite of the general appearance of idiosyncratic randomness, Tharp's choreography was meticulously structured" (481).