"The Salome Factor"

[kfw]

The spring 2005 issue of The American Scholar has an article by William Deresiewicz entitled "The Salome Factor: How the sexualization of concert dance helped end a golden age."

Deresiewicz likens ballet and modern dance from "roughly the mid-30's to the mid-80's" with "without hyperbole, the heyday of Florentine painting or Viennese music." He cites the usual reasons for the passage of this golden age -- the death of genius choreographers, aging institutions and the attendant dimming of "revolutionary impulses,” and the mid-80's real-estate boom that made NYC tough for dancers to afford -- but adds one more, a widespread "degradation of the way dance represents the human body: a degradation, that is, of the very essence of the art itself. From a symbol of the uniqueness, dignity, and power of the individual, an image of the soul in muscle and bone, the body in dance -- especially the female body is being reduced, more and more, to a sexualized display.”

For Deresiewicz this is “calamitous” because 20th century modern dance, dominated as it was until Taylor and Cunningham began choreographing by women, stood for “the liberation of the female body from sexual objectification.” Duncan and Graham, but also Balanchine and Robbins, “perpetuated (a) sense of the body as subject rather than object, creative agent rather than sexualized ornament.” Dance has now largely lost this core value, the author believes.

Out of respect for Phi Beta Kappa Society and its hopes of actually selling copies of this journal, I shouldn’t write much more. But I will note that Deresiewicz cites Peter Martins as “the most visible offender.” This sort of charge has been made about Martins before, of course, and it came to mind as I watched Tala Gaisma a couple of weeks ago. I’d been thinking about Willem DeKooning, and watching what Martins gave Weese and Sylve in particular to do I thought, “I finally understand Woman I.” At one point late in the ballet, if memory serves Sylve and Weese strike a pose on the diagonal and one by one go flying at and past Soto. And then Korbes strikes the same pose and pauses, and as she did I thought, “and now, a woman!” By which I meant, feminine not fearsome. Not to gender stereotype and Graham had her fearsome females, but it was a refreshing moment, a moment when, for me, entertainment might have become something deeper. But what followed was more of what had come before.

[Amy Reusch]

For Deresiewicz this is “calamitous” because 20th century modern dance, dominated as it was until Taylor and Cunningham began choreographing by women, stood for “the liberation of the female body from sexual objectification.” Duncan and Graham, but also Balanchine and Robbins, “perpetuated (a) sense of the body as subject rather than object, creative agent rather than sexualized ornament.” Dance has now largely lost this core value, the author believes.

I don't buy this argument for a minute. Ruth St. Denis (between Duncan & Graham) was very very ornamental... Graham certainly wouldn't have wanted de-sexualized dance... There was a whole movement away from ornamental toward either abstraction or psychological motivation. And does Tharp liberate the female body from sexual objectification?

This is an attempt to borrow an argument from art history and apply it to dance history. I'm not sure the lens doesn't distort more than it succeeds in revealing. It seems kind of trite here.

... but as for the golden age of dance and the other reasons for it's demise, I think they're quite sound... though they should include the growth and near death of government subsidy, particularly the touring grants and the PBS media coverage.

[Farrell Fan]

It would be interesting to hear Toni Bentley, author of "Sisters of Salome," debate this man.

[dirac]

Thank you, kfw, for starting the topic. Amy, from what kfw tells us of the article, I think the author is not promoting “de-sexualized” dance, but saying that there has been a return to objectification – to viewing women only as creatures defined by their sexuality. There’s plenty of room for argument, of course.

[kfw]

dirac, you're right. Amy, Deresiewicz notes that Duncan challenged gender stereotypes in her movement and her loose fitting clothing. Graham similarly defined herself instead of accepting an imposed definition. Over against ballet's ideal postures she "emphasized the body's physicality: its suffering and joy, its muscularity and sheer weight." This was "an especially revolutionary statement to make about the female body."

Instead of likewise expressing individuality, Deresiewicz says, too often contemporary dance imitates the larger culture with its one-dimensional eroticism. It has the flatness of a visual image.

[Marga]

There was a book called "The Rise and Fall and Rise of Modern Dance" published around 1969 or 1970. I've thought about this book occasionally over the last few decades, always with the mental note that we could add another "and Fall" to the title. Throughout the 1970s, modern dance lost the fervour that had theretofore accompanied it and these days it's hard to find anyone involved in dance, but not with modern, who really understands it.

What passes for "modern" in some ballet schools is offensive, even an embarrassment, if I may be so bold as to make such a statement. My concern is that today's young dancers think they know what modern dance is when they don't have a clue. That is not their fault, of course, but it bothers me nonetheless. This ignorance has caused them to present what "modern" choreography they have learned in sometimes quite inappropriate ways that are directly antithetical to the tenets upon which modern dance was originally based.

Graham technique, which was very difficult to learn properly, was so carefully thought out that dancers had to apply themselves to the study of it with the same focus ballet students must have to achieve their technical skills. Yes, muscularity and weight were emphasized, but there was so much more. Graham took Isadora Duncan's idea of making all movement originate from the solar plexus further by giving it the form of rhythmic, sharp contraction and release, which became central to her work. Feet flexed, not pointed, angular arms and hands, spirals to put weight behind and between the contraction-release all served to carry the concept throughout the body.

The popularity of this style, and of the other major techniques and styles (Cunningham, Hawkins, Taylor) rose dramatically in the 60s, coinciding with the anti-establishment political movement and the beginnings of women's liberation. The rapid changes occurring in those arenas helped feed the public hunger for alternatives in culture, as well, and modern dance was well placed to receive the attention it deserved. Besides being for many adherents a place to express themselves, it was for some of its audience a vital counter-culture gathering place, not unlike the great jazz clubs of the time.

As society returned with a vengeance to the mainstream we find ourselves in now, with women's liberation also a misunderstood concept by today's young women, modern dance began to fall by the wayside, too. With audience and dancer passion waning, the original disciple-teachers aging, and truly knowledgeable newer teachers slowly declining in number over the years, the window began to open for the bastardization of the art form.

This is just my personal sociological obervation over the decades and I'm open to hearing other viewpoints!

[Amy Reusch]

dirac, you're right. Amy, Deresiewicz notes that Duncan challenged gender stereotypes in her movement and her loose fitting clothing. Graham similarly defined herself instead of accepting an imposed definition. Over against ballet's ideal postures she "emphasized the body's physicality: its suffering and joy, its muscularity and sheer weight." This was "an especially revolutionary statement to make about the female body."

Instead of likewise expressing individuality, Deresiewicz says, too often contemporary dance imitates the larger culture with its one-dimensional eroticism. It has the flatness of a visual image.

Well, I'm sure I'll have to read to book... but I'm still resisting. "contemporary dance" seems very amorphous a term to me... I understand the concept in visual art, but I find it harder to pin on dance.... sure, I see the typical 19th century concept of the feminine in 19th century ballets, but I'm not sure I see a return to this in contemporary dance (not unless we're talking MTV videos) I guess I need specific examples in contemporary dance...

Marga, your argument is so strong... I follow you through the descriptions of Martha,... but could you give some examples of contemporary modern dance objectifying women... or is it that postmodern dance with it'a penchant for quoting objectifies and trivializes in the way of a generation raised in visual culture by Madison Ave via the medium of television? But I've seen postmodern choreography that points out the objectification mostly by quoting... that by being conscious of the objectification -- in a way that 19th century choreography wasn't self-aware-- that it is feminist commentary in a way that simply presenting "strong" women was not... perhaps the presenting "strong' women was feminist, and the postmodern quotation of objectfication stereotypes was feminist commentary.

On the other hand, perhaps I'd better get a good night's sleep... I sense my rambling is spiraling.

[kfw]

Writing in her blog Seeing Things about an exhibit of photos at the current Bournonville Festival in Copenhagen, Tobi Tobias describes just the sort of eroticized-down dance Deresiewicz is lamenting.

The photographer, Per Morton Abrahamsen (has) produced a dozen mise-en-scenes in which—claiming to modernize the tales told by the ballets, to free the action from, as he puts it, the repressions of “Victorian piety”—he  trashes them with a vulgarity so cheap and superficial, it would make you laugh if only you weren’t crying.  (Let’s assume the translator meant “propriety.”)  . . . For the most part, the work reflects the cool young crowd at play, with lots of slick, noir eroticism, complete with criminal violence and conspicuously populated with victimized women.  One svelte-bodied beauty seems to have been raped.  Another is being flung out of a high window (grinning, mind you) into the dubious embrace of a firefighter’s net manned by a bunch of guys stripped to display their pecs—if, indeed, by good or ill luck, she misses hitting the pavement below.

[Leigh Witchel]

If Deresiewicz is going to cite Martins as the worst offender, I'd like to hear his opinion of Forsythe.