Pascal Rambert’s A (micro) history of world economics, danced was the first dance performance I have ever seen. I went into the La Mama Theater in the dark, not really knowing what to expect for this performance. I walked in curious, excited to see how Rambert would compact the “collective economic history over centuries” into a 90-minute piece.
As perceived by the title, there was a decent amount of information about economics taught to us by philosopher Méchoulan. His lectures usually took place with the same music playing in the background and the mass of dancers moving about around him as they acted out activities that they would do within their daily lives. I listened and focused on Méchoulan during his his first few lectures but by the middle half of the performance, I couldn’t help but drown out his voice with the music and the movements of the dancers. I’m not exactly sure if Rambert purposely put Méchoulan’s lecture within the collection of movements to show the population throughout the world that continues on with their lives without really understanding the current economy, but I feel like doing so might have had the counter effect because I ended up getting distracted by the dancers whenever Méchoulan would talk. “Lecture” is probably the only proper word to describe Méchoulan’s spew of information; all the talking took away from the “dance” quality of the piece – I felt like I was sitting in class more than watching a performance.
Among the eventually dreary speeches, I did appreciate the dancers that comprised the background scene. I loved the diversity among the dancers, from the little girl to the older woman who lead the choir, from the young Asian man who wore a dress shirt and slacks to the middle aged woman with bleached blonde hair and sparkly leggings. These contrasts among the dancers made the environment much more unique. One of my favorite parts of the performance was when the dancers, who were originally all individuals, found another dancer to pair with and hold for a moment before continuing on. After this, a series of performers came up one by one to the microphone to reveal to us what they had been writing on their papers earlier on in the performance. I remember one woman said, “I do not call myself an artist. That is a name I will let others put upon me if they wish. Artist – it’s a big place, perhaps I am always traveling towards it.” That line struck me because I realized that these performers themselves were moving out of their usual comfort zones themselves. They might each have different artistic talents but for this piece, a good handful of them might have been doing this type of “experimental dance” for the first time. These short readings made the performance much “softer” and personable, very different than the atmosphere created earlier by the impersonations by the 3 French performers and the lectures by Méchoulan.
Although I did not find the overall piece very cohesive or interesting, I feel like the choir helped make up for many of the downfalls. The organized singing and timings of the choir helped balance back out the distractions and somewhat “chaotic” qualities of the piece. Rambert’s piece was different than what I would’ve thought a dance performance would’ve been, it seemed more like a theater piece than a dance. In the end, I will still say I left La Mama with a smile because I really enjoyed the addition of the choir and the varied population of dancers.
-Winnie Yu (Blog A)
Similar to Winnie, Pascal Rambert’s “A (micro) history of world economics, danced” was my first experience with a dance performance. I also wondered how one could possibly explain economics through dance, and I was very intrigued to see what this performance would have in store.
The part of the performance that peaked my interest the most was the variation of dancers. There were men, women and children and each was unique in their own way. There was no uniform costume or “look” to any of the dancers. I was captivated at how because each dancer was unique, they gave a good representation of the world as a whole. Every person in every country contributes the world economy, and all of these people are radically different. Throughout the performance, each person seemed to be doing their own thing, but if you watched carefully you could see that there was a pattern to their movements. Everything that the dancers were doing seemed to flow nicely with the rest of the dance, even though their actions didn’t always appear to make sense or be very graceful.
One way in which I found the performance to be a disappointment was in that it didn’t truly fit my own definition of a dance, or at least what I envision a dance as in my head. Like I stated previously, I do not have any prior experience with dance, but people going through the motions of daily activities, such as opening cabinets or pouring drinks, is not what comes to mind immediately for me. In addition to this, I did not find that the actions of the dancers actually told a story about economics at all, which was the part of the performance that I was looking forward to seeing. Instead, we were listening to lectures, for the most part, that explained the history of economics while the dancers kept moving in the background.
Overall, I would say that I was a little disappointed by the performance. Parts of it were interesting, and I enjoyed watching the different dancers all work as one, while doing different things, but the dance did not accomplish what I thought it would.
Like Winnie, I watched my first dance performance, Pascal Rambert’s “A (micro) history of world economics, danced” last Friday. Besides what few ballet/tap dance lessons I took when I was young and ball-room dancing during my senior year of high school, I don’t really have any dance experience. Therefore, I came in with a blank slate, especially regarding modern dance. What I did know beforehand was that La Mama was an experimental theatre and “has a world wide reputation for producing daring work… that defies form and transcends boundaries of language, race, and culture”. I also knew I liked economics, so I was definitely looking forward to it.
Overall, I would say I had a more positive impression of the performance. I came in prepared for something unique and interesting, and I think I got what I expected. Although it was more of a theater than a dance like the title suggests, the theme of the work still showed. I’ve always seen economics in a very scientific point of view, so it was enlightening to see it through various artistic expressions: dancing, acting, singing, reciting, and reading their writing. During the lectures of Eric Mechoulan, which could have been a class lecture, I also somewhat distracted by the dancers moving around and pretending to carry out daily activities. However, I found that the music helped me focus and when I did, I enjoyed the insight he gave behind the different formations by the dancers. Also, the reciting of the three narrators at the mic was hard to understand (probably because of the accents) and I was a bit confused by the repetitive hand motions. On the other hand, the skits were very lively and added humor to the performance.
There was also a lot of diversity in terms of the age ethnicity, and the outfits of the dancers. I thought it was fitting because it seems to represent that economics applies to everyone in society. I really liked the part where the dancers took turns presenting one item they valued and some dancers shared their stories what they wrote at the microphone. Economically, it shows how important material objects are, but personally, it helped me get to know the dancers a little better. At this point, I did notice that sometimes the dancers spoke over one another by accident, but I understood they intended this aspect of spontaneity. Afterwards, everyone put lined up their items in the front, which smoothly transitioned to the family living on the streets with all their property. Granted the piece may have had some weaknesses, but there were definitely many strengths that I appreciated.
~Erica Kwong (Blog B)