Philosophy, Phenomenology and Heidegger I propose philosophy and specifically phenomenology, not only as a relevant approach to understanding truth in the context of this research, but as an inherent part of the choreographic practice itself. Conversely the practice is an intrinsic part of the way in which I am thinking phenomenology. This is a point I expand on through an in depth discussion in Chapter Three, however I want to briefly outline some of the key thoughts here in order to provide a rationale for choosing phenomenology as a methodology. There are essential links between the practice of philosophy and theatre in relation to some of their key purposes and methods. Both theatre and philosophy are concerned with ways in which humans are in the world and both aim to reveal something beyond what we understand as apparent external appearances. This is a point supported by David Krasner and David Saltz who see philosophy and theatre as “natural allies” (2006, p.2). This is in part, is due to what they describe within theatre and philosophy as methods that “shed light on thought, behaviour and existence while simultaneously enhancing our comprehension of the world and ourselves” (p.3). Aldo Tassi sees philosophy and theatre as activities “in which we might ‘see’ how things come to be and significantly for this research describes theatre and philosophy as a way to “involve us in the pursuit of truth as an unconcealment process” (Tassi, 1998, cited in Krasner and Saltz, 2006, p.3). Tassi’s point is one that clearly resonates with Heideggerian phenomenology as well a fundamental aspect of this research. There are key similarities between features of Heideggerian phenomenology and Stanislavski’s approach to acting. One significant connection is between Heidegger’s concept of truth as unconcealment and Stanislavski’s process of truth as experiencing. This is a point which I come to explain extensively and return to repeatedly throughout the thesis, as well as give examples of from my own practice. Both are processual accounts of truth and both
Overview This chapter outlines and discusses the problem which has provided a springboard for this research and to which this project seeks to address: namely, that of a pattern of limited representations within female characterisations occurring within some instances of UK dance theatre. The main thrust of this research and key important work is to be found in the new method I offer and outline in the subsequent chapters of choreographing character. Before doing this however I wish to give examples of what I perceive to be the problem of the limited ways women are represented in characterisations in some instances of UK dance theatre. In order to give examples of this I present three specific modes in which I perceive women are being represented in limited ways. I do this through examining aspects of female characterisations within key choreographic works of Lloyd Newson’s DV8, Jasmin Vardimon, and Luca Silvestrini’s Protein Dance. I refer to thinking from: social psychological discourse drawing from discussions on the function of stereotypes. I also refer to feminist thinking in order to expound on ways in which female stereotyping and subsequent objectification can happen. I then refer to Stanislavski in order to demonstrate his analysis of how clichés and stereotypes can come about in performance. I refer to discussions and thinking on stereotyping as this provides a methodical understanding of the ways in which limited representations can start to happen in broader and performance contexts. Understanding limited representations through such discussion is useful towards seeing how such representations can be problematic. I conclude by stating that such limited representations partly transpire due to a lack of accounting for the complexity and fullness of experience of an individual in the character creation process. I start to propose a resolution to this problem in the following chapters through an integration of Stanislavskian approaches to acting alongside a Heideggerian, phenomenological account of truth.
do this in order to give some contextualisation to the style of dance that is now known as dance theatre, within which my own choreography practice is situated. Contemporary dance has, from its inception, gone through different periods of moving away from, and going back to, incorporating narrative as one of the premises from which to create choreography. Between the late 19th Century and the 1930s, those regarded as the forerunners of contemporary dance moved away from traditions of romantic ballet narratives that often portrayed women as “passive and fragile” (Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, 2016). Forerunners, such as Isadora Duncan, sought to use dance to tackle and express more “lofty ideas” such as nature, individual will and evolution (Jowitt, 1999, p.3). Duncan was influenced by philosophers such as Nietzsche and Rousseau, (Morrison Brown, 1979, p.7; Carter and O’Shea, 2010, p.10). Loie Fuller worked with light and fabric (Morrison Brown, p.13) to create images of ethereality and transformation and Mary Wigman saw dance as a possibility to express the dancer’s being (Jowitt,1999, p.20; Climenhaga, 2009, p.5; Morrison Brown, p.37) by creating work “independent of any literary, interpretative content” (Morrison Brown, p.35). Later choreographers commonly referred to as the pioneers of modern dance, working approximately from the 1930s to the 1950s (Morrison Brown, 1979; Banes, 1998), focussed on narrative based “thematic concerns” (Banes, p.4) with choreographers such as Martha Graham producing what Jowitt describes as “great dance dramas” (1999, p. 5). Another shift in the 1950s, saw contemporary dance change from an expression of the “human condition to the presentation of movement for its own sake” (Morrison Brown, 1979, p.87). Merce Cunningham exemplified this notion and rejected the idea of choreography with “expressive content” (p.89). Cunningham was concerned with dance for its own sake and had no interest in the
used by men, in her books Woman Hating (1974) and Pornography: Men Possessing Women (1979) and more recently her essay on Landscape of the Ordinary: Violence Against Women (2003) in which she argues objectification as the “injury right at the heart of discrimination” (p.30). Laura Mulvey’s now classic essay, Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema (2006), demonstrates ways in which female characters on screen are constructed as objects to be looked at through the male gaze. Wright and Tokunaga (2015) argue the link between the consumption of media images which objectify women and the likelihood this has of supporting men to have a violent attitude towards women (p.2). Similarly Stankiewicz and Rosselli’s research argues a possible consequence of media imagery presenting women as sex objects and victims as something which could lead to the “trivialization of sexual violence” (2008, p. 581). Feminist discourse has argued that the objectification of women can be understood in a multitude of ways (McHugh, 2007, p.87). Views of key thinkers in this area such as Dworkin and MacKinnon, have their foundations in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant who saw objectification as the “reduction of a person to the level of an object for use” (Papadaki, p.339, 2007). One strand that runs through discussions of objectification is that it functions, as McHugh explains, as a form of gender oppression (2007 p.87) which she describes as the experience in which an outside force limits arranges or constrains an individual (p.89). This is a point that I relate directly to aspects of the dance works discussed here, in which I have observed the frequent occurrence of movements that, in McHugh’s words “limit, arrange and constrain” (p.89) female characters. Objectification can also been seen when women are viewed in reductive terms as embodying particular traits, for example as McHugh points out, nurturing (p.87, 2007). Objectification through the
indicating “the meaning of the other’s act has been understood and found acceptable and that the other is approved and appreciated” (p.48). Dworkin’s point on objectification involving being “depersonalized so that they are no longer fully human” (2000, p.30) is made clearly visible in scenes such as these. Practical reasons such as male physical strength could be one explanation that could be argued for women performing the kinds of roles in which female characters are manipulated, thrown, dragged and lifted (although this does not explain ‘woman as surf board’). This particular scene is intended as light and humorous with a playful physical representation of aspects of beach life. However despite its clearly comical intention, scenes such as these, I would argue portray female characters stereotypically through the fact that they seem to be reduced to a thing which becomes controlled, subjugated and literally physically oppressed by a male character. The Interpretive ‘crisis’ Controlled bodies are necessarily strong and tough; they can ‘take’ punishment and skilfully recover with apparent ease from, for example, being thrown repeatedly and with force, through space and onto the floor. This paradox brings to mind what Banes describes as an interpretive crisis, as discussed earlier, in which the plot portrays the dancers as passive but the physical expertise of the dancer performing could be seen as saturating the role “with agency” (1998, p.9). It takes strength, physical control and strong dance technique to perform the kind of ‘passivity’ demonstrated in scenes such as the ‘pillow bashing’ and ‘sexual assault’ scenes in Lullaby as well as the surfboard scene in Freedom. Controlled bodies can also appear as inanimate human representations, such as dust-filled rag dolls to be shaken and rattled or as rigid mannequins to be moved
categories of behaviour which are relevant to ways in which I have developed the category of lost little girl. I refer to Goffman then, in order to argue that the characteristic behaviours for lost little girl fall under the female stereotype of being seen as helpless and in need of orientation from a stronger more ‘knowing’ person. These are characteristics that form part of Goffman’s category: The Ritualization of Subordination (1976, p.41), which as the title indicates examines ways in which women are presented in advertising as subordinate. The principal feature in Goffman’s category is the display of physically subordinate behaviours by women, such as being lower in space in relation to another person (p.40) with beds and floors as key location for subordination (p.46). Other characteristic behaviours include: being “un-oriented” (p.57); acceptance of a subordinate position; ingratiating behaviour (p.46), and grown women being portrayed as childlike (viii). Goffman describes key gestural traits as; “bashful knee-bending”, which he sees as indicating foregoing full effort, and “canting postures”, which indicate acceptance of a subordinate position (p.46). Self touching, for example finger to finger, is a gesture he aligns with an anxiety sustained in a “dissociated unthinking fashion” (p.60), in other words a kind of distancing oneself mentally as though displaying an incapacity to deal with a particular situation. He makes particular note of this gestic pattern which is often seen with a body cant and a knee bend (p.62). This gesture of knee bending, canting (the head often tilted to one side) and self touching appears frequently in Protein’s Dear Body as I come to discuss. Although I had arrived at my own criteria for this category before reading Goffman, through examining the works cited here, his analysis further supports and helps clearly articulate the criteria and discussion for the category of lost little girl. Criteria for lost little girl
a “decisive sense to set in place before himself” (Heidegger, 1977, p.129); ‘himself’ referring to the one that conceptualises and models. This attitude of ‘decisively setting in place before’, can be likened to what Stanislavski describes as a coldness towards the object (Stanislavski, 2010, pp 23-25), which he discusses as resulting in “mechanical play acting” (p.43); something which he saw as lacking inner life and truth. In Chapter One such norms and models, were outlined as stereotypical representations of women through the categories of controlled bodies, flying angels and lost little girl. As Heidegger describes above, norms and models come about due to a process of top down, grasping and organizing: a process through which “a living thing … is no longer to be apprehended as living” (Heidegger, 1977, p.120). This is a point which resonates with processes of stereotyping as described in Chapter One. In a way similar to Stanislavski’s naiveté, I demonstrated ways in which the experiences of women at a loss, in the category of lost little girl, were frequently reduced to a norm of outward significations, which as I outlined were: walking with a lack of conviction, turned in feet and looking around etc. If the behaviour of the character has been decided upon before the performer has had a chance to get to know the possibilities of the experience of the specific circumstances in which character finds herself, then like the portrayals emerging from Stanislavski’s school of representation, the character becomes a set form which cannot live, be and experience but is merely illustrated. A character created in this way becomes an external imitation in which inner life, and the subjective “I” or Being is precluded. Heidegger was explicit about representation being a way in which objectification happens, stating that “representing drives everything together into the unity of that which is thus given the character of object” (Heidegger, 1977, p.150). In
at 01:25-02:34 in the above film clip). By responding with my own imaginative capacities to this particular fictive situation, a third being, the character of the Abigail as a baby starts to emerge. Abigail does not arrive out of the blue, but rather through the process of me bringing myself before and focussing with open attention on the facts of her circumstances. In contrast to the idea that a character is something that is apart from and separate to the actor; someone to be ‘found’, “out there somewhere” (Benedetti,1998, p.7), Stanislavski saw the personality, in other words the real I of the actor as an integral part of the make-up of the character. This is due to the fact that ultimately, as Stanislavski states, on stage there is “only me … in an imaginary situation” and therefore the initial exploration must be “as myself, as me” (Benedetti, 1998, p.7). The character then is both separate to and, at the same time, a part of the actor – something which correlates with my own experience of character creation in this research. On the one hand, the factual details of the characters’ lives are (seemingly) separate to my own life and when I think of Abigail Hurley I view her as someone else, in the third and not in the first person. On the other hand, I have embodied in the first person, key imaginary events from her fictive life through imagining myself in her situation; something I have only been able to do through my own first person, subjective, real “I” responses. Therefore, conversely, to some extent, I also experience her as part of me. Experiencing and “I am being”, as I started to explain in Chapter Two, is when the performer starts to feel emotions in response to the character’s imaginary situation and the third being - that of the character - starts to emerge (Benedetti, 1998, p.9). In reality, I cannot truly know what a real one day old premature baby in these particular circumstances feels like, but I can imagine myself in the situation of the baby and start to experience how I (albeit as an adult in her forties) would
questioning mode arising from this in order to un-conceal the movement gestures in relation to the lived experience of the character. Workbook Take some time to re-visualise the acting improvisation you have just done; what happened and what physical actions took place. Avoid making notes at this stage but instead rely on your memory. The point isn’t to remember everything or analyse what has happened, but to be able to let the strongest impressions come to the fore. This isn’t something to work out intellectually, but rather, by letting your focus rest clearly but lightly in the world of the previous scene, you will allow the possibility for feeling sensations and images to arise in your body. This works in a similar way to when you remember a significant memory from your own real life. Find some music – I generally look at a list of music that was popular at the time of the event I have just acted – I try to give a justified reason for the music, such as, the music was playing on the radio in the background during a certain event. The music is there as a holding frame. It can make going into the space feel a little less daunting and gives a time frame to the improvisation which you can clearly ignore if you want to. Working with music that is popular at the time of the event can support the mood of the era and sometimes provide an interesting counterpoint. This part of the step is optional and not crucial to the process but I find it helpful. It’s a good idea to film these improvisations as it is easy to be unaware of the exact movement when you are involved in a sensorial image based movement improvisation and you might want to refer to this later on. Although