Analytic Post-Modern Dance is an art form that centers dance on the individual. This liberates dance from the constraining standards that dictated earlier dance forms both physically and philosophically. This was done by making dance more about functionality. The individual became the main subject of the piece, and became an expression of dance, rather than the dance performed by the individual to be an expression of some idea. The movement placed an emphasis on the elements of dance itself by exposing raw aspects of it, and glorified the human body by making it a form of expression rather than an instrument of expression. For instance, “actual time” was used: movements were timed to the amount needed to physically carry out the activity as opposed to the standardized timing that dictated earlier forms of dance. Banes describes this new style of choreography to be illustrating “a theory of dance”. The Judson Church performances by the dance group Steve Paxton, Yvonne Rainer, Robert Rauschenberg formed consisted of artists, composers, and writers, not trained dancers. This was a clear indication of the divergence their dance would take from the more traditional forms of dance. For example, there was an emphasis on spontaneity and the process of dance rather than the finished product. Monotone techniques and repetition were emphasized over craftsmanship. By the 1970s, Analytic Post-Modern dance had established a more concrete style. It was minimalistic, scientific, and humble. It was also influenced by non-Western philosophies.
As briefly alluded to earlier, Steve Paxton was an integral part in the formation and growth of post-modern dance. Paxton started off in a workshop taught by Robert Dunn in Merce Cunningham’s studio. The “freedom from evaluation” was something the students (trained dancers) had not been exposed to and was a relatively new concept at the time as well. As their techniques developed, Steve Paxton co-founded a group that performed at the Judson Church, a significant platform for post-modern dance. The group was later invited by the Washington Art Gallery of Modern Art to give a concert. Paxton went on to create the Surplus Dance Theater series at Stage 73, and the First New York Rally. The post-modern dance movement also reflected the political turmoil brought on by the war at the time. Steve Paxton responded to this atmosphere through Intravenous Lecture, Beautiful Lecture, and Collaboration with Wintersoldier, which tackled issues of censorship, the war and political corruption.
The analytic post-dance movement is a development and progression of the modern dance movement, which had lasted to the 1950s. With Merce Cunningham’s workshops in the early 1960s came this evolution of dance, in which dancers were not told “in terms of ‘good or bad,’ ‘acceptable-rejected,’” but rather with analytical questions such as “What did you see, what did you do, what took place, how did you go about constructing and ordering” (Banes 11). As Prima mentioned, this new movement, which gradually developed out of modern dance, focused on functionality and the individual dancer. Instead of right or wrong, the questions being asked were what, why, and how. The emphasis was on the individual dancer’s movements and actions, and this dancer made more natural movements that allowed the dancer to express herself. The absence of musical accompaniment or artificial meter of time to keep tempo proves this point. The dancer will perform without mechanical aid to keep tempo but rather by herself.
In major choreographer who had a significant role in this movement is Trisha Brown. As a member of Merce Cunningham’s dance workshop in 1961, Brown was one of the promoters and most influential choreographers of analytic post modern dance. In her piece, Glacial Decoy, we see an example of dancing in “actual time,” as two women are dancing around the stage without musical accompaniment. The audience is inevitably amazing by the dancer’s exact timing and fluidity of their movements.
Kirby mentioned that post modern dance rejects musicality, meaning, characterization, mode, and atmosphere. Rather, this movement embodies the functionality of the individual dancer and her movements and tempo. Trisha Brown embraces this concept in her own choreographic works.
Michael Shin (Blog A)
Analytic Post-Modern Dance is a dance form that focuses on the individual (sometimes). Analytic Post-Modern Dance is an art form that focuses on the group (sometimes). Analytic Post-Modern Dance is an art form that espouses ideas of constant innovation, personal freedom, and freedom from fixed-form. Analytic Post-Modern dance allows the author, or choreographer in this case, freedom to represent their ideas in any way they see fit. Generally, Post-modernist’s are concerned more with the process than the end result; they like to show the gears and how they work, they make us question how the pieces fit together.
Analytic Post-Modernist’s (APM’S) are always a wide array of things, a message represented in this way or that. Instead of making us see their end result and trying to come to the conclusion they want us to come too, APM’s make us see the process, in lifting the magical curtain they allow us to question movement and its meaning. Many APM’s are not lacking in skill, though sometimes they are, but that’s not the point – it is a point, one of many to be made and analyzed by the audience – but not the point. Another point is that the ideas behind the piece are precisely what are important; that the why is as important as the what, sometimes. Sometimes, the “why” and the “what” go out the window and we just have to witness. Sometimes we see the complex interplay of dancing and singing as one functional unit, playing off of each other; other times we see them as two different objects, we see the pieces – the music, and the dance.
The point, ironically enough, is that there is no point. There is no one globally uniting axiom that all APM’s can get behind, except to create something new and meaningful in some way shape or form. The rigidity of classic ballet has been removed, but that does not mean structure has been abandoned, simply redefined. That another point of APM, constant redefinition, and for the first time the relationship between master and apprentice has been completely redefined.
While it used to be that the master would pass knowledge onto their students in order to continue their own legacy. Now a master passes on the knowledge that the student may create their own legacy based on the “ancient knowledge”; synthesis, not reproduction.
Martha Graham was one of the founders of this type of thinking. She used pre-classical dances in a redefined way, to help deal with modern issues and to shed light on modern America. She used specific movements to convey certain ideas, though not explicitly; her dances had to be “read”. As is one of the quintessence of APM thought, Graham focuses on the why.
It was in Graham’s separation from the norm that distinguished her. While her exact style of movement is not reproduced, the sentiment from which it proceeded has become the standard – have thought, purpose, passion, motivation, and honesty; the rest will fall into place. Some technical skill helps too. Sometimes.
Lastly, to say that the audience isn’t important anymore is a misinterpretation in my opinion. Instead, the audience is no longer expected to come to any conclusions, each conclusion is as unique as the performance itself, and in this way perhaps the audience is more involved; APM is more personal and unique on both ends of the spectrum, performer and audience member, or rather – explorer and extrapolator, respectively.