Part of the Jerome Robbins dance archive is the special collections department. This deals with ephemera, photographs and artifacts relating to dance. I requested a special print book called Footnotes produced by the Choreographer Jenifer Mascall. This was an incredible discover for me in the archive, the unbound portfolio contained reproductions of a huge range of dance artists including Lucinda Childs, Trisha Brown, Yvonne Rainer and Anna Halprin. With all the restricted access within the department I was happy to be informed photography of prints in the collection was allowed, however i did not want to publish too many images in this blog.
Within the forward there are some interesting ideas concerning notation of dance/performance and the approach of how one should look at these when reading them.
“Each word is lost without the environment of the dance it is in. It need not have any similarity with the ideain our minds for which it stands…It’s mening has three directions: our (the observer’s) idea of what, for example, a jump section would be like, the choreographers referential meaning from the note ti the dance or the dance to the note, and a behavioural meaning for someone like the dancer who, given the note as an instruction does what they are required”
“this is not a readerly text…Incoherence is preferable to a distorting order”
“A musical notation that looks beautiful is not beautiful notation because it is not the function of a notation to look beautiful”
“the method is to use a structure (personal, image,spatial) in lieu of thinking about something else. These loose forms provide the patterns for a matrix made up of the choreographers observations on herself, the dances, one the dance, on their notes, her notes, on the outsiders observations*. It is similar to writing dreams. There is really another thought going on other than the facts but the words are the only tools available”
“The note as part of the choreographer.
The note as part of the choreography.
The choreography as person, as writer, as notetaker.
The note as note.
The note as part of the notebook of the choreographer.
The note as part of an anthology of notes.
The note as notation.”
*I really like this term instead of viewer or audience. It has a more neutral feel as it relates to no environment specifically i.e. Theatre/gallery.
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Thinking about how my excitement around seeing some of these scores was a reaction to images and the possibilities they have within and how can this relate to my thoughts around what a condition report could be for a performance. What makes these documents potentially problematic is the intangible aspects of performing. I wrote a small note about this aspect and how I could work with this into a new artwork…
- The intangible natures/aspects of dance and performance
leads to > seduction of 1 artefacts
2 Plans/scores/skethes
spec
ula
tive* performance.
(could I write a C.R. as this? would this be a form of critique of documenting performance?)
*Like in Mette Ingvartsons 69 Positions
– give em a kinaesthetic experience
> tell them (observer) what will proceed and let them run away with it. Using ellipses as a performative tool?
