{"id":1220,"date":"2016-01-14T23:17:44","date_gmt":"2016-01-14T23:17:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/?p=1220"},"modified":"2016-01-15T13:52:47","modified_gmt":"2016-01-15T13:52:47","slug":"vanishing-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/2016\/01\/vanishing-act.html","title":{"rendered":"Vanishing act"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Chums<\/a><\/p>\n

Dance: such a fragile artform. Written in bodies, tucked in memories, if it isn\u2019t seen, it dies.<\/p>\n

I was reminded of this melancholy fact by two recent reports. First, the Swedish choreographer Mats Ek<\/a> appeared to announce that he was calling a halt both to new work and to revivals of his pieces, as he wasn\u2019t prepared either to supervise them personally or let them proceed without him. It was a surprise \u2013 Ek is only 70 \u2013 and a sorrow too: it seemed that a major European choreographer\u2019s oeuvre might disappear at a stroke. (The decision had added poignancy as Bye,<\/em> his rich solo for Sylvie Guillem, was the coda to her own farewell programme last year.)<\/p>\n

Yesterday, Lloyd Newson<\/a>, director of DV8 dance theatre, announced that he was taking a break from the company he co-founded 30 years ago, and that its work\u00a0would be put on hold. Newson\u2019s investigations into sexuality, religion and the limits of tolerance (most recently, John<\/a><\/em>) have been ambitious amalgams of squiggling movement and highly-charged interview: they no doubt demand vast reserves of time and energy.<\/p>\n

\"Hubbard<\/a>

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago rehearse Ek’s Casi-Casa. Photo: Todd Rosenberg<\/p><\/div>\n

In a subsequent interview, Ek suggested rumours of his retreat were exaggerated. He told Roslyn Sulcas<\/a> that he wanted to \u2018get off the road\u2019 for a while: \u2018for the next two years, I am making a definite stop to performance and production and selling my works\u2026 If I want to come back to work with stage art in various forms after this experience of otherness, I will. And if not, I won\u2019t.\u2019<\/p>\n

Like Bagpuss<\/a>, when the choreographer goes to sleep, all his works go to sleep too. Dance is unusual in tying works of art so closely to their creator. If a playwright takes time out, their existing texts are available for exploration. If a playwright dies, an estate may face difficult decisions about how to keep the work alive (as I discovered last year), but scripts are not interred with their author.<\/p>\n

Dance is different, especially beyond ballet companies, who can maintain work in the repertoire and have made decisive strides in ensuring it is comprehensively notated and recorded. But, especially in contemporary dance and single-artist-led companies, the work is more dependent on the creator\u2019s presence. No one other than Newson will revive DV8\u2019s back catalogue (though it would be fascinating to see what would happen if they did). If Ek stuffs his dances under the floorboards, they may fade from view. Unperformed is unremembered.<\/p>\n

Last autumn, I saw an eyes-on-stalks mash-up of work by Lea Anderson<\/a>, who in 2011 lost funding<\/a> for her companies (pictured top in Dance of Death<\/em>) the Cholmondeleys (ladies) and Featherstonehaughs (gents). 25 years of inventive, gender-savvy and hilarious work vanished in an instant. In October, Anderson devised Hand in Glove<\/em><\/a> for London Contemporary Dance School students: a brilliant collage of back-catalogue snippets, including amazing Elvis retreads, Weimar visions and Egon Schiele contortions. Many of the sequins, merkins and other astonishments were designed by Sandy Powell<\/a>, now garlanded film designer (Carol).<\/em> Hand in Glove <\/em>will also appear at the V&A in April. But, with no company to sustain her, when will we next see Anderson at work?<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve written before<\/a> about how it would be wonderful to see ballet companies take a fresh look at the artform\u2019s classics, new visions of its swans and princesses. How interesting it would be to revive modern dance works in the same way \u2013 to see if they are amenable to new stagings, radical new readings, being danced on new designs and bodies from another (dance) planet.<\/p>\n

Slowly, some moves are being made to break the single-artist model \u2013 to save them from the Sisyphean grind of sustaining a body of work by will alone, to ensure it doesn\u2019t disappear when it all becomes too much. Film is doing a lot to widen the pool of available resource \u2013 the merry archivists of YouTube are heroes against oblivion \u2013 but live performance is where dance breathes. Some American companies are widening their pool beyond a single artist \u2013 notably Paul Taylor<\/a> and Stephen Petronio<\/a>, each of whom is welcoming modern classics by other choreographers into their repertoire. But until we find a way to think about the art beyond the artist, and about the work as distinct from its creator\u2019s will, then we may continue to shed brilliant dance without even noticing.<\/p>\n

Follow David on Twitter: @mrdavidjays<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dance: such a fragile artform. Written in bodies, tucked in memories, if it isn\u2019t seen, it dies. I was reminded of this melancholy fact by two recent reports. First, the Swedish choreographer Mats Ek appeared to announce that he was calling a halt both to new work and to revivals of his pieces, as he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1222,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[29],"class_list":{"0":"post-1220","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-dance","9":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1220"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1229,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1220\/revisions\/1229"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}