Analytic post-modern dance is dance that can be done without music or props, aiming to show off the dance and movements without distractions. This type of dance “rejected musicality, meaning, characterization, mood, and atmosphere” (Banes xiv). It replaced those losses with costume, lighting, and objects that could be used in purely functional ways. Banes announces in her book Terpsichore in Sneakers: Post-Modern Dance that analytic post-modern dance was created for the pleasure of the dancer, not for the audience. In fact, she makes it out to seem like the audience’s opinion doesn’t even matter.
Steve Paxton, a post-modern dancer and choreographer, utilized analytic post-modern dance concepts in his contact improvisational style of dance, as we saw in the video today. His dance technique entails multiple dancers making physical contact with one another in totally, “improvised” manners. He commented early on in the video that he wanted his audience to focus on the spontaneity of his dancers’ movements rather than be distracted by music and intentions in the dance. Banes writes about the same thing.
Banes wrote, “non-dancers suddenly became dancers because of the informality and flexibility” of the new wave (Banes 13). Paxton agreed with this, and allowed for his dancers to be their own choreographers. This was the only way to ensure sure spontaneity, as every dancer had a different motion in their head.
Paxton later remarked that playing around with gravity was a key element to this type of dance. He tried to show the importance of gravity on movements: how it would create a flowing dance (a dance without stops) and a dance that would never allow for the loss of contact. This also relied heavily on precise timing, as I will mention below.
Paxton tried to show his audience a new form of dance. One of his improvisational dances was called Flat, in which the dancers got dressed and undressed in real time (Banes xvii). Banes writes on page 17– in regards to timing – that an action, “is executed without regard to grace… or technical skill. The action takes exactly the length of time it might take outside the theater.” This use of timing is key to both analytic post-modern dance and to Paxton’s ideas of what his dance should look and feel like.
Kyle (Blog B)
