POST MODERN DANCE Merce Cunningham 1919 2009 History o Studied with Horton Graham o Graham soloist for 5 years Contributions o Beliefs high emotional content of dance does not help dance o Philosophy o Choreographic Methods o LAUNCHED POST MODERNISM IN DANCE o NEW TECHNIQUE positional exactness mobile spine o TECHNOLOGY dance o Merce Cunningham Dance Company Allowed to tour for only two years after his death per his will Dance needs to be made today new choreography needs to be given the spotlight Alternative ways of making decisions dice method o Chants o Indeterminacy Rauschenberg set Worked in conjunction with John Cage music and Robert o Interscape 2000 DanceForms o Initially called Life Forms o Used avatars to create dance o Would create entire pieces as he grew older Points in Space 1985 o Choreography Merce Cunningham o Music John Cage o Videographer Elliot Caplan o Dancers Cunningham Dance Company Post Modernism Coincides with and influenced by social currents Civil Rights Movement Feminism Vietnam Artists looking through personal lens or context Discreet parts of an art form deconstructed or pulled apart Greater emphasis on interplay Everything happening at once pop art minimalism environmental art conceptual art neo expressionism Post Modern Dance o Pedestrian movement and dress o Mixing of techniques and styles o Simple if any design elements o Site specific Dance takes advantage of what is around it o Improvisational spontaneous o Process oriented collective o Rejects traditional gender roles o Technology o Found sound voice silence o Non linear non narrative o Trio A by Yvonne Rainer 1966 Post modern dancers ballet dancers man off the street o Judson Dance Theatre 1960 1968 Collective of artists dance music visual art theatre who created and performed together Happenings versus concepts Robert Dunn appointed to direct by Merce Cunningham Butoh Performance art that developed in the late 1950s Draws from the rich history of Japanese performing arts and developed according to collective and individual beliefs History Founders o 1945 Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombed in WWII o Tatsumi Hijikata 1928 1986 Influenced by German Expressionist dance About artist s internal experience emotional dramatic 1959 created first Butoh dance called type of dance ANKOKU BUTOH dance of darkness dance theatre performance art attempted to directly confront the human condition obsessed with death and destruction Butoh plays with time o AESTHETIC MOVEMENT V SPECIFIC THEATRE DANCE Characteristics FORM o Asserts Japanese essence Pre modern aesthetic Jarring provocative Natural body v cultural body Anonymity white paint Nudity without shame o Rejects Western commercial influence Traditional beauty Traditional gender distinctions Faces of Butoh o Kazuo Ohno 1906 2010 Modern dancer in his 50s when he met Hijikata They worked together for 25 years Signature solo La Argentina inspired by a Spanish dancer he saw in 1929 the body cannot be discovered with language o Dai Rakuda Kan Dance company o Sunkai Juku Dance company Subtle time expansion o Yoko Ashikawa Painter who began working with Hijikata in the late 1907s Simpler expression less shocking Together they developed series of gestures that became standard to Butoh including facial expression Traditional Japanese inappropriate to distort face
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