I had the honour to present my work at the Ohio State University in Columbus, under its new name, Watching Someone Dancing.
This project is not about a dance performance that occupies a gallery space, but it is supposed to be an interactive exhibition that shows the complexity of the dancer's body, which has just performed on stage. |
Officially a World Heritage Site is a place that is listed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as of special cultural or physical significance. |
Is it then a site that preserves heritage which is significant for everyone in the world? The form (landscape) or the content (meaning) is what safeguarded by UNESCO?
Maybe it does not really differ from a dancing body, which also has a tangibility (skin + flesh + bones), while it presents and transmits something intangible (the dance)...
I subscribed for the course 'Performance of Heritage' at the University of Roehampton.
QUOTES FROM THE MODULE RATIONALE:
Performance of dance, storytelling, and music has now become a key part of contemporary curatorial practices in the context of museums, gallery exhibitions and historic sites.
This module will investigate these recent uses of dance as heritage, and of dance as an instrument for the performance of heritage.
By acknowledging dance makers and performers as primary agents of interpretation and theorisation, the module will explore how and why new performance contexts are created and recreated and how contemporary dance performance can bring valuable interpretations of past contexts of what we call heritage.
ASSESSMENT:
Criteria for Choreographic presentation
The choreographic presentation is not a fully completed work, but a proposal for a project (such as dance choreography project/installation, dance animation, provocation or exhibition) in a museum/gallery/historic site. The concept and its context are to be researched, planned and presented with an emphasis on aspects of dance as intangible heritage, or an investigation of intangible cultural heritage as a performance and interpretive tool.
It should reveal:
- An embodied understanding of the role of dance and/or choreography within Public Art contexts.
- A closely linked association with curatorial practice.
- An awareness of how spectators might be engaged with your event.
- Working processes that take into account the politics of current curatorial practises within the chosen context.
- An understanding of the notion of dance as intangible heritage, the issues surrounding its performance and its significance to places of heritage (such as historic sites, public spaces, or the context of museums or galleries).
The course was taught by Tamara Tomic-Vajagic, Emilyn Claid and Helena Hammond.
Performance of dance, storytelling, and music has now become a key part of contemporary curatorial practices in the context of museums, gallery exhibitions and historic sites.
This module will investigate these recent uses of dance as heritage, and of dance as an instrument for the performance of heritage.
By acknowledging dance makers and performers as primary agents of interpretation and theorisation, the module will explore how and why new performance contexts are created and recreated and how contemporary dance performance can bring valuable interpretations of past contexts of what we call heritage.
ASSESSMENT:
Criteria for Choreographic presentation
The choreographic presentation is not a fully completed work, but a proposal for a project (such as dance choreography project/installation, dance animation, provocation or exhibition) in a museum/gallery/historic site. The concept and its context are to be researched, planned and presented with an emphasis on aspects of dance as intangible heritage, or an investigation of intangible cultural heritage as a performance and interpretive tool.
It should reveal:
- An embodied understanding of the role of dance and/or choreography within Public Art contexts.
- A closely linked association with curatorial practice.
- An awareness of how spectators might be engaged with your event.
- Working processes that take into account the politics of current curatorial practises within the chosen context.
- An understanding of the notion of dance as intangible heritage, the issues surrounding its performance and its significance to places of heritage (such as historic sites, public spaces, or the context of museums or galleries).
The course was taught by Tamara Tomic-Vajagic, Emilyn Claid and Helena Hammond.
Among the wolves Mowgli belonged to humans, but among the villagers he was considered to be an animal. How the main character of The Jungle Book (by Ruyard Kipling) could decide which community to be part of?
I felt similar lots of times: being a "dancer/mover" at the University of Pécs (Faculty of Humanities) and being a "philosopher" in the dance academy. I was expected to put myself either in the first or the second box, but not just floating in-between. Now I see this dichotomy rather as an advantage than a frustrating feature of mine. Shifting positions and so thus making connections became my lifestyle and currently I am seeking for performative methods that melts together dance practice and dance theory.
During the early and middle twentieth century the professional dance trainings were named after famous choreographers, for example Graham-technique and Cunningham-technique, and ‘the dancer's body [was] an efficient machine shaped by particular technique methods’ (Andrée Grau in Preston-Dunlop: Dance words) that contribute to the integrity of a repertoire. Later the focus shifted from choreography to pedagogy, hence dance creators (e.g. Xavier Le Roy and Jérôme Bel) became more committed to the notion that teaching should be ‘a central component of their artworks’ (Milder pp. 13). The forefathers of this movement were the conceptual artists (e.g. Joseph Kosuth, Dan Graham, Bruce Nauman), between 1966 and 1975, who tried to equate the conception and the material realization of an artwork, and renewing the modernist dogma that art necessarily has a visually perceivable nature. Art critic Clement ‘Greenberg was of the opinion that it was the task of every artistic genre to question its fundamental conditions in order, self-reflexivity, to arrive at its own essence’ (Marzona pp. 7). Therefore art and the discourse about art became closer to each other, first through performances of the mentioned concept artists, than through conceptual dance pieces and lecture performances.
- Dirksen, J., Milohnic, A., Wagner, M. et al. (2009) Lecture Performance published by the Kölnische Kunstverein and the Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade
- David Marzona (2005) Conceptual Art, Taschen
- Patricia Milder: Teaching as Art: The Contemporary Lecture-Performance
- Alberro, A. & Stimson B. (2000) Conceptual Art – A Critical Anthology, The MIT Press
- Mette Bovin: Provocation Anthropology: Bartering Performance in Africa
Lucas Lixinski: Selecting Heritage: The Interplay of Art, Politics and Right
‘Intangible cultural heritage [ICH] can be defined in two different ways. On the one hand, as a concept which is dependent on tangible cultural heritage, it acts as the underlying culture to any given expression, encompassing the processes, skills, and beliefs leading to the creation of tangible works. … On the other hand, as an independent type of heritage, it also involves story-telling, songs, dances, among other forms of expression which cannot be ordinarily fixated in material means.’
(Lixinski pp. 83)
In order to map the range of the possible group rights in the national identity-building process, which for ICH can be an effective instrument, Lixinski suggests to review the expression ʽcommunity’ as well. For Lixinski the major relating concept is ʽcomplementarity’ in the sense that the members of a community are not only bearers of an ICH, but also responsible parties for its safeguarding. The revealing question of whether ʽthe particular ICH belong[s] to an entire national group or to a segment of society’ (Lixinski pp. 90).
Richard Kurin: Museums and Intangible Heritage: Culture Dead or Alive?
Richard Kurin in his article starts with a commentary upon the term ʽsafeguarding’. He believes that it is not the objectified product, a documentation or transcription, but the exact practice (e.g. singing or dancing) is what we need to keep alive. It will not necessarily remain in its pure or authentic form, because it is attached to some aspects of life, so over time it might become different, such as the community itself transforms.
Georgiana Gore & Andrée Grau: Dance, cultural heritage, and the training of future heritage “managers”: Anthropological reflections in Fisvik, A. M. & Stranden, M. (Re)Searching the Fields – Festschrift in Honour of Egil Bakka, Fagbokforlaget, pp. 117-138
Who can help to maintain this process? There is a say that as a student in my MA programme, called Choreomundus International MA in Dance Knowledge, Practice and Heritage, I have been trained to become a 'heritage manager'. Kurin claims that even perhaps the universities and the museums might fulfil the training providers’ role and by their expert staff they can be vehicles for research and interaction, it should be avoided to overestimate them (us?), because 'they tend to like [the] culture dead and stuffed' (2007: 14).
Beside all these, I share my supervisors’ objective to train us, ‘researchers [to] extend [ourselves] beyond [our] culturally given competence, and, thus, question the bodily knowledge [we] take as given’ (pp. 129). During my studies in Choreomundus, I learnt a lot about reflexivity and particular methods to understand our shared humanity.
By the reason of this, my aim is to share this gained knowledge and bring the audience closer to what they adore only from far distance. I want to encourage everyone to go beyond the barriers created between artists and non-professionals, thus to observe and investigate (dance) life from various perspectives.
This page is devoted to give a palette of all the materials that inspired this 'Body Heritage' project.
concept: Kinga Szemessy
Studied linguistics, literature, history of theatre and film studies (PTE), then finished her BA as a dancer in Budapest (BCDA), and finally enrolled to the international MA course called Choreomundus Dance Knowledge, Practice and Heritage.
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