Week 6: Three Themes

I spent a lot of time this week trying to define my overarching themes that connect the theoretical components with the biographical details of LS. I made some very good headway and still have a long way to go.

1). Defining LS as a person. 
LS is unapologetically a deeply spiritual person. She is a seeker of wisdom, inspiration and healing through the arts and beyond. Having gathered her own brand of spirituality from life's circumstances, LS remains relentlessly open to whatever comes her way through the rhythm of the universe. 

a. What made LS unique and valid? Her technique, her international recognition and following and validation at European and American dance festivals, Dance Space as a home to her technique. Her ability to adapt and fluidly change forms like a chameleon. Her openness to change.

b. Why  hasn’t LS been documented? Her intuitive nature may be seen as invalid. (This week my research led to the ways in which intuition is used by different philosophers and religions.) Fusion and cross-pollination in the community and how that process developed the forms that exist now. Her ability to adapt and fluidly change forms like a chameleon. Her openness to change. She was young and female.

2). Music as a way of life. Metaphors within the musical form of jazz that assist in creating a sacred space. The universal chord: Improvisation, clave, rhythmic repetition, polyrhythm & the aesthetic of the cool.

3). Creating a Sacred space for students to have a personal transformation.
Defining LS’s technique and its relationship to “cultural performance” as defined by McKenzie. How the technique of LS and class formatting create space for personal transformation as a result of the surrender to the artistic practice. Distinguishing the Dance Space version of downtown dance (the more nihilistic theater dance.) My belief is the relationship to the music and the proximity to the other “world” music in the Dance Space building brought a spiritual component to the practice. This vibration at the foundation must be articulated carefully or rendered invalid in academia.

I think I have been dancing around this theme and not quite wanting to put it into words as it almost minimizes the experience. But I have to face it head on and find language that validates it in alignment with the west African forms that are at the foundation. It is indeed at the heart of who LS is. Joseph Campbell, renowned writer and mythologist used the phrase “to follow your bliss.”  When asked what he meant by that he explained the following:

“I came to this idea of bliss because in Sanskrit, which is the great spiritual language of the world, there are three terms that represent the brink, the jumping-off place to the ocean of transcendence: Sat, Chit, Ananda. The word “Sat” means being. “Chit” means consciousness. “Ananda” means bliss or rapture. I thought, “I don’t know whether my consciousness is proper consciousness or not; I don’t know whether what I know of my being is my proper being or not; but I do know where my rapture is. So, let me hang on to rapture, and that will bring me both my consciousness and my being.” I think it worked.”

— Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth, pp. 113, 120

Week 5: Digging Around in my Lit Review

I find it very humbling to take on the responsibility of documenting something historical. I am reminded of the lesson in our theory class about the importance of multiple stories and the danger of the single story. Sometimes academic writing feels to me like the ultimate battle of the single story, each author fighting for their own point of view as if it were fact. I am thinking a lot about this question: who gets to define history? I came upon this quote in the novel, A Gentleman in Moscow P.173, by Amor Towles.

“History is the business of identifying momentous events from the comfort of a high-back chair. With the benefit of time, the historian looks back and points to a date in the manner of a gray-haired field marshal pointing to a bend in the river on a map. There is was, he says. The turning point. The decisive factor. The fateful day that fundamentally altered all that was to follow.”

This idea of the benefit of time hit on something important that is swirling around in the thesis of my thesis and as of yet has not quite allowed me to put my finger on it….so here I will continue writing to shape thought….Defining something that has already happened may be astute and capture an element of reality but it must never be overlooked that it is one person’s perception of a myriad of experiences that go into any given reality.

I know my focus at this point is supposed to be on churning out chapters. I have been working consistently on this task and am always shocked how much time everything takes. I find that I generally have a creative burst after I have worked on some academic component of the work For example,  I find that digging around in my lit review is helping me create a vocabulary for the experiences I wish to document that have felt elusive and beyond words. So, in honor of that I would like to talk about an article from my lit review entitled Improvisation in Dance, written by Curtis L. Carter for The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism in Spring 2000 that I worked on this week.

Curtis has been a professor of philosophy at Marquette University since 1971 and is chairman of the university committee on fine arts. He considers himself an aesthetician and a curator and has been deeply involved in the dance field as both a critic and a writer. He is also member of the National Executive Committee of the American Dance Guild. This read was a feast of history, philosophy and varying perspectives. Ironically, it is unclear to me if the man has any personal experience with dance himself or just as an observer.

I found two parallel themes to this article by Curtis. The first is the idea that improvisation has contributed to the democratization of dance and to the development of an open form leaving history behind to create new pathways.  Yes, those were his words, “leaving history behind.” I still am stunned as I read it. As you can see, I disagree.

The second theme takes the traditional forms of dance and music from around the world and analyzes improvisation within the structures of the lineage it builds upon. I would argue that at times this opposes Curtis’s first theme in that by building on a lineage one is automatically incorporating history, not abandoning it.

Carter asks the question: Why is improvisation important to the arts? He then states with conviction that “improvisation is a means of suppressing the historical conscience that is necessary to break the causal chain between existing conventions and new developments in an artistic practice[1].” While I agree that improvisation has been one of many vehicles in changing artistic convention, I do not agree with the assertion that these developments must be about suppressing the historical conscience.

The historical landscape of improvisation is important to my work on the Simonson Legacy project because it is a defining characteristic of both jazz music and jazz dance. There are several aspects of improvisation that I felt were missing form Curtis’s analysis. Lynn Simonson often refers to the following terms when talking about jazz dance and music as it unfolded in New York City and Europe during the 1970s and 1980s: fusion, cross-pollination, openness to change, exploration and evolution. Simonson has always focused on the premise of curiosity as opposed to a nihilistic crushing of the past.

Dance Space Inc., the home of the Simonson technique from 1984-1999 was a hive of cross pollination and fusion. Simonson classes ran all day every day. Other studio spaces within the complex were rented for modern dance in all forms. Ballet classes peppered the schedule. The third floor of the building housed Lezly Dance and Skate school which pumped the air shaft full of roller disco, Motown hits and a full roster of Afro Caribbean and Haitian classes accompanied by traditional drumming. The basement space was home to Fareta School of African Dance and Drum, offering traditional West African dance and drum from Senegal and Guinea as well as Samba dance and drum from Brazil. The dueling rhythms at any time of day within the airshaft of the building would leave one unsure as to which continent they were on.

It is no surprise that Simonson remembers the following:

“We watched all of the real jazz teachers start to explore more world music and slower movement. And more modern movement. And then we watched the modern teachers get quirky and rhythmical. You know it’s all exploring. It’s that label thing again. Why does it need a label? And who is it that’s doing the defining?”

Simonson believes that fusion must be part of evolution, that there is always change. It’s part of the growth. It’s part of the exploring. It doesn’t make the past or the new form right or wrong, better or worse. It just is. Each element is informed by the last and brought forward into the new. We bring history with us.

I would argue that in order for improvisation to be a vehicle for change, as Curtis states, then the foundation rests on history and is carried forward through evolution. I do not believe that we can discard historical forms completely. Even if we move in a different direction it is in response to the past, therefore the past is contained within.

I am searching for the framework that defines Simonson’s perspective. And I have the luxury of seeking her approval once I think I have achieved my goal.

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[1] Carter, C. Improvisation in Dance. The Journal of Aesthetic and Art Criticism. 58:2. Spring 2000