Génio e graça estética: uma arqueologia dos discursos sobre ensino da dança em Portugal (1839-1930)

RESUMO O artigo identifica a emergência de diagnósticos e soluções em torno dos fins e dos meios do ensino da dança em Portugal, e que derivaram na defesa continuada de um Conservatório por vir. Concentra-se em dois momentos - o século XIX e a Primeira República - durante os quais se impôs um discurso em torno da antinomia aptidão natural vs. aprendizagem universal. Com os programas de dança teatral estatuídos em 1911, procura-se suspender esta dicotomia. Porém, estas formações discursivas continuaram a reconduzir os princípios da graça estética e do individualismo do génio, exponenciados pela perceção que então se cultivava da vanguarda estrangeira (Isadora Duncan e Ballets Russes).

“More than in a Costume”: “Barefoot” Dancers and Russian Ballet Costume at the Beginning of the 20th Century

The beginning of reform in Russian ballet of the 1900s is connected by the most part of researchers with the first performances of Isadora Duncan in Russia (1904–1905). Her great influence on Russian ballet choreography and costume is explored well enough and indisputable. Nevertheless, free dance or “modern dance” became popular in the USA and in Europe because of Duncan’s predecessor, another American dancer Loie Fuller. It was a major tendency included creativity of such different performers as Loie Fuller, Isadora Duncan, Ruth St. Denis, Maud Allan, Mata Hari and many others. The author of the presented article uses the complex method to analyze the reforms of dancing costume carried out by so called “barefoot” dancers and their influence on Russian ballet costume at the beginning of the 20th century, revealing general transformations and some direct parallels between costumes of “barefoot” dancers and Russians ballet dancers.

“Feeling” in Modern Dance Print Media: Loïe Fuller, Isadora Duncan, Maud Allan

Between 1890 and 1920, modern dancers such as Isadora Duncan, Loïe Fuller, and Maud Allan presented a new performative aesthetic in dance. Breaking from the narrative storytelling that dominated nineteenth-century vaudeville and ballet, these dancers advanced non-narrative movement, thereby encouraging a new aesthetic engagement from the audience, namely, one that was rooted in notions of corporeal sensation rather than narrative telos or (melo)dramatic pathos. These new responses, this dissertation argues, are reflected in the new tactics for writing the dancing body, which at once render problematic the putative objectivity of journalistic criticism and reveal the limits of traditional dance criticism’s focus on intricate technique and plot line. This dissertation pursues its argument by studying over 300 print reviews of dances performed by Fuller, Duncan, and Allan between 1890 and 1920 culled from North-American archives and representing a spectrum of print media—from mainstream national media, such as The New York Times, to regional newspapers, to more specialized theatre magazines—to reveal compelling insight into hermeneutic entanglements of language and movement. Informed by the work of recent performance studies (e.g. Phelan; Schneider; Taylor), this dissertation approaches this body of dance reviews from an inverse perspective from that represented by traditional dance history scholarship. That is, instead of reading reviews as documentation in order to understand these dances, the study explores how reviewers perform criticism, thus framing our understanding of modern dance in specific ways. This dissertation engages with the correlation between media and performance as either documentary or performative, arguing that writing performance offers promises for both types of engagement with the live event. Collectively, these reviews reveal that dance criticism involved a metacritical reflection on the significance of the critical writing act itself, and advanced a style of synesthetic metaphor to describe novel kinesthetic experiences of spectatorship. Ultimately, the new tactics to modern dance criticism not only revealed a crisis in articulation but prompted a performative style of writing dance criticism that went in tandem with the development of the dance review genre itself, whose placement in popular print media was mounting to become a regular feature by the 1930s.

“Feeling” in Modern Dance Print Media: Loïe Fuller, Isadora Duncan, Maud Allan

Between 1890 and 1920, modern dancers such as Isadora Duncan, Loïe Fuller, and Maud Allan presented a new performative aesthetic in dance. Breaking from the narrative storytelling that dominated nineteenth-century vaudeville and ballet, these dancers advanced non-narrative movement, thereby encouraging a new aesthetic engagement from the audience, namely, one that was rooted in notions of corporeal sensation rather than narrative telos or (melo)dramatic pathos. These new responses, this dissertation argues, are reflected in the new tactics for writing the dancing body, which at once render problematic the putative objectivity of journalistic criticism and reveal the limits of traditional dance criticism’s focus on intricate technique and plot line. This dissertation pursues its argument by studying over 300 print reviews of dances performed by Fuller, Duncan, and Allan between 1890 and 1920 culled from North-American archives and representing a spectrum of print media—from mainstream national media, such as The New York Times, to regional newspapers, to more specialized theatre magazines—to reveal compelling insight into hermeneutic entanglements of language and movement. Informed by the work of recent performance studies (e.g. Phelan; Schneider; Taylor), this dissertation approaches this body of dance reviews from an inverse perspective from that represented by traditional dance history scholarship. That is, instead of reading reviews as documentation in order to understand these dances, the study explores how reviewers perform criticism, thus framing our understanding of modern dance in specific ways. This dissertation engages with the correlation between media and performance as either documentary or performative, arguing that writing performance offers promises for both types of engagement with the live event. Collectively, these reviews reveal that dance criticism involved a metacritical reflection on the significance of the critical writing act itself, and advanced a style of synesthetic metaphor to describe novel kinesthetic experiences of spectatorship. Ultimately, the new tactics to modern dance criticism not only revealed a crisis in articulation but prompted a performative style of writing dance criticism that went in tandem with the development of the dance review genre itself, whose placement in popular print media was mounting to become a regular feature by the 1930s.

Poetic Transformations in Matisse's Earliest Dance Images

Matisse's early dance paintings Joy of Life, Dance (I), and Dance (II) appear in countless art books in which their public receptions are repeatedly treated in a superficial manner. The fame of these works needs to be understood in a fuller context for students of dance and art. Matisse's early dance paintings are carefully examined in terms of their historical influences. His exposure to Isadora Duncan, Loïe Fuller, and the Ballets Russes is considered. The frequent citation of specific folk dances Matisse saw at the time he created these works is challenged. What becomes significant is how poetically Matisse transformed the many sources he absorbed into his own reductive style. Matisse's decades-long interest in dance is demonstrated by select examples from his dance oeuvre. Even as an invalid, Matisse continued to work with dance themes. His joy in watching dance and making dance works, including those for ballet, reflected his passion for colour, motion, and expression of the liveliness he saw in dance. It is hoped that this article can lead to more interdisciplinary scholarship and teaching between dance studies and art history.

DANZA POBRE: UNA REFLEXIÓN SOBRE EL SURGIMIENTO DE LA DANZA MODERNA EN LOS ESTADOS UNIDOS

Haciendo alusión a la obra clásica Hacia un Teatro Pobre de Jerzy Grotowski (2004) y su Laboratorio Teatral, este artículo considera el surgimiento de la danza moderna en los Estados Unidos como una forma de hacer danza pobre. Esto es así porque el movimiento de transformación impulsado por los creadores de este estilo dancístico ofrece increíbles similitudes con los principios que formularía después Grotowski para los actores. Así pues, el teatro pobre como la danza moderna, a pesar de haber surgido en diversos espacios y tiempos, son dos movimientos análogos que comparten, entre otras cosas, la forma de hacer y concebir el arte. Sus mayores similitudes se encuentran en los siguientes principios: 1) El arte como vía negativa; 2) El arte como pobreza; y 3) El arte como encuentro espiritual. Para llevar a cabo esta analogía se utilizará una perspectiva histórico-biográfica en dos niveles. Uno, el histórico, que sirve para ofrecer un panorama general del contexto social que favoreció esta nueva creación dancística. Dos, el biográfico, que aborda brevemente algunos momentos de la vida de tres de los principales creadores de la primera generación de la danza moderna, a saber, Isadora Duncan, Ruth St. Denis y Ted Shawn. Palabras claveDanza Pobre. Danza Moderna. Teatro Pobre. Historia de la Danza.

GREAT AND BEAUTIFUL WOMAN OF THE EAST

This article analyzes the activities of two of the greatest women of the East, Tamara Khanum and Rosa Karimova, their life and work, heroic and selfless work during the Second World War. The article also highlights their difficult life path, provides information about how Tamara Khanum was called “Eastern Isadora Duncan”, how the Queen of Great Britain personally presented the outstanding artist with a high award for her contribution to art. And also, about Roziya Karimova – an Uzbek ballet dancer, choreographer, teacher, art critic, connoisseur and founder of the theory of Uzbek dance.

El filósofo es un bailarín: María Zambrano y la danza

Este artículo explica por qué la reflexión sobre la danza es un elemento central para entender el método de conocimiento propuesto por María Zambrano. Enfocándose especialmente en sus cuatro últimos libros, identifica y analiza tres ingredientes definitorios de su noción de la danza: el seguimiento y la circunambulación; la imitación de los movimientos de la naturaleza (que incluye una conexión con las ideas de Isadora Duncan); y el pensamiento de Nietzsche.

Dancing in the Modus of Self-Identification

The main idea of the article is to address the phenomenon of dancing as a type of creative activity in the modus of self-identification. Sociocultural (self-)identification within the framework of art is taken as the process and space of forming an outline — personal and collective — in relation to certain groups of values, norms and traditions, as a way to discover the boundaries of reflexivity and the possibility of their representation in an artistic act. Basing on the interpretation of reflection as self-directed thinking, this article solves the problem of showing the potential of art in general, and dancing in particular, in the aspect of formation and preservation of identity parameters. The identity is considered as the result of constructing metaphysical supports and methods of self-representation in the widest range: national, religious, ideological, gender, but above all — the actual artistic-stylistic one. In addition to the obvious value of beauty and harmony, the article highlights expressiveness and authenticity as the main axiological guidelines for the art of choreography. The author analyzes the high communicative potential of dancing as a type of artistic activity both at the professional and amateur levels. The article focuses on the specifics of self-identification procedures in the space of modern dance, interpreted in this context in a wide chronological field — from the emergence of “free dance” by Isadora Duncan to current trends in postmodern dance, “contemporary dance” and performative practices. The study concludes that dancing has a high axiological potential as an artistic activity that combines physical and metaphysical practices.

Reforming and Uniforming the Body

In ‘Marionettes Unmasked’, King Ubu is analysed as a masquerade and architectural construction. Jarry’s oversized body mask is distinguished from the art of the puppet and from Edward Gordon Craig’s Übermarionette. The masquerading actor in movement is situated and theorised, with consideration of Heinrich von Kleist’s commentary, and analyses from Schumacher, States and Taxidou. The chapter also includes thoughts on the performances of Isadora Duncan, Mary Wigman and Sadda Yakko. Head and body masks created by Marcel Janco and Rudolf Laban and presented at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zürich or at the Monte Verità in Ascona, Switzerland contribute to the discussion on disguise and camouflage in the era of Dada and Cubism. Masquerading and ‘Pirouettes on Eastern Fronts’ extend modernist responses to the Great War to Germany, Romania and Russia while citing the work of sculptors and other visual artists like Ernst Barlach, Constantin Brancuşi, Emmy Hennings and Käthe Kollwitz. Commedia dell’arte treatments in ‘Pierrot and Harlequin Disguised’ feature Picasso images and others created by Heinrick Campendonk, André Derain, Juan Gris and August Macke. Arnold Schönberg’s texts, images and music further complicate the role of Pierrot from Viennese point of view.