Disarticulation Part 2 questions for Wednesday, May 5th 11:59 pm PDT (for Karola that's

Thursday, May 6th 8:59am)

 Instructions: This is the second of two question pairs that you will receive related to
your "disarticulation" list. Choose only one of the 2 questions below and respond as
indicated in an essay format.
 Although the time to complete this essay is within an 8 hour period, remember that the
goal is not to write for 8 hours but to use your time effectively to reflect, consult work
you have done previously, and respond in a measured way. Quality is more important
than quantity, and your written synthesis of work you have done previously is the goal
of this process.
 Upon completion, within the time constraints (8 hours), send the answers as an
electronic document, preferably in Word, to Marian Bilheimer
(mlbilheimer@ucdavis.edu) and your committee members: ravetto@tft.ucla.edu,
lhunter@ucdavis.edu, joe.dumit@gmail.com, jehousefield@ucdavis.edu
 Your answer should be approximately 2500-3000 words. The answers you give should
reflect your historical, theoretical, critical and methodological research in preparation
for the examination, and you may draw on any other research you have done, in
particular that for your dissertation.
 Each question you answer should make direct reference to at least one and preferably
two areas of performance in any medium, preferably those mentioned in your
examination lists, but you may use others, including your own, but not exclusively your
own (unless directed to do so by the question). Demonstration of detailed knowledge
and ability to analyse actual performance examples is as important as demonstration of
general knowledge, theoretical perspective, and critical skill.

I. What is the connection between violence and the spectacle form of concert dance — the fact
that it is "dance for others" (dance for pay or for the state), and not "dance with a community"?
Using two of your case studies, describe how physical technique and spectacle interact - include
in your answer work from the history of dance and spectacle (e.g Novack, Federici, Foucault,
Green).
The word spectacle evokes many images for me. A mass of people gathering something
happening to another person or smaller group. Or a person or group presents themselves to
another group or mass for being watched. Becoming a spectacle unintentionally, or, making
someone a spectacle. Gang rape. Witch burnings. Political debates. Weddings. Public
executions. Religious ceremonies. Performances. School presentations. Sports events. Any of
those have an undertone of power relations and power struggle. Of violence and oppression.
The mass always induces fear in me. So why am I a performer that presents themselves on a
stage to be viewed? Why do I hide certain aspects and portray others on stage? Why did I train
in concert dance?

The 'sit-down' performance

I would say that at the bottom of my heart I am a choreographer that likes to envision and
create performances that are supposed to be watched by a quietly seated audience. I invision a
story, i have something to day and it needs to be told in exactly that way. nothing should
interfere with this vision. It took me many years to arrive at the interactive format, where
audiences are engaged in becoming an active part in the shaping of a performance, where the
audience becomes a performer. I think that doing interactive performances is only an extension
of my motives for making 'sit-down' performances and I am not entirely sure that interactivity
changes the politics around performance practices.

I create worlds. Scenarios. Stories that i want to tell. it's like making a statement and I ask
people to listen to me while I speak. it is not a discussion at that moment that it is being
performed. Although, arguably, the audience does interact, by their energy, silence, breathing,
responses that are felt by the performer and these either fuel or hinder the emergence of the
life that the piece seeks to bring forth.

I use the tools of the craft to make my choreographic talking engaging, or torturous, or boring,
or funny, or sad, etc and keep them sitting there to watch what I want them to see. I want to
'do' something to them and they sit there and receive. I want to make them feel a certain way,
in order to understand what I am trying to express. In that sense I have often harbored violent
intent. To shock, to show, to blame, to reveal, to cause a change, a stance, a discussion.

I suppose also that I am perpetuating the violence of society through my art, through my
performance, even while critiquing it. Perhaps even by making them sit-down and hold still for
90 minutes, I am being violent. My training in concert dance has been violent on several levels,
some of which are only revealing themselves to me now.

Perhaps my intuition about the potentially violent or objectifying nature of the spectacle, and
me being objectified, makes me want to strike back. Since I am adamant about not 'doing
entertainment' I am engaging in a dialogue with society in a project of critique, a project of
undoing and a kind of war.

I am indoctrinated into a system that makes me the object to be viewed and in the US that has
been a constant struggle for me. I could not cope with the attitude that the performer is the
entertainer, the provider of pleasantries. I felt that the seriousness of my craft, of my opinion
and the role of the artist in society was disregarded and patronized.

As a choreographer I am hoping that audiences will understand what I am saying and not twist
what I have to say and who I am. This happens of course nevertheless, inevitably, on stage and
in real life.
I compare the theatre more to a court of justice than to an amusement park. What takes place
there is critical practice. What I did there was, as much as I could muster, my own personal
physical voice.

By creating the view-angle of the performance, of what is seen and not seen, the
choreographer takes control of the gaze. The gaze is embedded into cultural, social, political
psychological paradigms. But change can happen from changing the gaze. In interactive
performances the gaze is attempted to be replaced with experience. In my piece 'adam-mah' i
am bringing the audience up close, only 2 feet away from the performers, and eventually ask
them to enter the space and interact with the performers and the materials. The goal was to
create an experience of the urgency I feel around environmental destruction and our
propensity toward ignoring the self-harming we are engaging in.

My frustration with interactive performances were the same as with sit-down performances:
people just see what they want to see, preconceived notions, biases, expectations, etc. Theatre
is a process and I was often not patient enough for this process. My frustration is reignited by a
comment from a person named "The Assumper" below the video of Marie Chouniard's
performance of "Body Remix" which read "45:00 is the best part lol". The scene they are
referring to is where a male dancer with a huge metal pole attached to the front of his waistline
is standing under a clothing rack and thrusting his pelvis repeatedly up and down to produce
the forceful loud clonking of the pole against the top of the clothing rack. Generally speaking
the youtube viewer comments on Chouinard's piece just show a lack of critical thinking or
willingness to engage with what the piece might want to express. All that is commented on are
what is on the surface of the piece: contortion, strange music, sexuality, moaning, unusual
behavior. No in-depth analysis is taking place, no feeling into what is going on is taking place
and for the most part comparisons are only drawn to what they know and what is commonly
accepted as 'good' performance, or 'real' art. These online spectators were violent towards the
performance by making stupid comments that patronize the actions and the costume choices
as ridiculous, twisted, and demented. However, in their superficiality they reveal a lot about the
mechanisms of our society.

Performance often translates to delivery. It is a product that we are supposed to be able to

show and prove that we worked hard and that we were worth the funds that we were given. In
the end we are judged by foundations and institutions on how well we rattled the cage without
breaking it. We have to create something logical, cohesive, something that just fits the mold of
how society currently defines art which is directly related to how well it supports the social
status quo. Real revolution is not expected to happen on stages. Shakespeare thematized this
problem 500 years ago, in Midsummer Nights Dream, in my opinion. He talks about the
realness of theatre and the methodologies of ridicule and violence that the performing group
exposes itself to, just in order to be seen by the king and queen. That the group reflects on and
exposes the truth about the system is not noticed by the royal audience and the effort is
subsumed into the hungry mouth of the status quo. Society and it's project of normatization,
mainstreaming is extremely powerful and the value and potential of performance is overlooked
or worse, downplayed and compromised.

This is where concert dance technique comes in again. marie Chouniard's Body remix is abotu
Ballet. At least on some, rather superficial, level. I think that the piece 'speaks out of' the
ballerina's point shoe. The place of action is the ballerina's point shoe and the performance
space in which the ballerina and her shoe are presented to an audience. All the performers look
like ballet point shoes, pink, naked, everything is brought to the point, the hair tied into tall
unicorn like horns on the tops of the female dancers' heads, the feet of the female dancers are
either naked, or in point shoes. The bodies of the women and some of the men are naked
except for flesh colored ribbons/bands, that resemble the ribbons on point shoes. These
ribbons bind around the pelvis and groin and down the gluteal cleft and the breasts are either
bound with ribbons or skin-colored stickers to hide the nipples. The entire costuming is
reminiscent of bondage and sets ballet into an openly sexualized context. No sounds are
hidden, the hard point-shoes are slapped to the ground making a loud noise, breath and all
sounds of movement are amplified. it seems that what is shown is usually that which remains
hidden.
The piece begins more "natural", meaning without the aid of prostheses and crutches, and
progressively brings in equipment, from point shoes, to crutches, to walkers, to clothing racks,
lighting equipment and aerial dance equipment such as bungie cords, ropes and harnesses. The
performers are tied into these structures of disability and perform with them. They increasingly
rely on them as they more and more portray images of lightness and flight. The color black
slowly becomes more dominant in straps that attach long metal poles to the dancers' bodies,
in shoes, and technical equipment. Their movements, especially those of the women and less
'masculine' men, portray a flexibility of their bodies that has reached a point of dysfunction, a
disarticulation, a falling apart, a constant struggle between collapse and recovery that requires
the aid of these devices. Their actions suggest a persistence, an attitude of 'the show must go
on' 'I must remain gorgeous, a ballerina, a dancer, a performer, this is my world, I know nothing
else' no matter what, beyond pain, beyond disability and discomfort, and beyond
objectification. The body has been made so flexible, so malleable, so perfect a tool for the
desires of the choreographer, who I parallel with the society/audience, that it is incapable of
moving, of holding itself together in a regular fashion. It needs crutches and walkers to continue
moving about. The dance continues no matter how grave the injury or dis-articulation. A scene
of making one another rehearse even though both performers are rendered incapable of
staying coherent physically and verbally shows the perpetuation of the insanity.

Anna Aalten writes: "With the right kind of training and exercises and enough will power,
bodies can be molded. Dancers know this, because this is what they are told by their teachers
and because they have experienced that when they really put their minds to it and work hard,
they can realize physical change and improvement. A young dancer told me how she put her
lessons into practice: "Every night I sat down in front of my bed and pushed my legs wider
until they really hurt. The next day I could go a bit further." This dancer literally felt how the
body could be molded. But in the process of creating the dancer's body, she also learned
another lesson. Discovering that pushing her legs "until they really hurt" would bring her
closer to the desired ideal, she learned to regard pain as a sign of improvement. In the pain of
her hurting legs, nature, society, and culture came together, telling her the story of her own
physical boundaries, the social constraints of her profession, and the symbolic meaning of the
necessity of discipline and suffering all at the same time." (p.60/61)

The set design of "Body Remix" is a controlled room that is obviously no other space but
actually 'a stage'. The practice is ballet. The tools are devices of dependance and glorification:
point shoes to elongate and elevate, harnesses and ropes to lift dancers into the air.
Obviously this is also about the sexualization of the point shoe, men moan in aroused manners
each time the shoe touches the ground and women moan in mixed tenors of pleasure and pain.

Sexual acts are often thematized on stage whether in mid air while swinging wildly on very
visible bondage like bungie cords/ropes or aided by propping up their bodies on ballet bars or
crutches.

Often the men are wearing black pants, no top, while the female dancers are always bondaged.
Point shoes are attached to feet, or hands, which makes the dances look and move like birds
with beaks, and heads. The perfect change from human into another physiology. The suffering
that we observe is actually tremendous.

The piece speaks of persistence, of dancing through injury and pain, of pleasing men and
audiences, of struggeling with shapes and tempi that are unattainable for most bodies. I think
an argument can be made for the audience having been given the tole of the eye of the
choreographer. The choreographer and the ballet master/mistress are driving the movements
of the dancers forward. They act on behalf of the audience imagining their gaze. The actions are
in part staged for the demand and pleasure of the audience.
The piece names it as it is. It is a very violent piece. And an actual tour de force for the dancers.
It is all the more a violent act for the online audiences to make such remarks, assuming their
perceived right to judge and ridicule those that are on stage.

I think this is a contemporary take on ballet practices, because the dynamics of rehearsal and
gender relations have changed a bit. Women do have more respect than at the times of
Balanchine. So the one thing that is not strongly thematized in this piece is the relationship of
the male being the doer and the presenter and the female being the one that is lifted around by
the man. Not many real physical interactions are taking place. Mostly interactions are indicated.
Actually, the piece feels strangely distant and isolating, as if every dancer is on their own. Which
in concert dance training that is a fact due to the substantial competition among them for
favors, status, and jobs. I get glimpses of friendships that emerge in "Body Remix" that are born
out of common suffering, and support is expressed in encouraging each other to carry on with
the performance.
The piece thematizes spectatorship and control. Foucault through the ideas of the panopticon
explains the methodology of bringing an individual to control themselves because they fear the
constant gaze of a judging and punishing authority.
Bodily movement technique and spectacle interact by several means: the dancer observes
herself and becomes her own spectator and director. The technique is founded on the dancer
disconnecting from her body and ignoring signals of violence for the sake of the spectator. And
the performer usually lies to the spectator about her experience.

I am sure that there is still a good amount of lying going on in this piece, however, as it tries to
leave the paradigm of violence by making audiences aware of the violence, it affords the
spectator a view of what is not normally seen. However, within the structures of the system,
even the uncovering o f the truth is perverted into a voyeuristic display of sexual power
relationships. Knowing that the point shoe is a symbol of sexual desire and domination does not
make the viewer realize their offense and beg for forgiveness. They continue to be aroused by
the disjointed abilities of the dancers, no matter how sick they look. The viewing continues as
usual, which is evidenced by the response at the end of the piece: applause.

Jill Green, in "Foucault and the training of docile bodies in dance education", compares
Foucault's technologies of the self with the methodologies applied in dance education. She
finds that especially the technologies of self correction are learned and internalized to
perpetuate the dedication and sacrifice of the dancer to the art form and to the underlying
power relations of society. She finds that through early training and psychological and
ideological programming the dancer freely and joyfully works at changing themselves, no
matter how great the pain. She writes: "I will argue that human beings are made subjects
through this system of “dance technique,” and I will explore how the social manipulation of
bodies and constant correction affect the artistic and personal lives of ... dance students."

Chouinard shows the performance of the remade body. The piece portrays a disconnection
from the body, from the self experience.

Anna Aalten writes: 'This "disappearance from awareness" (Csordas I994, 8, italics in original)
is the reason why Leder speaks of the "absent body," stating that "it is the bodys own
tendency to ward self-concealment that allows for the possibility of its neglect" (I990, 69,
italics in original). The tendency toward self-concealment is disrupted when there is illness,
pain, or a sudden confrontation with physical failure. When I tear a muscle trying to catch the
ball, ... I am suddenly very aware of my body. Then the body leaves its mode of absence,
making its presence known. A central characteristic of pain or illness is that it calls attention to
the body." (p58 of "In the Presence of the Body: Theorizing Training, Injuries and Pain in
Ballet")
Aalten continues about creating the dance's' body: " In their years of training, daily rehearsals,
and class, professional dancers are confronted with "two bodies: one, perceived and tangible;
the other, aesthetically ideal" (Foster I997, 237) " (p.60)
I think that perhaps the piece shows the body that remains concealed until pain makes it
speak up. usually we see the other body. This piece is portraying the body as it is being
abused by the dancer, and the audience in the role of the spectator, the stand-in for the
choreographer and the representative of society, which enforces the domination of the body.
As the audience continues to watch, they justify the abuse of this body, keep it being abused,
keep it abusing itself. The joy of watching is so strong that it prevents the audience from
leaving or speaking up, or stopping the performance. Combined with the joy of watching is the
link to sexual pleasure that is tied to the objectification of the dancer and the contortion of their
body as a sacrifice of society to some long forgotten gods, now called art.

Anna Aalten writes: "The necessity of crossing physical boundaries and the definition of pain
and suffering as heroic bring forth a mode of bodily absence that is specific for ballet dancers.
In ballet it is not "the body's own tendency towards self-concealment" that is responsible for its
absence in the dancer's consciousness. ... As became apparent in the life stories, the
absence of the dancer's body is an active absence, an absence that is forced upon the body.
The body's ability to make itself known, by crying out in pain, is taken away by the dancer in
her struggle to achieve the required technique and bodily perfection. When the body "speaks
up," it is habitually silenced into a mode of bodily absence to allow the dancer to continue
working." (p.64)

Aalten continues: 'These stories and those of other dancers show how the silencing of the
body is so much part and parcel of the occupational culture of the ballet world that "listening
to your body" has to be learned actively." (p.66) Michel Foucault speaks of the rise of a
culture of silence appearing out of stoicism in the imperial period: "First, we see the
disappearance of dialogue and the increasing importance of a new pedagogical relationship -
a new pedagogical game where the master/teacher speaks and doesn’t ask questions and
the disciple doesn’t answer but must listen and keep silent. A culture of silence becomes
more and more important." Jill Green speaks to Foucault on this and relates it to concert
dance education:"It seemed to me that the dance world had somehow created an
environment whereby teachers were no longer responsible for directly shaping student bodies
but rather utilized a “science of dance training” which requires students to develop skills and
attitudes through self-analysis, self -judgment and self-evaluation according to the attainment
of a specific ideal. From a Foucauldian perspective this shift from the direct shaping of student
bodies by the teacher to a science of dance training creates a culture of silence rather than
one of creativity and action where students constantly observe, judge, and correct
themselves. In such a culture, students are unable to take ownership of their bodies or to
explore their creative processes. But it also creates the illusion or “truth game” of happiness
and success in the attainment of the goal." (p. 119 "Foucault and the training of docile bodies
in dance education).

The spectator sits at the end of the line in this game. Ultimately everything leads to this set-
up: the dancer performing for an audience on stage, receiving applause and acclaim for their
achievements and their ability to dissociate from their bodies to the extend that it becomes
disarticulated. The audience silently sits and watches.

I believe that making people watch pices such as "Body Remix" can potentially serve to
realize and stop particular violencent practices by forcing audiences into actively admitting
their complicity in the violence. Society demands the role of the silent spectator in several
areas. By amplifying the role of the audience member and by thematizing the experience of
voyeurism, by staging a cocophany of annoyance, pain, sweat and noises of labor, the
audience might be made uncomfortable and made aware of his power dynamic. That's the
hope.
I staged this kind of situation in an interactive performance (adam-mah) where I am asked
audience members to pick up and bring me handfuls of soil to throw at my dance partner, who
did not look like she was enjoying it. Most audiences kept giving me the handfuls of dirt. One
audience member threw it at me. Nothing was solved. Nothing was changed. Nobody took
any action that brought about any real change from the paradigm of violence. I still believe
that with persistence we can get people to be more critically engaged spectators. As
evidenced by this little example it isn't necessarily the experience of being inside a
performance that makes the audience change their minds on whether to participate in
violence or not. However, I guess that Chouinard was making the audience participate in the
role of the spectator. So in a meta sort of way "Body remix" is a participatory piece.

Much of the processing and changing might happen in delayed response after the
performance is over or perhaps years later. The impact doesn't always have to be immediate.
At least the more optimistic side of me wishes to believe that. So with my effortlessness
practice I hope to investigate what actually does cause people to become more critical, and to
leave the position of accomplice. I think Berthold Brecht sought to change this spectator
experience and accomplice role by reminding the audience of their position in the theatre, by
the fact that we have all gathered here to contemplate something. To process and to mourn
perhaps the shortfalls of society.

I would hope that instead of applauding after the performance of "Body-remix" there should be
a silence, but of course, that is not what was happening and the choreographer entered
joyfully, and bowed to the destroyed bodies of her dancers and the audience. It is always
astonishing to me how performance is perpetuated in this way, seen, as Shakespeare points
out, as mere entertainment, when it is an act of critical discourse but silenced by the very
methods it employs. Everyone is happy to succeed in the 'self-imposed' hardships. We are all
in this together. All of us are shaping this situation. The gaze needs the performer and the
performer needs the gaze. We would rather continue the game than stop it, because we don't
know what else to do, where else to go, and how else to be.

Everyone continues to assume their roles.

In Addition
Perhaps I am taking this all a bit too far when i am bringing Shiv Visvanathan into the picture
as he discusses, in short, how the laboratory state and science facilitates violence and grave
atrocities such as the Nazi Holocaust. But concert dance is born out of a society that created
also those violences, and violences are related to one another and causate one another.

Visvanathan describes Modernity as "a vision of conquest" and so is ballet a representative of

these efforts of domination. Especially women are dominated and in ballet their feet are
bound. The idea of the laboratory state where science justifies any violence imaginable, is
comparable to ballet implementing these methods as a science of dance to methodize the
domination of the body. Jill green speaks to this and also Donna Haraway further talks about
the 'silent witness', the objective observer of scientific experiments. The spectator is part of
the experiment of a full scale social experiment of conquest and domination of ideologies of
mind over matter in all areas of life. It would be interesting to further analyze the historical
parallels of science and ballet.
Visvanathan further outlines the "invention of logic, space-time linearity and hierarchy:
primitive to civilized". Dance is the art of space-time, or so it is taught in dance classes. I don't
agree, but there is no room to go into this here.

(p. 46 of Visvanathan):"Bettelgheim adds that without the notion of scientific detachment, the
inhumanity of modern totalitarianism cannot be understood." Dance has become a science
and if one closely looks at the methodology of training in ballet and Cunningham Dance
technique for example, one sees the scientific approach to working with the body very clearly.
unemotional, systematic, superior, conceptualized and viewed and directed from the outside.
It is a categorization, a systematic, reductionist, process of elimination kind of training that
takes it all apart and splays everything out on the table for a scientific audience to view. The
spectatorship plays an important role in this as it is the outside eye, the presumed objective
view, the silent witness. Visvanathan continues: "... once you accept the axioms, the logic of
the world they unfold follows ruthlessly" p.50
Visvanathan and indigenous authors such as Robin Wall Kimmerer and Vanessa Watts note
that the underlying principle of western european ways of being are founded on a) the body
being expelled from Eden and thereby dissociated from nature and b) ideas around nature
being there for the taking, providing resources which leads to thoughts and action around
'what can I take from the world' instead of 'what can I give to the world'. The concert dancer
and the audience enter the room from the point of taking. The dancer takes from her body and
the audience takes from the dancer. She gives to the taker, not to the provider, the earth, the
body.

I think that the arts in european culture have taken the role to criticize but rarely do they
succeed in truly changing the paradigm. Visvanathan further writes on p. 52: "(the question) is
altruism rational? is a dangerous and misguided questions that people ask these days. This
prevents them from helping, from emotional invovlement and empathy and justifies their
continued marginalization as irrational, incapable, unworthy, etc and leads to their extinction
eventually. ... (the) cost-benefit analysis will not do. The crucial issue is not the dualism
between compassion and science; between the prisoner's dilemma and zero-sum versions of
triage. The crucial issue is that science has failed to guarantee life or understand its meaning."
I think that dance forms potentially have lost their connection to life as they have subsumed
the body into the structures of a science of dance, a science of movement, of being conquerors
of nature.

The physical techniques of ballet and concert dance rely on the disjointing, on the lengthening
of the connective tissues which can be compared to the scientific practice of dissection. Taking
all pieces apart and orchestrating them from the outside and by means of a master mind,
denies their intrinsic life and interdependence. Habitually bringing the joints of the dancer into
extremes of range of motion to portray an ideology of a weightless, limitlessly flexible,
adaptable angelic body to an audience that views this performance as an achievement of
civilization and conquest of the primitive perpetuates violences in all areas of life and acts as a
mirror of these ideologies. By working with a mirror daily the dancer projects herself outside of
her body and assumes the gaze of the spectator in all actions practiced as a tool for viewing
herself. She ends up leading a life where she constantly performs for herself.
• Marie Chouinard
◦ Body Remix: The Goldberg Variations
◦ performance video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
time_continue=235&v=gcNTdm2ngwM&feature=emb_logo

• Foucault, Punir et Surveillir, Technologies of the Self

• Lüttringhaus, Karola 'adam-mah', https://www.karolaluettringhaus.com/adam-

mah.html , https://vimeo.com/144077651

• Anne Aalten,
◦ Presence of the Body: Theorizing training, injuries and Pain in Ballet,
https://www.jstor.org/stable/20444641?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
◦ A Aalten notes: https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/20444641.pdf?refreqid=excelsior
%3A6ce225a1aa00e05981155e7c88719302

• Jill Green:
◦ notes: http://luettringhauspar.weebly.com/notes-jill-green.html

• Visvanathan, Shiv: "From the Annals of the Laboratory State"

• Shakespeare, William "A Midsummer Night's Dream"