Choreographic turning point: a study on avant-garde dance initiatives in the 1950s and 1960s

• Grant number: 15/05934-7
• Support type: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate
• Effective date (Start): July 01, 2015
• Effective date (End): December 31, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Arts - Dance
• Principal researcher: Matteo Bonfitto Júnior
• Grantee: Karina Campos de Almeida
• Supervisor abroad: Lynn Garafola
• Home Institution: Instituto de Artes (IA). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil
• Research place: Columbia University in the City of New York, United States
• Associated to the scholarship: 13/02781-0 - Between territories: the intersection of dance with composition devices from related arts, BP.DR

Abstract

This ongoing doctoral research, seeks to investigate how far dance composition can be expanded through the dialogue with practices emerging from other art forms. Framing a theoretical and practical work, it is presented some compositional practices explored by three different artists as case study: the filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein, the composer John Cage and the painter Wassily Kandinsky. A proposal for work to be undertaken during a stay of six months in the Barnard College Department of Dance, Columbia University (USA) is presented here. The internship aims to fulfill a scientific exchange, framing a specific Historical context: A choreographic turning point, which happened in the 1950s and 1960s. In more detail, from the early 1950s on it has been possible to identify many changes, not only in dance but also in other art fields, regarding the understanding of the body and also specific notions related to it, such as corporeality, ephemerality and performativity. The terms "choreography" and "choreographer" acquired other meanings due to the idea of collaborative creative process, which has encouraged artists to rethink the hierarchies between body and space-time, dance and spectator, dancer and choreographer, etc. Bearing this in mind, this internship project aims to study how these avant-garde initiatives have amplified the possibilities of making dance. This project is intended to analyze the practices of some artists connected with Judson Dance Theater, arguing how far notions such as "score" and "tasks" have expanded the work with the structure and compositional elements of a dance. This framework has been adopted to refine the theoretical corpus of the thesis in progress. (AU)