Thursday, August 18 and Friday, August 19 – “Dramaturgy in Motion” by Katherine Profeta

On Friday, I went for a run and then to Metropolis Coffee Company in Edgewater (they have Hoosier Mama quiche so…) before having a wonderful flat tire journey with Meg (but now I know how to change a tire!). On Saturday I went to Cafe Jumping Bean (a little bit more of a restaurant than a cafe, and Obama’s been there so you know it’s worth it) and then went to La Catrina Cafe (really great tea and a nice atmosphere).

Katherine Profeta was Ralph Lemon’s dramaturg, and this book is about her experiences with him and also about dramaturgy and dance in general. First and foremost, it was awesome to get to read about those experiences from her point of view.

She starts by going through a history of dramaturgy, which is really important if you’re like me and are completely ignorant of dramaturgy and its origins. Her five chapters work through five “potential registers of the dance dramaturg’s engagement in the working process”–text and language, research, the dramaturg as the “advocate for the audience,” the art of attending to the movement, and interculturalism in performance (22-23).

One thing that Profeta is keenly aware of, which I appreciate, is her experience as a white woman and how that affects her dramaturgy. She acknowledges that she can’t separate her experiences from the way she looks at Lemon’s work, and that that is potentially problematic because of the nature and content of Lemon’s work. At one point, she notes how transferring the actions of a white body onto a collection of mostly black bodies completely alters their nature, and how a white body is considered “neutral” but a black body will always have other underlying meaning attached to it.

Profeta’s last chapter is all about interculturalism in performance, which is a really intriguing notion. Essentially, Lemon wanted to incorporate elements of other cultures into his dances, and part of Profeta’s job as dramaturg was helping him to figure out how to do that in a way that was not appropriative, but also not imitative. They had to walk a line of incorporating elements that allowed for the original culture to exist without being erased, but not so many elements that it turned into a mythological version of that culture. These notions, I think, are much more widely applicable than just in dance–they apply to all forms of art, and I think some even reach into our daily lives.

Wednesday, August 17 – “The Art of Making Dances” by Doris Humphrey

I actually read this one at Eva’s Cafe on Wednesday (it’s a super quick read), so no new coffee shops for this post.

This book is pretty much a staple in any choreography class; Humphrey was one of the (if not the) first to write a book on how to choreograph. Some of her notions are, naturally, suspect, but it’s a useful handbook anyway.

One thing that was really interesting (that I actually hadn’t read before) was Humphrey’s notion of four types of gestures: social, functional, ritual, and emotional. As someone who’s very interested by gesturally-focused pieces (rather than big sweeping full body movements), reading about these different gestural ideas gave me a new way of thinking about creating dances (which is always good!).

The most well-known part of this book (and where the title of this blog originates) is her checklist for dances, which is as follows:
Symmetry is lifeless
Two-dimensional design is lifeless
The eye is faster than the ear
Movement looks slower and weaker on the stage
All dances are too long
A good ending is forty per cent of the dance
Monotony is fatal; look for contrasts
Don’t be a slave to, or a mutilator of, the music
Listen to qualified advice; don’t be arrogant
Don’t intellectualize; motivate movement
Don’t leave the ending to the end

While some of these can generally be universally agreed upon (listen to advice, don’t leave the ending to the end, etc.), there are others that even I would contest (I think symmetry can be useful in some instances; I think that intellectualizing can be useful if that serves your purpose, etc). But there’s honestly not a whole lot for me to react to in this book, so I’ll leave it at that.

Saturday, August 13 to Wednesday, August 17 – “Geography,” “Tree,” and “Come Home Charley Patton” by Ralph Lemon

On Saturday, I spent the morning at Asado Coffee Company (a small place, but really good coffee) and the afternoon at Emerald City (bigger and cozier, but a little bit crowded so not great for working if you need quiet). On Monday, I went for a run in the morning and then read at Deering for the rest of the day. On Tuesday, I spent the morning at Heritage Outpost (one of my favorites, very minimal and clean-cut) and the afternoon at Kitchen Sink (yummy bagels, otherwise nothing special but definitely not bad). On Wednesday, I went to Elaine’s Coffee Call in the morning (smallish and attached to a hotel) and Eva’s Cafe in the afternoon (another favorite, really big and cozy).

These three books are a trilogy by Ralph Lemon, which is why they’re lumped into one post. They are each about a different piece of his, and consist of letters and journal entries and anecdotes from the time he was creating the piece.

“Geography” was the quickest read and the least actual reading (it involved a lot of pictures and things like that). One recurring theme in all of these books that started in “Geography” was the notion of what it’s like to be black in America versus what it’s like to be black in Africa. He also repeatedly deals with the issue of what it means to be a black dance artist, as well as the notion of text in dance (and of having a script for a dance performance). My favorite part of “Geography,” however, is a drawing of a sink that says, “When I was puking in this sink I was in the same position that I pray in.”

“Tree” is possibly the most aesthetically beautiful book I’ve ever owned. It’s still a great deal about race, but in “Tree” Lemon travels to India a few times and tells anecdotes of his time there. One of the most striking things to me was the question of what it means to be black in India–some South Indians are dark enough that they could be mistaken for being black, but for some reason Lemon is consistently set apart. This is something I feel, too, when I’m in India–I’m not sure if it’s because of the way I dress or talk or act, but I definitely feel very “other” despite my skin tone fitting in, and I sense that I am “other” in the minds of the people around me.

In “Come Home Charley Patton,” Lemon travels through racially significant locations in the southern United States. This was probably my favorite of the three books; it involved a bit more of a storyline than the other two and it was easier to follow, which may be part of it. The most exciting part of this book, for me (although this was in the others) was Darrell Jones. Darrell came to Northwestern to choreograph a piece that I was in for Danceworks in 2015, and reading about him in this book (and seeing pictures of him) was really incredible–it just highlighted how insular the dance world really is. I wish I had known when Darrell came, because I would have loved to ask him about his experiences working with Lemon.

Friday, August 12 – “Hiking the Horizontal” by Liz Lerman

I spent Friday morning dealing with the always-lovely SOFO, and then I worked out before treating myself to a milkshake and laying on my absurdly soft carpet to read “Hiking the Horizontal.” I read it this past quarter for an independent study, but it never hurts to re-read.

The notion behind the title may be my favorite part of this book. Lerman starts her introduction by talking about how there’s often this conception of art as existing on a vertical spectrum–“low art” at the bottom, and “high art” at the top. The goal seems to be to reach the top, and the art at the top is supposed to be inherently more valuable than the art at the bottom. Lerman, however, argues that we should think about art as existing on a horizontal spectrum–no art is ranked higher than any other art, but they’re just different types of art that all have the same value. We can even turn the line into a circle, and explore all the different parts of it.

Lerman also talks about being an accidental feminist, or her dances having “quiet feminism” (12). She talks about how she did not set out to create a feminist work, but she is proud of the fact that people read that in her work–that she created a work that “made it okay for dance to be sexy as well as about ideas” (12). In contrast with some of the former choreographers who seemed to be adamantly against being called feminists, this was a refreshing change.

I will leave you with one last, really long quote.
A really intriguing thing that Liz Lerman writes about is when she was commissioned to create a piece about the Nuremberg trials. She writes a letter to the woman who commissioned her and asks why she thinks a dance about the Nuremberg trials will be useful, to which the woman replies:
“These are my hopes: that a dance would reach people who seldom think about mass atrocities–students, lawyers–with the chance to be drawn in emotionally and intellectually, with the pacing that can allow people to absorb or begin to absorb the incomprehensible scales of atrocity, the limits of legal responses but also the dignity in the effort to frame and respond to atrocities through law. For those who think about these matters often . . . the chance to imagine images and voices about these things, and to have a shared experience with others who seldom attend these issues, would be a gift. The central problematics rather than more information would be a valuable focus. And rather than the typical academic discussion that implies the capacity of logic, empiricism, and argument to contain, resolve or manage an issue, the dance might give people experience dwelling with the problematics” (Lerman 88).