CRITICAL ENDEAVOR 2010 PROGRAM
Seminar 1: TEXTS, INTERPRETATION, AND CRITICISM
Gurur Ertem | 18&19.10.2010 | 11:00 – 18:00 | MSUFA Bomonti Campus Dance Department
Keywords: Interpretation, hermeneutics, criticism, performativity, performative writing, author, authority, reader
The “truth” or the “meaning” of a text/performance is not hermeneutically sealed. One arrives at an understanding of performance through a dialogical process of interpretation. Considering criticism as an interpretive endeavor and as an open process, this introductory seminar aims to build a reflexive understanding of what it means to interpret a text/performance. In our discussions we will be interrogating the differences and/or the distances between a review, criticism, and analyis. We will also explore the ways in which one can articulate informed judgment and analytical opinion yet remain accessible.
Gurur Ertem is a sociologist, dramaturge and curator. She is the coâ€founder of Bimeras Cultural Foundation and is the artistic director of the Istanbul based contemporary dance and live arts festval iDANS. She is the coâ€editor—with Åebnem Selışık Aksan—20.Yüzyılda Dans Sanatı: Kuram ve Pratik (BoÄŸaziçi Üniversitesi Yayınları, 2007); the editor of ÇaÄŸdaÅŸ Dansta Solo? In Contemporary (Bimeras 2009), and the coâ€editor—with Noémie Solomon—of Dance On Time! (Bimeras, 2010). As a doctoral candidate at the New School for Social Research in sociology, she is researching on whether or not one can consider the contemporary dance scene as a transnational “artâ€world”.
Seminar 2: THEATRICALITY OF THE PERFORMING ARTS
Jeanâ€Marc Adolphe | 20&21.10.2010 | 11:00â€18:00
Theatre, dance and visual arts have entered a process of hybridization in their respective fields. In the performing arts, staging and choreography are being shaken up and challenged by the “performing”. Consciously or not, a whole history of the artâ€performance is called up and recycled. But the “performance”, which was uniquely transgressive, has always rejected theatricality. There is indeed a new fusion going on, between the moment of the action and the time for the “rehearsal/repetition”. Which tools could we use to evaluate interdisciplinary creations that come from this dynamic? As far as the critic is concerned, we need to question the pertinence of aesthetics: when we look at something, what does the reflection tells us?
Jeanâ€Marc Adolphe is a critic, writer/essayist and artistic counselor. He runs “Mouvement”, a French interdisciplinary magazine, which he founded in 1993 (www.mouvement.net). Moreover, he has worked for many international theatres and festivals. He is also in charge of SKITE, a laboratory which focuses on search and artistic creation; the 5th edition just finished and brought together for a month 80 artists in Caen (France)
Seminar 3: WATCHING BEFORE JUDGING
Pieter T’Jonck |22&23.2010 | 11:00 – 18:00 | MSUFA Bomonti Campus Dance Department
This seminar focuses on the way one works with the material of the performance itself to make a critical text. It is about the importance of watching accurately before judging. Subsequently, it is discussed how this analysis can bring forth broader considerations and an evaluation of a choreography through compariso within and without the dance field.
Pieter T'Jonck is an architect, but equally active as a dance and theatre critic for various media since 1983 such as Veto (1983â€85), De Standaard (1985â€2000), De Tijd (2001â€06), De Morgen (since 2006) and Klara (since 2006). Besides, he published regularly about performing arts, architecture and urbanism in journals such as Etcetera, DWB, Ballettanz and A+, and contributed to books. After 25 years of continuous activity as a newspaper critic, T’Jonck has become an indispensable witness of the performing arts in Flanders and elsewhere.
Lecture (Open to the general public): COSMOPOLITANISM, AGONISTIC POLITICS AND ARTISTIC PRACTICES
Chantal Mouffe |23.10.2010 | 17:00 | Pera Museum Auditorium
The worldâ€renowned political theorist Chantall Mouffe will examine if her critique of the cosmopolitan approach in the field of politics s also valid in the cultural field or if it is possible to envisage a form of cosmopolitanism suited to artistic practices.
Chantal Mouffe is Professor of Political Theory at the Centre for the Study of Democracy at the University of Westminster in Lodon. She has taught and researched in many universities in Europe, North America and South America and she is a corresponding member of the Collège International de Philosophie in Paris. She is the editor of Gramsci and Marxist Theory (Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1979), Dimensions of Radical Democracy. Pluralism, Citizenship, Community (Verso, London, 1992) Deconstruction and Pragmatism (Routledge, 1996)and The Challenge of Carl Schmitt, (Verso, London, 1999); the coâ€author with Ernesto Laclau of Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics (Verso, London, 1985) and the author of The Return of the Political (Verso, London, 1993), Le politique et ses enjeux (La Decouverte/M.A.U.S.S, 1994), The Democratic Paradox (Verso, London, 2000) and On the Political (Routledge, London, 2005).
Seminar 5: REGIMES OF DESCRIPTION: HOW TO CREATE DANCE WITH WORDS
Franz Anton Cramer |24&25.10.2010 | 11:00 – 18:00 | MSUFA Bomonti Campus Dance Department
The act of describing is an essential factor for writing “about”. Description was part of the canonical system of rhetoric. It is a poetic tool. And it is a scientific procedure. In dance and performance writing, the descriptive materialization to a large extent creates, brings into being its object: Dance. The lectureâ€workshop tries to reflect on this pivotal element and analyses some strategies of description that are important in and for dane appreciation. The title alludes to two important readings: The seminal book by J. L. Austin on “Speech Act Theory” (How to Do Things with Words, 1962), and the publication of the proceedings of an international conference held at Princeton University on the subject Regimes of Dscription: In the Archives of the 18th Century (2005). Both might be an important element of preparation. Works presented within the iDANS festival will serve as examples and as “case studies” for the workshop sessions. Participants’ own descriptive writing will also be a topic.
Franz Anton Cramer, PhD, is fellow at the “Collège international de philosophie” in Paris. He studied Spanish Language and Literature, Art History and Theater at Berlin’s Free University. In 2003/4 he was managing director of the Dance Archives in Leipzig, from 2004 to 2006 researcher in residence at the Centre national de la danse, Paris. Since 2007 he is also project coordinator for the Dance Heritage program launched by Tanzplan Deutschland. A visiting professor with the study program Contemporary Dance, Context, Choreography (BA) at University of the Arts in Berlin until March 2010, he contributes regularly to the specialized press and holds workshops on the history of contemporary dance, dance criticism, and related issues. In 2008 he published the book Total Freedom. Cultures of Dance in France between 1930 and 1950.
Seminar 6: ASIAN DRAMATURGIES
Tang Fu Kuen |26.10.2010 | 13:00 – 17:00 | MSUFA Bomonti Campus Dance Department
In this seminar, we will review texts on Asian performance registers that are not normative to western spectatorship. We will also discuss the effective ways to look at and write about works that challenge aesthetic conventions and our non-knowing, and limn the possibilities of fair interpretation and evaluation.
Tang Fu Kuen is a critic, cultural dramaturge, and a curator. Since the late nineties he is writing dance criticism for Singapore's main newspaper The Straits Times and the magazine The Ars Magazine. He is also affiliated with European specialized magazines such as Ballet Tanz and Performance Research. Tang Fu Kuen conveys in these media clear statements on interculturalism in dance and performance, but explicitly from an Asian point of view. He curated the Singapore Pavilion in Venice Biennale 2009, presenting artist Ming Wong who won Special Mention. He is the co-curator of the In-Transit Festival in Berlin in 2010.
Seminar 7: TBA
TBA |28&29.10.2010 | 11:00 – 18:00 | MSUFA Bomonti Campus Dance Department
TBA
Session 8: ASIAN DISCUSSION AND THE DECISION FOR THE AWARD(S)
31.10.2010
15:00 †18:00 | MSUFA Bomonti Campus Dance Department
READINGS
Joan Acocella_What Critics Do
Elizabeth Zimmer_The Crisis in Criticism
Andre Lepecki_Rethinging Words.A Field Trip to Dance Criticism
Andr Lepecki_Unâ€doing the Fantasy of the Dancing Subject
Andre Lepecki_Dance without Distance
Andre Lepecki_Dance of Differences
Diana Theodores_Rehabilitating Criticism
Diana Theodores_on Critics and Criticism in Dance
Twenty Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Start to Write About a Performance
Compiled for the Dance Critics Association by Deborah Jowitt, Marcia Siegel and Elizabeth Zimmer
1. How much space (how many words) will I have for this review?
2. How much time do I have to write it?
3. What formal demands are made by my publication that will affect the way I structure my lead?
4. What credits to I have to work into the review? Is an "ID box" required? A title? who is the audience for this dance?
5. Who will be reading this review?
6. What facts (as opposed to opinions) about the performance are germane to my readership and to the historical record?
7. What is the strongest impression I carry away for the dance event? How might I build the review around this impression?
8. What idea can I express completely about this dance within the space and time available?
9. What can I extract from my notes that is helpful?
10. Have I read and interpreted the program notes with intelligence and skepticism? What were the performers actually doing? What kind of people do they appear to be, and what does their movement reveal about the organization of their society?
11. Where is the choreographer coming from? What's the cultural attitude or context or framework behind the choreography? In what movement idiom does it present its ideas?
12. What information about the artist's training and background is important for my readers to know?
13. What was the visual environment (space, sets, costumes, lighting) and what was its effect on the work?
14. How does the choreographer use the music or other sound accompaniment?
15. What kind of atmosphere or environment does the music suggest?
16. Does the work succeed? If so, how? If not, why not?
17. How skillful are the dancers? What was the quality of their performance?
18. What else do I think or feel about the work that hasn't been touched on above?
19. What extraâ€dance factors — the seat I was given, my frame of mind that day, the dinner I had (or didn't have), friendships or enmities with anyone connected with the production — may be affecting my response to the concert? How can I avoid letting these factors distort my review?
20. What are my difficulties in assembling this review? How can I address these so it is easier next time?
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