(9/12) Berger presents the idea in Ways of Seeing that “[a]n image is a sight which has been reproduced. It is an appearance, or a set of appearances, which has been detached from the place and time in which it first made its appearance and preserved.” However, dance is not an image, and I propose that it is not detached from its source. Dance is not a reproduction of a sight, it is the live reiteration of a feeling, sentiment, thought, or idea. Because dance is performed, because a human being must retrace the actions of the choreographer every time he or she rehearsed and performs, dance is alive, not a reproduction that, in Deborah Jowitt’s words, “hang about on walls to be revisited or wait by your bed with a bookmark in it.” Each time a dance is performed, the dancers feel a link to the choreographer, and because it is nearly impossible to understand a dance without knowing the context in which it was conceived, the dancers also learn about the history of the time during which the piece was created. In this sense, art in the form of dance (indeed, all performance) is never a reproduction in the way that paintings or sculpture is; the performers relive the thoughts and movements of the original performer of the piece, thereby crating a strong link between themselves (the present) and the choreographer (the past).

Many of Berger’s ideas about viewing art are applicable to dance and performance, like his proposition that the way people view is affected by a “whole series of learnt assumptions about art,” but by and large his excellent observations on the way art is viewed, interpreted, and felt by its audience is slightly inaccurate. For example, Berger describes a scenario in which a viewer of the “Virgin on the Rocks,” by Leonardo da Vinci, lists his or her assumptions about the painting as he or she views it: “‘. . . This painting by Leonardo is unlike any other in the world. The National Gallery has the real one. If I look at this painting hard enough, I should be able to feel its  authenticity. . . .'” When one views a dance performance, he or she may have had ideas similar to those of the viewer of “Virgin on the Rocks,” but a performance demands the viewer to be completely immersed in it, therefore leaving little time or mental space for the viewers to run an inner monologue as they watch dancers perform. The live aspect of dance prevents it from being a reproduction in the sense that a picture of a painting is a reproduction, and it immerses viewers so much so that their assumptions and preconceptions about the piece are put on a shelf as the performance takes place.

At Fall for Dance, one piece in particular reinforced my belief that dance is not a reproduction the way many other art forms are. “Chronicle,” by Martha Graham, was so powerful and exact in its portrayal of the feeling that, judging by recordings of Graham herself performing pieces she choreographed, it was less a reproduction than a reliving. The acute focus and exact movements of the dancers looked like they indeed belonged in 1936, the year “Chronicle” premiered. Though I am not particularly fond of the piece (the style itself is not one that I personally enjoy), I immensely appreciate that the movements of the dance are extraordinarily precise and difficult, and the thought that went into the telling of the anti-war message that “Chronicle” is. Like the playbill for this performance states, “The shock of Graham’s early movements is still evident in this vibrant choreography.” Though I was not fond of it, as I watched the performance I became completely immersed in it, and I could almost taste the atmosphere of 1936. Berger claims that if a piece is not the original, it loses some meaning and power. Graham’s “Chronicle” loses none of its great power as it is brought into the future.