9781789387032
Distributed for Intellect Ltd
Performing Temporality in Contemporary European Dance
Unbecoming Rhythms
Develops a new framework to understand performance and temporality in contemporary dance.
Performing Temporality in Contemporary European Dance probes rhythm, offbeats, and other patterns to examine how twenty-first-century choreographers perform time. Jonas Rutgeerts calls on the philosophical writings of Henri Bergson, Gilles Deleuze, and Gaston Bachelard to theorize work by choreographers renowned for their productively idiosyncratic approaches to dance: Jonathan Burrows, Matteo Fargion, Ivana Müller, Mette Edvardsen, and Mårten Spångberg. Rutgeerts analyzes syncopation in the work of Burrows and Fargion, hesitation in Müller’s While We Were Holding It Together, repetition in pieces by Edvardsen, and the audience’s experience of the present in Spångberg’s Natten.
Performing Temporality in Contemporary European Dance probes rhythm, offbeats, and other patterns to examine how twenty-first-century choreographers perform time. Jonas Rutgeerts calls on the philosophical writings of Henri Bergson, Gilles Deleuze, and Gaston Bachelard to theorize work by choreographers renowned for their productively idiosyncratic approaches to dance: Jonathan Burrows, Matteo Fargion, Ivana Müller, Mette Edvardsen, and Mårten Spångberg. Rutgeerts analyzes syncopation in the work of Burrows and Fargion, hesitation in Müller’s While We Were Holding It Together, repetition in pieces by Edvardsen, and the audience’s experience of the present in Spångberg’s Natten.
Table of Contents
Introduction 4
Only Concepts? Dance and the conceptual 5
Only live? Dance and the ephemeral 8
Shaping time from within: rhythm and dance 10
Going against the flow: rhythm in contemporary dance 12
Dance-philosophy: an infinite conversation. 17
Articulation of the chapters 19
2. Rhythm is life: rhythm in German Ausdruckstanz. 23
The ‘doctrine of energy’ and the rise of fatigue. 24
The birth of Körperkultur: Dalcroze’s Eurhythmics. 28
Rhythm in the beginning of the twentieth century: Rudolf Bode and Rudolf Laban. 29
Intermezzo: The evolution of the concept rhythm in Bergson’s oeuvre. 36
Ausdruckstanz and Körperkultur: Mary Wigman’s ecstatic rhythms. 38
Intermezzo: German Ausdruckstanz and the body politics during the Nazi era. 43
Conclusion: Becoming rhythm, becoming life. 44
3. Dancing in the meantime: syncopation in the work of Jonathan Burrows and Matteo Fargion. 47
On the fence: rhythm and milieu in Deleuze and Guattari’s Of the Refrain. 51
Playing apart: rhythm and syncopation. 56
Intermezzo: Transatlantic and the resistance of roots. 61
Following the rhythm: the relation between rhythms and patterns. 64
Conclusion: Syncopation’s trouble. 66
4. Still dance: hesitation in Ivana Müller’s While We Were Holding It Together 69
Intermezzo: dance and movement, a modernist love affair 72
Still-act: the tableau vivant 73
Time as hesitation: Bergson and the suspension of time. 75
Intermezzo: the still, or the cinematographic experience of modern times. 79
The space of elsewhere: Bachelard’s poetic imagination. 82
Intermezzo: imagination, intuition and the task of the artist 87
Conclusion: What about tomorrow.. 90
5. Stumbling through time: repetition in the work of Mette Edvardsen. 93
The logic of the phrase: repetition in Accumulation and Dance. 98
Stumbling through language: repetition in Black and No title. 103
Running Out of Time: Performing the Eternal Return. 107
Intermezzo: The triple murder of the eternal return, or Deleuze thinks death. 112
Conclusion: The amnesiac witness. 113
6. Dark Utopia, Or Sleeping Through Marten Spångberg’s Natten. 116
Dancing with myself 118
Spending the Natten together. 120
Conclusion: Sushi or sashimi 123
7. Stealing time: Rhythmic operations in a society of control 125
Bibliography. 152
Only Concepts? Dance and the conceptual 5
Only live? Dance and the ephemeral 8
Shaping time from within: rhythm and dance 10
Going against the flow: rhythm in contemporary dance 12
Dance-philosophy: an infinite conversation. 17
Articulation of the chapters 19
2. Rhythm is life: rhythm in German Ausdruckstanz. 23
The ‘doctrine of energy’ and the rise of fatigue. 24
The birth of Körperkultur: Dalcroze’s Eurhythmics. 28
Rhythm in the beginning of the twentieth century: Rudolf Bode and Rudolf Laban. 29
Intermezzo: The evolution of the concept rhythm in Bergson’s oeuvre. 36
Ausdruckstanz and Körperkultur: Mary Wigman’s ecstatic rhythms. 38
Intermezzo: German Ausdruckstanz and the body politics during the Nazi era. 43
Conclusion: Becoming rhythm, becoming life. 44
3. Dancing in the meantime: syncopation in the work of Jonathan Burrows and Matteo Fargion. 47
On the fence: rhythm and milieu in Deleuze and Guattari’s Of the Refrain. 51
Playing apart: rhythm and syncopation. 56
Intermezzo: Transatlantic and the resistance of roots. 61
Following the rhythm: the relation between rhythms and patterns. 64
Conclusion: Syncopation’s trouble. 66
4. Still dance: hesitation in Ivana Müller’s While We Were Holding It Together 69
Intermezzo: dance and movement, a modernist love affair 72
Still-act: the tableau vivant 73
Time as hesitation: Bergson and the suspension of time. 75
Intermezzo: the still, or the cinematographic experience of modern times. 79
The space of elsewhere: Bachelard’s poetic imagination. 82
Intermezzo: imagination, intuition and the task of the artist 87
Conclusion: What about tomorrow.. 90
5. Stumbling through time: repetition in the work of Mette Edvardsen. 93
The logic of the phrase: repetition in Accumulation and Dance. 98
Stumbling through language: repetition in Black and No title. 103
Running Out of Time: Performing the Eternal Return. 107
Intermezzo: The triple murder of the eternal return, or Deleuze thinks death. 112
Conclusion: The amnesiac witness. 113
6. Dark Utopia, Or Sleeping Through Marten Spångberg’s Natten. 116
Dancing with myself 118
Spending the Natten together. 120
Conclusion: Sushi or sashimi 123
7. Stealing time: Rhythmic operations in a society of control 125
Bibliography. 152