Notes on Dance Clean

8/13/2019 Notes on Dance Clean

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Notes o ance

ROBERT MORRIS

My involvement n theatre has been with the body in motion. How-ever changed or reduced the motion might have been or howeverelaboratethe means used might have been, the focus was this move-ment. In retrospectthis seems a constant value which was preserved.From the beginningI wanted to avoid the pulled-up,turned-out,anti-gravitationalqualities that not only give a body definition and role asdancer but qualify and delimit the movement available to it. Thechallengewas to findalternativemovement.I was not the first to attempt such alternatives.Simone Whitman,togetherwith others, had alreadyexploredthe possibilities nherentina situation of rules or game-like structureswhich requiredthe per-former to respondto cues which might, for example, indicate changesin heightor spatialposition. A fair degreeof complexityof these rulesand cues effectivelyblocked the dancer'sperforming set and reducedhim to frantically attemptingto respond to cues-reduced him fromperformance o action. In 1961 Simone Whitmanheld a concert in aloft in New York. This concert involved the use of such devices as a45? inclined plane about eight feet squarewith several ropes comingfrom the top of it. Performerswere allowed to climbup the plane, passbetween each other and rest when tired-all by means of the ropes.Here the ruleswere simple and did not constitute a game situationbutratherindicated a task while the device, the inclinedplane, structuredthe actions.(This single exampledoes not do justiceto the implicationsthis seeminglysimple concert held.) Here focused clearly for the firsttime were two distinct means by which new actions could be imple-mented:rules or tasks and devices (she termed them constructions )or objects.While possibilities for generating movement by task situations or

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Tulane Drama Reviewdevices had become clearly established, it was essentially an indirectmethod in both cases. Movement had not been approached directlybut had resulted, willy-nilly, from going about getting this or that taskaccomplished-moving over a dominating eccentric surface, etc.

By the uses of objects which could be manipulated I found a situa-tion which did not dominate my actions nor subvert my performance.In fact the decision to employ objects came out of considerations ofspecific problems involving space and time. For me, the focus of a setof specific problems involving time, space, alternate forms of a unit,etc., provided the necessary structure.1 While dance technique andchance methods were both irrelevant to me I would never have deniedthe value, necessity even, of perpetuating structural systems. But formy purposes the need for such systems was for syntactical rather thanmethodological bases. My efforts were bound up with the didactic anddemonstrative and were not concerned with the establishment of a setof tools by which works could be generated.The objects I used held no inherent interest for me but were meansfor dealing with specific problems. For example the establishment of aninverse ratio between movement, space, and duration was implementedby the use of a T -like form which I could adjust and move awayfrom, adjust again and move away from, and so on until the sequenceof movements according to the ratio had been completed. Or again, theestablishment of a focus shifting between the egocentric and the exo-centric could be accomplished by swinging overhead in a fully lightedroom a small light at the end of a cord. The lights in the room fade as

1Quite a lot has been written lately about the so-called new dance.Some of it is good, most is bad. But there is undeniably a need for a criti-cism devoted to focusing the problematicand the viable in the recent danceactivity. Such writingwould requirethe development of a vocabulary whichcould articulate the constructs of a functioning group. It might be possibleto proceed by locating what a given group regardsas its necessary questionstogether with its replies: its concrete actions. Only by the articulation ofthis dialogue can any coherent tradition be traced; even a recent tradition.And it would be revealed,I am sure, just as it has been revealed in the otherarts when carefully observed, that dance like the other disciplines is no lessinvolvedin a dialogueof self-criticism.

SITE at TV studio on May 5-7, 1965, the First New York Theatre Rally.PETER MOORE

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ROBERT MORRISthe cord is slowly let out until finally in total darkness only the movingpoint of light is visible as it revolves in the large space above the headsof the audience. Both of the above instances occured in Arizona, thefirst dance I made.

An element of the work as.persistent as the use of objects is thecoexistence of the static and the mobile-e.g. a sequence of ten Muy-bridge slides of a nude man lifting a stone followed by a similar move-ment by a nude male performer executed in the same space and illumi-nated by the beam of the slide projector (Waterman Switch); or therotation of the upper torso through 90? over a five minute period-the movement itself being imperceptible-accompanied by a tapeddescription of strenuous movements (Arizona); or a taped verbal de-scription of actions which occur at a remove in time (WatermanSwitch); or the illumination of a runner with stroboscopic-type lightwhich, because of the briefness of the illumination, gives a static image(Check). In one form or another the static coexisting with the mobileoccurs in every work.

Time, insofar as considerations of length are concerned, has seemedirrelevant. Since the movement situations were primarily those of eitherdemonstration or exposition, time was not an element of usage but anecessary condition; less a focus than a context. Only at those pointswhere there was no movement did time function as an isolated, ob-servable focus-i.e. durations of stillness were not used as punctuationsfor the movement but in the attempt to make duration itself palpable.

Space, like time, was reduced to context, necessity; at most a way ofanchoring the work, riveting it to a maximum frontality. In Site atriangular spatial situation occurs with an immobile female nude re-clining against a white rectangle upstage, right of center, a white boxdownstage right (a visible source for a sound which varies hardly morethan the nude), and a performer downstage left manipulating a whiterectangular board and moving within an area of a few square feet.The extreme slow motion element in Arizona came from experiencingthe dancer's movements being soaked up, dissipated, in a concert given

CHECKat Judson Memorial Church,March24, 1965. Per-formers are circling behind two leaders who carry flags.PETER MOORE

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Tulane Drama ReviewPETER MOORE

WATERMANWITCH t Judson Memorial Church, March 25, 1965.in an enormous skating rink in Washington, D.C. It was apparentthat only the smallest movements kept their weight or mass in such alarge, nonrectangular space. A consideration in Arizona was to makemovements which would keep their focus in any space-a case ofspatial opposition rather than cooperation or exploration. In Checkspace was used centrifugally, the movement occurring largely at theperiphery of the audience. For all its apparent scale, Check made useprimarily of the factors of distance and interruption; the space re-mained relatively unpunctured.Check bears further elaboration for in several ways, other than theinside-out spatial situation, it was purposely antithetical to my previousworks. It had no central focus, climax, dramatic intensity, continuityof action; it did not involve skill in performance, nor did it even de-mand continuous attention from an audience. In a room some 100 by300 feet (the central gallery at the Moderna Museet, Stockholm) sevento eight hundred chairs were placed at random in the center arealeaving aisles around the perimeter. Various actions by individual

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ROBERT MORRIS

performers occurred in these aisles. Forty other performers, men,women, and children, wandered hroughthe entire space; totally atrandom and as individuals.Upon a signal the forty assembled intotwo respective groups for simple, simultaneous actions. They againdispersed upon a signal to resumewandering,talking, observingas akind of proto-audience:.e. they occupied a zone somewhere betweenperformersand audience. The 700 in the audience were free to sit orstand as they chose. Due to the space and numbersof people no per-formed action was visible to the entire audience.(This work was laterperformed in a space approximatelyone-third of the size of theModernaMuseetandfailed totallyas the actionsdid not have a chanceto disappear. )The actions occurredcyclically with the exception ofone which enduredthroughout.I have made a total of five dances:Arizona, a solo of 20 minutes;21.3, a solo of 10 minutes; Site, a duet of 17 minutes; WatermanSwitch,a trio of 20 minutes;and Check for over 40 performerswhichlasted 30 minutes. Each work attempted o solve what was at the time

PETER MOORE

ARIZONA at Judson Memorial Church, New York City, June 23, 1963A T-like form which I could adjust and move away from...

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186 Tulane Drama Reviewseen as a problemor set of problems.To qualify and clarify problemsolving as a process of thought appropriate o making dances wouldrequireelaborationsbeyondthe scope of this article. Ratheran attempthas been made to indicate how the problematichas served as syntax.It seems irrelevant that what was seen as a particularproblem oftenremains a distant and unimmediate element in a performance; thestructureof some musical scores is unapparent n performance.Muchabout the work has not been dealt with: the quality of performers'actions,uses of sound,certainpersistent magery.These considerationsalso lie beyondthe scope of this article.I have only attempted o touchon whatseemed the foremostconcerns thatunderlaywhatever magery,objects,etc., were employed.

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Notes on Dance Clean