(This paper was presented at iDANS Conference, 7 October 2007, Bogazici Univ. Istanbul and, with slight changes, at Tedance Conference, 22 November 2007, Culturgest, Lisbon. It is published in English and in Turkish in Solo? in Contemporary Dance, ed. Gurur Ertem, Bimeras - Istanbul, May 2009)
http://www.idans.org/
http://www.tedance.com/
Aylin Kalem
The title of this paper owes a lot to Steve Dixon’s recent book called Digital Performance.[1] In that book, there is a section called “The Theatre and its Digital Double” in which Dixon, by referring to Antonin Artaud’s book of essays called The Theatre and its Double,[2] relates his understanding of theatre and his notions of virtuality to the realm of digital performance. This gave me an inspiration for re-designing my former research papers centred on performances with new technologies, within the context of iDANS festival and its theme of solo with a question mark. So, I decided to visit the concept of solo in digital performance in relation to various methods of working on the double.
In general terms, digital performance concerns the conjunction of computer technologies with the live performance arts, as well as gallery installations. New technologies can be said to provide a new field of study for long considered ideas like virtuality. The notion of the double in performance was introduced with Antonin Artaud’s The Theatre and its Double published in 1938. And the metaphor has become concrete and actuated in the theory and practice of digital performance. Artaud’s notion of the double was centred on a primitivist and spiritualized vision of a sacred, transformational, and transcendental theatre. Artaud says: “all true effigies have a double, a shadowed self.” For Artaud, the double of theatre is its true and magical self... In his discussion of theatre as alchemy, Artaud was the first to coin the term ‘virtual body’, as a doubled reality or virtuality. Pierre Lévy, in his book called What is Virtual? explains virtualization as self-projection, which is a central question of the human existence.[3]
Similarly, according to the ethno-linguist Richard Bauman, all performance involves a consciousness of doubleness, through which the actual execution of an action is placed in mental comparison with a potential, an ideal, or a remembered model of that action.[4] The performance theorist Marvin Carlson emphasizes that performance is always performance for someone else even when that audience is the self; and what is central about the double consciousness is that it is not about the external observation.
Artaud’s ideas are being realized using the capabilities of the computer, in some works, like those of 4D Art (Anima-2002), (La Fura Dels Baus’s F@usto: Version 3.0 – 1998), and Marcel.li Antunez Roca (Afasia – 1998) In some of these performances, images of performers’ digital doubles are telematically transmitted to different locations where they dance or interact with distant partners in real time.[5] In some others, the interaction of the participant with the mechanism in an installation may create various ways of connecting one’s self to his own double.
Artists working with new technologies make research on the sensations of the body. Thecla Schiphorst, having been educated in informatics and in contemporary dance, seeks to integrate models of scientific representation to the experience of the physical body. In her article, “Bodymaps : artifacts of touch”[6] she talks of her interactive installation consisting of a sensorial surface of electro-magnetic sensors and of sensors for resistance capable of detecting touch, pressure and force exercised on the velvet surface that keeps the traces of the visitor’s hand. The spectator thus, grasps his actions through his own double, which are sent back to himself. The mechanism helps the spectator to perceive his own body, by transmitting his movements through the traces of his phantom body. The French philosopher Michel Bernard, emphasizes the double by referring to the intra-sensorial chiasm in his article “Sense and fiction, or the strange effects of the three sensorial chiasms” :
By sensing a material surface, I reveal by the act of sensing, in the passivity of my digital reaction, a contrary movement, an otherness. This otherness does not depend of the postulation of another person, but the fact that I am always double, by sensing, not as a psychological entity, but as a multiplicity of fictions, of simulacras (semblances) that surround each sensation.[7]
Michel Bernard, in his discussion about this chiasm gives the example of touching a table, and he stresses that there is a dimension, active and passive at the same time. This installation seems to reinforce this aspect of touching. It reflects back the gesture of the participant to himself, it gives him an awareness of his corporeality; it helps him to perceive himself and to perceive the world through his corporeality. This idea forms the basis of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology. The body is neither object nor subject, but is situated between the two and comprises both. The body finds an existence through the external world, and this world exists only in relation to him. In this case, the corporeality manifests itself by the act of touching, and the reverberation of this action by audio or visual reactions situates the body between an active and a passive state. This experience introduces the participant with his own double and allows him to navigate in the space between the physical body and the phantom body. Thecla Schiphorst formulates this in an explicit way:
As the viewers place their hands closer to the surface or skin of the installation, a complex soundscape responds to their proximity, and movement. The image shudders. The viewer becomes participant through the sense of touch. There is no escape from entering the 'third space' between objective seeing and subjective feeling.[8]
This installation, then seeks to show the process of ‘simulation’ and of the fictive separation (‘dédoublement’) stimulating the sensorial system that Michel Bernard speaks of in his article “Sense and fiction”.
Moreover, another aspect is put forth in this installation which refers directly to Michel Bernard’s second chiasm. Schiphorts remarks:
This work focuses on the experience based on the proprioceptive knowledge, on the sensed of what is being perceived as a skin, and on listening by touching, visualization by hearing, all of which is integrated by the attention.[9]
In parallel to this, Michel Bernard, speaking of the second chiasm inter-sensorial mentions the listening eye.
My gaze is traversed by a mode temporarily transforming the space that I have in front of me into a space of sound. My gaze produces a simulacra (semblance), a fiction constituted by the play of the specificity of the sound material. My eye has a tendency to break from the limits of a stable geometry, from the usual spatial characteristics. In each sense, there is the redoubling of the effect of another sense. There is then a certain confirmation of all this theory of simulation, of the production of fiction within the sensorial system.[10]
Thus, one more time, Schiphorst’s installation presents itself like a manifestation of the chiasm that Bernard speaks of. It is like a laboratory in the service of dance studies, where the corporeality is examined by stimulating the senses. The fact that the interface transmits the touch into sound or into image provokes the interaction of the senses. The proof of this installation seems to be like an exercise to establish and enrich the sensorial awareness.
Another very significant example of experiencing doubleness is in Paul Sermon’s performative installation called Telematic Dreaming dating 1992. The performer of the installation Susan Kozel explains the interaction between her physical body and her virtual body in her article called “Spacemaking : Experiences of a Virtual Body” She explains the set-up in her own words:
In Telematic Dreaming Sermon created a space for interaction between a performer and members of the public using a technology called telepresence. Using video projectors and monitors people in two separate rooms were drawn together. There was a bed in each room. I was alone on a bed in a room well removed from the public visiting the exhibition. My image was projected onto the bed in the room which was open to visitors, where they had the option to join me. Then video cameras in the public room transmitted the actions of the person on the bed with my image back to me in my room upstairs. I was able to interact with the person on the bed downstairs by watching both of our images on the monitors placed around my bed. The bed became my performance space. Our movement occurred in real time, but in a space which was entirely created by technology. I was alone on my bed, moving my arms and legs in physical space as if in some sort of hypnotic ritual dance, yet in virtual space I carried on intense physical improvisation with other unknown bodies.[11]
In this installation, the physical body is no more limited to its corporeal envelop but it is extended to its virtual double. Here, the double plays an essential role. Tele-presence allows the performer to be simultaneously in the real and the virtual spaces. In fact, the perception of the performer can never be in two spaces at the same time, but rather between the two. As Merleau-Ponty indicates in his book The Eye and the Spirit, “The human body is there when it makes a sort of criss-crossings between the seer and the seen, between the toucher and the touched, between an eye and the other, between a hand and a hand”[12]. Michel Bernard defines all this as « chiasms ». One is never the touched and the toucher, the seen and the seer at the same time. But the fact that the shifting between the two is very short and that the alternation from one to the other is instantaneous, allows the body to pass from one perception to the other, and thus, from one state of being to another.
The fact of existing with her own double in this experience allows Susan Kozel to pose the question of what is it to feel one’s own flesh? This otherness created through her own double, is due to the intra-sensorial chiasm which Michel Bernard talks of:
On one occasion, while thoroughly absorbed in interaction with another body I passed my hand over someone's leg, he placed his hand on my leg, when I followed his hand I touched my own leg - and was taken aback by its bulk. For an instant I didn't know what obstacle my hand had encountered after moving so freely in visual space. With vague feelings of guilt I realised that this foreign body was in fact my own! When I momentarily experienced my own body through my sense of touch it did not coincide with my body according to my sense of sight. The disorientation made me reassess what I took to be the frontier of my own body. Could it still be called a frontier if it was no longer fixed, but highly flexible and constantly changing?[13]
The act of watching her body in interaction with another body in real-time but in a created space, disrupts the perception of the performer. In this experience, the body’s sensation is aroused through the double since it is the virtual body that enters in contact with another body. The physical body is the seer but the seen as well, and the virtual body is the touched but also the touching one through the physical body’s movement. In this way, there is a strong relation created between the physical and the virtual body. Susan Kozel says that through pain, she was able to see a link between the seemingly abstract image of herself and her flesh. She describes her experience:
My real body asserted its presence as a response to the virtual image which had come to dominate my movement while performing. [14]
Here the body exists through the virtual because the mechanism allows her to gaze at herself. In that formulation, we hear the echo of André Marchand’s citation to which Merleau-Ponty refers:
In a forest, I sensed many times that it was not me who was looking at the forest. I felt that it was the trees that were looking and talking at me… I was there, listening… I believe that the painter should be pierced by the universe and should not want to pierce it. I am waiting to be interiorly submerged, to be hidden. I paint, may be to appear.[15]
The body appears then by projecting itself, by seeing itself through its double. By opposing against the commonly held belief, based on the recognition that in much of the technology consciousness is drawn out of the body and into an electronic construct, Kozel emphasizes that the experience was one of extending her body, not losing or substituting it.[16]
Armando Menicacci, a researcher in dance and new technologies, maintains that the central question of the human existence is based on self-projection, on virtualization in Pierre Lévy’s terminology.
The actual is what is experienced here and now in the course of this constant human process of tension that is focused on the imaginary. From then on, the digital, as the producer of virtual realities would not be alienating, but essentially human, because the process of virtualization is not only inherent in human but is proper to human. [17]
What Susan Kozel talks of concerning her experiences throughout Telematic Dreaming is a manifestation of this virtualization. This is about a total integration of the body through a corporeality achieved by the stimulation of the senses with the help of technology.
The perception of the external world is achieved by the projection of the imaginary through the process of virtualisation. Dance is a field where corporeality is operated by the order of the sensible, in which sensations are at play, and from which the body extends its limits. The collaboration of digital technology and dance creates a space of experimentation and enrichment of the senses. Corporeality does not depend simply on the materiality of the body, but rather of the imaginary that stimulates the sensations, in the way that Antonin Artaud conceived the double for the realm of theatre.
[1] Steve Dixon, Digital Performance, Leonardo 2007
[2] Antonin Artaud, The Theatre and its Double, 1938
[3] Pierre Lévy, Qu’est-ce que le virtuel?
[4] Marvin Carlson, Introduction to Performance
[5] Steve Dixon, Digital Performance,
[6] Thecla Schiphorst, “Bodymaps: artifacts of touch”
[7] Michel Bernard, “Sens et fiction, ou les effets étranges de trois chiasmes sensoriels”. Nouvelles de Danse, p.62
[8] Thecla Schiphorst, “Bodymaps: artifacts of touch”
[9] Thecla Schiphorst, “Bodymaps: artifacts of touch”
[10] Michel Bernard, “Sens et fiction, ou les effets étranges de trois chiasmes sensoriels”. Nouvelles de Danse, p.63
[11] Susan Kozel, “Spacemaking : Experiences of a Virtual Body” . Dance and New Technology Zone
[12] Maurice Merleau-Ponty, L’œil et l’esprit. Gallimard, 1964, p.21
[13] Susan Kozel, “Spacemaking : Experiences of a Virtual Body” . Dance and New Technology Zone
[14] Ibid.
[15] Maurice Merleau-Ponty, L’œil et l’esprit. Gallimard, 1964, p.31
[16] Susan Kozel, “Spacemaking : Experiences of a Virtual Body” . Dance and New Technology Zone
[17] Armando Menicacci, « L’enseignement de la danse face au numérique ». Nouvelles de Danse 40-41, Automne-Hiver, 1999, p.58
Showing posts with label Essays on Dance Performance and Digital Culture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Essays on Dance Performance and Digital Culture. Show all posts
Monday, January 21, 2008
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
DBM report
“A Brief Account of the Contemporary Dance in Turkey”
Aylin Kalem, June 2007
Contemporary Dance Scene entered into a very dynamic period, rapidly growing from 2000 onwards, with the emergence of a young contemporary dance community consisting of a diversity of dance people, not just dancers, which included the two generations and younger ones. One of the ways of generating such a community was simple: a mailing group devoted exclusively to the contemporary dance field was created. This new form of communication made it possible for dancers to be visible first among themselves, and it also functioned as a source of motivation to organize their structure and identity, as a mode of circulating knowledge, a space for exchanging ideas and occasionally as a forum for debate. This process, allowed dance people to see the importance of a network, and helped to build a kind of solidarity among dance people, to get into the practice of taking action as one body against common problems.
The first main problems were the lack of rehearsal and performance spaces, of financial support, of management and promotional skills, and of a cultural policy in the country, thus, unable to access an audience in general. However, these poor conditions gave birth to other dynamics, an awareness among the dance community, and of the necessity of taking the responsibility and action not only in artistic creation, but also in organization, networking, engaging in civil initiatives by contacting cultural centres, academic units, foreign cultural institutes, municipalities, etc… In this way, the dance community learned to work as a big unit, a big family.
After 2000, more and more dance people began circulating internationally. A number of young dancers have gone abroad for training, teaching, dancing, creating, and engaging in collaborative projects. And upon their return, they opened channels for other dancers to expand in similar ways.
And now, with Istanbul as the imminent European Cultural Capital in 2010, there really is a movement among the Istanbul dance people engaged in organizational and networking activities, and there is also a growing interest among international networks regarding contemporary forms of art in Istanbul.
However, one can say that this movement is more about improving the working and promotional conditions of the dance field in general. In other words, generally speaking, it is not an artistic movement, but rather a civil movement, to develop the field. So, we cannot really talk about specific artistic tendencies that are being built up, except perhaps in the work of a couple of choreographers like Aydın Teker and Taldans (Mustafa Kaplan & Filiz Sızanlı). It is more of a research in building strategies to keep sustainability, to become more visible and to exist on the international level.
One of the factors that have given momentum to the younger generation of contemporary dance has been offered by IKSV. The Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts has recently started to include young and new dance productions to the international programme of their Theatre Festival, and have contributed to their international diffusion by presenting the works of some young choreographers at its organizations in foreign countries.
ÇGSG -Contemporary Performing Arts Initiative- met for the first time in 2005 under the facilitation of Istanbul’s Bilgi University Management of Performing Arts programme, and then has continued to meet regularly in order to define the common problems, to take civil action through the engagement of local governmental institutions, and has lately organized a festival on the Asian side of Istanbul, where there is really very little going on in terms of contemporary artistic activity.
Garajistanbul, has very recently been founded to respond to the need of a performance venue, and dedicated its programme to dance and performance two days a week. Young choreographers found the opportunity to present their own works and to engage in collaborative works. There were, of course, other theatre venues before, but Garajistanbul started out as a contemporary dance/performance venue from the beginning with a new and adaptable setting, and has gained an identity as a performance space around which the contemporary dance community has at long last found a place to meet and exchange ideas.
On the other hand, there is a very small circle within the audience whose members are people who also work in the field of dance or are dance amateurs. It will still take a while to reach a more general audience. This is mostly due to the relative lack of a dance criticism in particular, and a tradition of good criticism on the arts in general. There is still no journal or magazine exclusively devoted to critical writings of contemporary dance. There is one dance magazine dedicated to popular dance in general, and there are good theatre magazines occasionally sparing some pages for reflective writings on dance, and very few examples in the newspapers. So, it can be said that there is no dance culture, around which reflection on dance is being fostered among intellectuals and dance followers.
The Growth of Dance in Turkey
Contemporary dance in Turkey seems to have originated primarily and historically in the works of the ballet dancers from the end of the 1960’s onwards. Considering the history of Ballet in Turkey, this movement deviating from classical ballet towards Modern and Contemporary Dance began shortly after the establishment of the State Ballet in Turkey.
Ballet in Turkey does not have a long history and it goes in parallel with the history of the Republic, founded in 1923. The first account of ballet dates back to 1921 when L. Krassa Arzumanova’s arrived in Turkey, after fleeing from the regime in Russia; a white Russian, trained at the Ballet School of St Petersburg. She was invited to Ankara in 1929 by Atatürk to set the grounds for classical ballet and thus, she was the first ballet teacher in Turkey. Her students gave their first performance in 1931 in Casa d’Italia. On the other hand, the institutional establishment of ballet in Turkey was established by Dame Ninette de Valois in 1948, under the name of Yeşilköy Ballet School in Istanbul. This school moved to Ankara in 1950, forming the Ballet Division of the Ankara State Conservatory. Since that time, there has been a very fast development for Ballet in Turkey with a growing amount of ballet dancers and choreographers in the State Conservatories, public houses and private schools.
However, the institutionalization of Modern or Contemporary Dance in Turkey is going through a much harder period compared to Ballet, and has not yet reached a satisfactory level. This situation seems to be strongly due to the lack of a recognizable cultural policy of the Ministry of Culture in general and the absence of a contemporary performing arts policy in particular. This situation has of course, many advantages for the flourishing of a rather independent form in artistic terms besides undeniably poor conditions for contemporary dancers. These disadvantageous conditions and common problems are one of the reasons for contemporary dancers and performance artists in Turkey to join together, and work in collaboration, producing through solidarity. So, there has been quite a movement in the last five years within an independent contemporary dance circle, composed of a variety of dance/performance people who come from different backgrounds in terms of dance training.
The first generation of Modern Dance in Turkey was of course quite homogeneous in terms of the dancers’ origins. It mainly consisted of some ballet dancers of the Ankara State Conservatory and Opera. Some of these dancers went abroad for Modern and Contemporary Dance training, and upon their return, started the movement towards contemporary dance by contributing in different ways such as creating modern pieces within the State Ballet, setting up their own companies, teaching Modern Dance techniques, staging their own pieces in various places and occasions, establishing their own private dance schools, organizing Modern and Contemporary dance workshops, teaching theoretical and practical courses in various University departments outside dance, writing critical articles on dance, and setting up Modern Dance departments as a division at the Conservatory and also as a University department. These people form the first generation of Modern and Contemporary dance dating back to late Sixties.
First Generation Choreographers
Sait Sökmen (1942), trained in the Ankara State Conservatory and danced for the State Ballet, he spent a couple of years studying in the London Contemporary Dance School, and later staged the first Modern piece called Çark (The Wheel) to Ravel’s music, in 1968. He is considered to be the first Turkish choreographer. He then went to New York to work with Georges Balanchine, Jerome Robbins and Alvin Ailey and upon his return, he choreographed his other modern piece Kurban (The Sacrifice) with no music, in 1975-76, and then Konçerto (Concerto) to Bach’s music in 1980-81. As Prof. Dr. Jak Deleon puts forth in one of his articles “Sait Sokmen has done extensive research into various dance techniques, classical and modern. He believes in striving for a synthesis of all forms, steps and positions of classical ballet and modern dance, and claims to be an avid disciple of the techniques of Martha Graham and Alwin Nikolais.”
Similarly, there were other trained ballet dancers who went abroad to work on Modern dance techniques and created their own pieces upon their return, like Geyvan McMillen, Duygu Aykal, Şebnem Aksan, Aydın Teker, Dilek Evgin, Beyhan Murphy, Zeynep Tanbay and others. These choreographers trained in various centres and with the dance masters of the world such as the London Contemporary Dance School, in New York with Merce Cunningham, Martha Graham, Alvin Ailey, and in Germany with Kurt Joos, et al in the Seventies. Thus, they were able to follow what was going on in those years, in the eminent dance centres of the world and to learn the Modern dance techniques of that era. They were important figures in transmitting their experience and knowledge to other dancers, and introduced the notion of creating pieces with the contribution of the dancers, a contemporary mode of creation.
In the beginning of the Seventies, with the international festivals organized by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts, beginning in 1972, the audience was introduced to some modern dance pieces from foreign companies, as well as music. Throughout the years, the performances of Merce Cunningham, Alvin Nikolais, Alvin Ailey, New York Harkness Ballet, Carolyn Carlson, Molissa Fenley, Martha Graham, Paul Taylor, Ballet Rambert, Jiri Kylian have been presented as well as many other examples of more contemporary work with the inauguration of the International Istanbul Theatre Festival, like Robert Wilson, Pina Bausch, Wim Vandekeybus, Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, Jan Fabre, etc. This inspired new and fresh ideas for dancers and choreographers, and motivated the younger generation to enter the field of dance.
There were only a few dance companies in the Seventies, such as Geyvan McMillen Modern Dance Theatre, consisting mainly of the State Ballet dancers and presenting new creations in the styles of contemporary ballet, dance theatre and modern dance. Another company which still continues to produce began performing in 1972, under the name of Contemporary Ballet Company run by Cem Ertekin. The dancers of this company are mainly the former students of the Istanbul University State Conservatory Ballet Department, where Cem Ertekin also teaches, so the style of the works is rather neo-classical, with a strong ballet technique.
In the Eighties, the first generation of choreographers continued to create modern dance and modern ballet productions in the State Ballet like Güloya Aruoba, Oytun Turfanda, Aysun Aslan, Selçuk Borak, Nasuh Barın and Beyhan Murphy. Each of these choreographers worked in different styles, from using folkloric motifs in search of a local modern creation to modern dance and dance theatre, from contemporary ballet to neo-classical ballet… This movement still continues with choreographers of the State Ballet like Nil Berkan, Sibel Kasapoğlu, Erdal Uğurlu, Uğur Seyrek, Binnaz Aydan, etc…
Türkuaz Modern Dance Company (1989-1994) inaugurated by Aysun Aslan and İzzet Öz was very important in creating a younger dance audience. It presented dynamic, colourful, avant-garde, Post-modern style works of various choreographers like Aydın Teker, Geyvan McMillen, Dilek Evgin, Selçuk Borak and Aysun Aslan. New works were created within Türkuaz as well as some works that have already been presented, like that of Duygu Aykal’s İnsancık. The dancers were from the Istanbul State Opera and Ballet. The work, however, was too much for them. The company resisted to the hard conditions for only five years and then had to stop due to the lack of financial support.
The Formation of the Second Generation – An Interdisciplinary Approach
Moving on toward the Nineties, there was a development quite foreign which in fact contributes a lot to today’s independent Contemporary Dance scene. A second generation was being trained from the mid-Eighties onwards by the older generation, among young followers of dance and university students coming from other disciplines. So, the formation of the second generation was completely different than that of the first one, and it expanded in a non-institutional way.
One of the occasions for modern dance workshops was created by Geyvan McMillen in the Yıldız Technical University in Maslak. It was a group of multi-disciplinary university students who learned movement techniques in these workshops and then formed a group of movement research in the dance club of Boğaziçi University. This group later formed Yeşil Üzümler (Green Grapes) Performance Group and was the source for independent dancers, choreographers and performers later who started to create their own work in an interdisciplinary fashion. Zeynep Günsür (Movement Atelier), Emre Koyuncuoğlu (Emre Koyuncuoğlu Project), Mustafa Kaplan (Taldans, Çatı Dance Association), Ziya Azazi (dancer and choreographer), Deniz Boro (Çatdal – Contemporary Turkish Dance Lab) were the ones who would later form other people around their works.
TAL (Theatre Research Lab) was another location to bring forth independent performers and choreographers. It was a creation of Beklan and Ayla Algan, two eminent theatre people who formed this lab within the Municipal Theatre to explore the dynamics of energy in movement. Mustafa Kaplan made an enormous amount of research that founded the basis of his creative work. He also continued to transmit his own research to form other dancers who would later create their own choreographic works; he is an important figure in the creation of an independent contemporary dance scene in Istanbul. Mustafa Kaplan now works with Filiz Sızanlı, they create together under the name of Taldans, whose works are the most exposed, especially within Europe.
Şebnem Aksan contributed to the development of contemporary dancers by organizing workshops, inviting movement researchers and choreographers from abroad, and gathering a variety of people from different backgrounds. These workshops were important occasions to learn contemporary techniques and improvisation works, and an exercise for making choreographies.
ISM (Istanbul Art Centre) was another important location in the creation of independent dancers coming from various other disciplines. Christine Brodbeck and Mustafa Kaplan led regular classes and workshops in a tiny studio where many dancers were formed.
Aydın Teker, as the influential figure for contemporary dancers today, started to realize her site specific works in the beginning of the Nineties. These works stand very much between contemporary dance and performance. She started working project-based, with some of the Istanbul State Opera and Ballet dancers and later with independent dancers. These dancers started to move in another way than their training. They developed a different style while working with Aydın Teker who does fundamental research in movement and develops a different technique in each of her projects. Her Aulos series were quite avant-garde site specific works, using some interesting and powerful spots in Istanbul. These sites differed from the study hall of the Mimar Sinan University to a section of Yıldız Palace and its garden, from a junkyard in Sultanahmet area to the Byzantine cistern, from the warehouse in Antwerp to a playground under the Brooklyn Bridge. She created other performance pieces in a variety of sites. She included dancers from various backgrounds, and each project provided a unique experience and particular movement training for these dancers throughout the creation process. This is mostly due to the choreographer’s choice of setting a challenge, and mostly a bodily challenge and to work on it in a minute detail until a weird movement technique comes out of it. Thus, in the Nineties, Aydın Teker was a very effective figure in the contemporary dance scene in Istanbul. Many dancers working with her went on to build their own independent work.
The Beginning of the First Professional Contemporary Dance Education at the Conservatory
1992 is an important date for today’s contemporary dance, as Şebnem Aksan founded the Modern Dance Department at the Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University State Conservatory, which forms dancers in contemporary techniques with tremendous emphasis on the Anatomy. The students also find occasions to create their own projects with the support of interdisciplinary and theoretical work as well as their courses on physical training and techniques of composition and improvisation. The department now offers Masters and PhD programmes and has hosted many short-term trainers from abroad, forming over the course of time its teaching staff from its own core. Tuğçe Ulugün Tuna was the very first and most contributing student of this department. She started teaching while also continuing her higher studies. She danced in Aydın Teker’s many pieces and thus, built upon her choreographic talents by working very closely with her.
1992 was also the founding year of MDT (Modern Dance Company) within the Ankara State Opera and Ballet. It is the first institutional Modern Dance Company in Turkey. Beyhan Murphy, having spent many years in London working as a dancer and choreographer, after graduating from the London Contemporary Dance School, became the artistic director and co-founder of the company. Foreign guest choreographers were invited like Ashley Page, Richard Alston, Amanda Miller, Matthew Hawkins, Mark Baldwin, Michael Popper, Samuel Wuersten and Reinhild Hoffmann to stage their own pieces. The Company staged big productions for the general audience, of a rather mainstream quality. It still continues to this day, although Beyhan Murphy is no longer connected to the Company, as she now lives and produces in Istanbul.
Dans Fabrikası (Dance Factory) was an initiative of various dancers like former Türkuaz Company dancers and independently trained dancers. It started in 1992, performing their new creations oversees. Unfortunately, performances were not on a regular basis.
Berrak Yedek, a Turkish dancer, formed in various locales abroad, started a dance company for some years called Kumpanya Bale Türk. It consisted of young dancers who performed pieces in the neo-classical style.
Festival Organizations
Assos Performance Art Festival brought an interdisciplinary approach to dance/performance organized in a rural area of the Aegean region. It was an international festival that produced site-specific works in open air and in historical sites with the collaboration of the village people. Aydın Teker and Mustafa Kaplan were among the participants. The festival was inaugurated by a very innovative performer Hüseyin Katırcıoğlu, in 1993, and lasted until his death in 1999. He was in the process of creating a performance centre through his own efforts out of the ruins of an old factory but, tragically, died falling down from the roof, while trying to repair it. This event took place and some newspapers commented that it was the result of the lack of sponsorship for avant-guard performance arts and an example of the poor conditions of the artists.
Performance Days by an association of performance artists dags + (Interdisciplinary Young Artists Association) was organized three times in 1996, 1997 and 2003. They were an occasion to bring together artists from a diversity of disciplines. They were also an occasion for innovative choreographers to experience more in the field of performance and to create avant-guard pieces. Aydın Teker’s Co-m(press)ed was one of them. Another site-specific work was created in various locations of the old mint. The piece was more of a performed installation.
In fact, there have been quite a number of festivals organized, but none of them showed a long-term sustainability. Now, we have young festivals which will hopefully continue in existence. The situation seems to be a little bit more favourable, as there are lots of dance people who work in solidarity, but the financial part is still a problem. IKSV (Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts) has not yet been capable of raising funds for an international festival devoted to Contemporary Dance. They present some mainstream modern pieces in the Music Festival and some contemporary pieces in the Theatre Festival. International CRR Dance Festival lasted from 2000-2005, as an organization of the Municipality but stopped because of the policy of the government. There have been many independent initiatives, like Görünürlük Projesi (visibility project) organized in 2005 and 2006 by Galata Perform in the streets and art spots of Galata area dedicated to interdisciplinary performance projects, Açık Alan, organized in 2005 by Şule Ateş, was centred around another area called Cihangir, and mainly its park, Ph.D. Dance Days, organized by Barefeet Company in 2005, Istanbul Reconnects, an organization by bimeras, started last year and presented international works of contemporary dance and avant-guard performance, Techne 06 was the first international festival devoted to Digital Performance in 2006, Transit Doğaçlama will realize its second edition at the end of this month, a festival devoted to Improvisation. We had many firsts this year like Dance Camera Istanbul (the first festival on dance films), Istanbul Dance Festival (as the continuation of the one shot Istanbuldanse, organized by the French Cultural Institute in 2004), ÇGSG Sahne Sanatları Buluşması (Contemporary Performing Arts Initiative’s organization) in Kadıköy, the Asian side of Istanbul. The only sustainable festival that has being organized for nine years now is in Ankara, METU Contemporary Dance Festival which is international. It is an initiation of the university students who are involved in dance in their university years, bringing with them fresh ideas through an education in other disciplines, like architecture, sociology, etc... They formed a dance group that developed throughout the years and led some to continue as a dancer, choreographer, writer or instructor or went abroad to continue in their dance training. Handan Ergiydiren Özer, Şafak Uysal with his group Laboratoire are the some who now live and produce in Istanbul. There was also an attempt to create a modern dance department in Ankara Hacettepe University, but it failed in the end.
Geyvan McMillen, one of the first generation of dance figures, founded the dance department at the Yıldız Technical University in Istanbul. This department stands as the only professional contemporary dance education in a University Department apart from the Conservatory.
Independent Dance Training
In the beginning of the year 2000, there was a growth of dance studios for an independent form of dance training. Taldans was transformed into Çatı Studio in 2001 and then into Çatı Dance Association in 2004, with dancers being formed around Mustafa Kaplan, which started to programme performances and workshops on an international level. Later on, this led to the creation of another independent dance centre Dansbuluşma Istanbul that has formed and continues to form aspiring dancers. Bilgi Atölye of Istanbul Bilgi University included open dance courses in its regular programme. Mekan was an important locale offering regular courses and workshops for dance amateurs. However, it had to leave the building. There are more and more other dance studios focussed on contemporary dance like Rolling Dance and Açık Sahne that create their own circle of independent dancers.
Dance Companies and Project Groups starting in the 2000s
Zeynep Tanbay Dance Project, which started to produce independently in 2000, has become in fact the first dance company who produce under the sponsorship of a bank, Akbank Sanat. Zeynep Tanbay, who spent many years in the States, was trained in the Graham technique, and her works show a strong modern technique. The Company is composed of young dancers.
Geyvan McMillen started a dance theatre company with the students of the Yıldız Technical University Dance department. This dance company was under the sponsorship of CRR Municipal Concert Hall. It lasted for some years but as CRR stopped its support, the dance theatre took the name of Istanbul Dance Theatre and now works independently. The company hosts foreign choreographers and has staged some modern pieces.
Çıplak Ayaklar Kumpanyası (Bare Feet Company) is an independent dance company composed of independent young dancers and choreographers from various dance backgrounds, like MSGSÜ Modern Dance department, METU Contemporary Dance Company, and others who have pursued their training abroad and who also perform in foreign companies. It is a very active company, performing their own creations along with collaborative international projects, inviting foreign choreographers to create for the company. They all have a very strong contemporary dance technique. It is probably the company that performs the most and the contemporary company which is the most well-known by the general audience. The company has a strong tendency to create dance works and installations in political discourse. The group is very active also in organization. They organized a dance festival Ph.D. Dance Days in June 2005 and a summer camp in 2006. The members are also actively engaged in their own artistic projects. The last big organization is Istanbul Dance Festival in June 2007.
Apart from the dance companies, there are some independent project groups. One of them is Dilek Evgin Dance Project. As an example of the first generation, Dilek Evgin comes from a ballet background and she is the head of the ballet department of the State Conservatory at the Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University. She is working with the dancers of the Istanbul State Opera and Ballet and her choreographies have a rather contemporary ballet style, with the dancers trained in a strong ballet technique.
Tuğçe Tuna Dance Project is a contemporary dance project of the choreographer Tuğçe Tuna. As she is training at the Conservatory, she enjoys the advantage of working closely with her students. She shows a very strong contemporary technique blended with innovative ideas. In her past pieces, she showed a very close link to her personal history.
Hareket Atölyesi is an independent group of women of different ages and different backgrounds who work in the field of performance. They have been working regularly since 2000 with the leadership of Zeynep Günsür.
Laboratuar is a group originally formed in Ankara, consisting of dancers coming from different University disciplines. Most of the members moved to Istanbul, as with Şafak Uysal, the leading choreographer of the group. They mostly produce works originating in an intellectual activity rather than in movement research.
Under 9 is another project group formed by the choreographer İlyas Odman. He is mostly known for his solo works in which he challenges himself with an object. He has just started to participate in foreign organizations.
Apart from the above, there are more independent younger generation choreographers such as Talin Büyükkürkçüyan, Aytül Hasaltun, Sevi Algan, Maral Ceranoğlu, and others, and many others to follow, thanks to the growing interest and enthusiasm for expansion, in quantity and eventually, in quality …
For some of the information in this text, I would like to thank Prof. Şebnem Aksan for her kind help, and to Prof. Dr. Jak Deleon for having left us an archive of the history of dance in Turkey.
Aylin Kalem, June 2007
Contemporary Dance Scene entered into a very dynamic period, rapidly growing from 2000 onwards, with the emergence of a young contemporary dance community consisting of a diversity of dance people, not just dancers, which included the two generations and younger ones. One of the ways of generating such a community was simple: a mailing group devoted exclusively to the contemporary dance field was created. This new form of communication made it possible for dancers to be visible first among themselves, and it also functioned as a source of motivation to organize their structure and identity, as a mode of circulating knowledge, a space for exchanging ideas and occasionally as a forum for debate. This process, allowed dance people to see the importance of a network, and helped to build a kind of solidarity among dance people, to get into the practice of taking action as one body against common problems.
The first main problems were the lack of rehearsal and performance spaces, of financial support, of management and promotional skills, and of a cultural policy in the country, thus, unable to access an audience in general. However, these poor conditions gave birth to other dynamics, an awareness among the dance community, and of the necessity of taking the responsibility and action not only in artistic creation, but also in organization, networking, engaging in civil initiatives by contacting cultural centres, academic units, foreign cultural institutes, municipalities, etc… In this way, the dance community learned to work as a big unit, a big family.
After 2000, more and more dance people began circulating internationally. A number of young dancers have gone abroad for training, teaching, dancing, creating, and engaging in collaborative projects. And upon their return, they opened channels for other dancers to expand in similar ways.
And now, with Istanbul as the imminent European Cultural Capital in 2010, there really is a movement among the Istanbul dance people engaged in organizational and networking activities, and there is also a growing interest among international networks regarding contemporary forms of art in Istanbul.
However, one can say that this movement is more about improving the working and promotional conditions of the dance field in general. In other words, generally speaking, it is not an artistic movement, but rather a civil movement, to develop the field. So, we cannot really talk about specific artistic tendencies that are being built up, except perhaps in the work of a couple of choreographers like Aydın Teker and Taldans (Mustafa Kaplan & Filiz Sızanlı). It is more of a research in building strategies to keep sustainability, to become more visible and to exist on the international level.
One of the factors that have given momentum to the younger generation of contemporary dance has been offered by IKSV. The Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts has recently started to include young and new dance productions to the international programme of their Theatre Festival, and have contributed to their international diffusion by presenting the works of some young choreographers at its organizations in foreign countries.
ÇGSG -Contemporary Performing Arts Initiative- met for the first time in 2005 under the facilitation of Istanbul’s Bilgi University Management of Performing Arts programme, and then has continued to meet regularly in order to define the common problems, to take civil action through the engagement of local governmental institutions, and has lately organized a festival on the Asian side of Istanbul, where there is really very little going on in terms of contemporary artistic activity.
Garajistanbul, has very recently been founded to respond to the need of a performance venue, and dedicated its programme to dance and performance two days a week. Young choreographers found the opportunity to present their own works and to engage in collaborative works. There were, of course, other theatre venues before, but Garajistanbul started out as a contemporary dance/performance venue from the beginning with a new and adaptable setting, and has gained an identity as a performance space around which the contemporary dance community has at long last found a place to meet and exchange ideas.
On the other hand, there is a very small circle within the audience whose members are people who also work in the field of dance or are dance amateurs. It will still take a while to reach a more general audience. This is mostly due to the relative lack of a dance criticism in particular, and a tradition of good criticism on the arts in general. There is still no journal or magazine exclusively devoted to critical writings of contemporary dance. There is one dance magazine dedicated to popular dance in general, and there are good theatre magazines occasionally sparing some pages for reflective writings on dance, and very few examples in the newspapers. So, it can be said that there is no dance culture, around which reflection on dance is being fostered among intellectuals and dance followers.
The Growth of Dance in Turkey
Contemporary dance in Turkey seems to have originated primarily and historically in the works of the ballet dancers from the end of the 1960’s onwards. Considering the history of Ballet in Turkey, this movement deviating from classical ballet towards Modern and Contemporary Dance began shortly after the establishment of the State Ballet in Turkey.
Ballet in Turkey does not have a long history and it goes in parallel with the history of the Republic, founded in 1923. The first account of ballet dates back to 1921 when L. Krassa Arzumanova’s arrived in Turkey, after fleeing from the regime in Russia; a white Russian, trained at the Ballet School of St Petersburg. She was invited to Ankara in 1929 by Atatürk to set the grounds for classical ballet and thus, she was the first ballet teacher in Turkey. Her students gave their first performance in 1931 in Casa d’Italia. On the other hand, the institutional establishment of ballet in Turkey was established by Dame Ninette de Valois in 1948, under the name of Yeşilköy Ballet School in Istanbul. This school moved to Ankara in 1950, forming the Ballet Division of the Ankara State Conservatory. Since that time, there has been a very fast development for Ballet in Turkey with a growing amount of ballet dancers and choreographers in the State Conservatories, public houses and private schools.
However, the institutionalization of Modern or Contemporary Dance in Turkey is going through a much harder period compared to Ballet, and has not yet reached a satisfactory level. This situation seems to be strongly due to the lack of a recognizable cultural policy of the Ministry of Culture in general and the absence of a contemporary performing arts policy in particular. This situation has of course, many advantages for the flourishing of a rather independent form in artistic terms besides undeniably poor conditions for contemporary dancers. These disadvantageous conditions and common problems are one of the reasons for contemporary dancers and performance artists in Turkey to join together, and work in collaboration, producing through solidarity. So, there has been quite a movement in the last five years within an independent contemporary dance circle, composed of a variety of dance/performance people who come from different backgrounds in terms of dance training.
The first generation of Modern Dance in Turkey was of course quite homogeneous in terms of the dancers’ origins. It mainly consisted of some ballet dancers of the Ankara State Conservatory and Opera. Some of these dancers went abroad for Modern and Contemporary Dance training, and upon their return, started the movement towards contemporary dance by contributing in different ways such as creating modern pieces within the State Ballet, setting up their own companies, teaching Modern Dance techniques, staging their own pieces in various places and occasions, establishing their own private dance schools, organizing Modern and Contemporary dance workshops, teaching theoretical and practical courses in various University departments outside dance, writing critical articles on dance, and setting up Modern Dance departments as a division at the Conservatory and also as a University department. These people form the first generation of Modern and Contemporary dance dating back to late Sixties.
First Generation Choreographers
Sait Sökmen (1942), trained in the Ankara State Conservatory and danced for the State Ballet, he spent a couple of years studying in the London Contemporary Dance School, and later staged the first Modern piece called Çark (The Wheel) to Ravel’s music, in 1968. He is considered to be the first Turkish choreographer. He then went to New York to work with Georges Balanchine, Jerome Robbins and Alvin Ailey and upon his return, he choreographed his other modern piece Kurban (The Sacrifice) with no music, in 1975-76, and then Konçerto (Concerto) to Bach’s music in 1980-81. As Prof. Dr. Jak Deleon puts forth in one of his articles “Sait Sokmen has done extensive research into various dance techniques, classical and modern. He believes in striving for a synthesis of all forms, steps and positions of classical ballet and modern dance, and claims to be an avid disciple of the techniques of Martha Graham and Alwin Nikolais.”
Similarly, there were other trained ballet dancers who went abroad to work on Modern dance techniques and created their own pieces upon their return, like Geyvan McMillen, Duygu Aykal, Şebnem Aksan, Aydın Teker, Dilek Evgin, Beyhan Murphy, Zeynep Tanbay and others. These choreographers trained in various centres and with the dance masters of the world such as the London Contemporary Dance School, in New York with Merce Cunningham, Martha Graham, Alvin Ailey, and in Germany with Kurt Joos, et al in the Seventies. Thus, they were able to follow what was going on in those years, in the eminent dance centres of the world and to learn the Modern dance techniques of that era. They were important figures in transmitting their experience and knowledge to other dancers, and introduced the notion of creating pieces with the contribution of the dancers, a contemporary mode of creation.
In the beginning of the Seventies, with the international festivals organized by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts, beginning in 1972, the audience was introduced to some modern dance pieces from foreign companies, as well as music. Throughout the years, the performances of Merce Cunningham, Alvin Nikolais, Alvin Ailey, New York Harkness Ballet, Carolyn Carlson, Molissa Fenley, Martha Graham, Paul Taylor, Ballet Rambert, Jiri Kylian have been presented as well as many other examples of more contemporary work with the inauguration of the International Istanbul Theatre Festival, like Robert Wilson, Pina Bausch, Wim Vandekeybus, Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, Jan Fabre, etc. This inspired new and fresh ideas for dancers and choreographers, and motivated the younger generation to enter the field of dance.
There were only a few dance companies in the Seventies, such as Geyvan McMillen Modern Dance Theatre, consisting mainly of the State Ballet dancers and presenting new creations in the styles of contemporary ballet, dance theatre and modern dance. Another company which still continues to produce began performing in 1972, under the name of Contemporary Ballet Company run by Cem Ertekin. The dancers of this company are mainly the former students of the Istanbul University State Conservatory Ballet Department, where Cem Ertekin also teaches, so the style of the works is rather neo-classical, with a strong ballet technique.
In the Eighties, the first generation of choreographers continued to create modern dance and modern ballet productions in the State Ballet like Güloya Aruoba, Oytun Turfanda, Aysun Aslan, Selçuk Borak, Nasuh Barın and Beyhan Murphy. Each of these choreographers worked in different styles, from using folkloric motifs in search of a local modern creation to modern dance and dance theatre, from contemporary ballet to neo-classical ballet… This movement still continues with choreographers of the State Ballet like Nil Berkan, Sibel Kasapoğlu, Erdal Uğurlu, Uğur Seyrek, Binnaz Aydan, etc…
Türkuaz Modern Dance Company (1989-1994) inaugurated by Aysun Aslan and İzzet Öz was very important in creating a younger dance audience. It presented dynamic, colourful, avant-garde, Post-modern style works of various choreographers like Aydın Teker, Geyvan McMillen, Dilek Evgin, Selçuk Borak and Aysun Aslan. New works were created within Türkuaz as well as some works that have already been presented, like that of Duygu Aykal’s İnsancık. The dancers were from the Istanbul State Opera and Ballet. The work, however, was too much for them. The company resisted to the hard conditions for only five years and then had to stop due to the lack of financial support.
The Formation of the Second Generation – An Interdisciplinary Approach
Moving on toward the Nineties, there was a development quite foreign which in fact contributes a lot to today’s independent Contemporary Dance scene. A second generation was being trained from the mid-Eighties onwards by the older generation, among young followers of dance and university students coming from other disciplines. So, the formation of the second generation was completely different than that of the first one, and it expanded in a non-institutional way.
One of the occasions for modern dance workshops was created by Geyvan McMillen in the Yıldız Technical University in Maslak. It was a group of multi-disciplinary university students who learned movement techniques in these workshops and then formed a group of movement research in the dance club of Boğaziçi University. This group later formed Yeşil Üzümler (Green Grapes) Performance Group and was the source for independent dancers, choreographers and performers later who started to create their own work in an interdisciplinary fashion. Zeynep Günsür (Movement Atelier), Emre Koyuncuoğlu (Emre Koyuncuoğlu Project), Mustafa Kaplan (Taldans, Çatı Dance Association), Ziya Azazi (dancer and choreographer), Deniz Boro (Çatdal – Contemporary Turkish Dance Lab) were the ones who would later form other people around their works.
TAL (Theatre Research Lab) was another location to bring forth independent performers and choreographers. It was a creation of Beklan and Ayla Algan, two eminent theatre people who formed this lab within the Municipal Theatre to explore the dynamics of energy in movement. Mustafa Kaplan made an enormous amount of research that founded the basis of his creative work. He also continued to transmit his own research to form other dancers who would later create their own choreographic works; he is an important figure in the creation of an independent contemporary dance scene in Istanbul. Mustafa Kaplan now works with Filiz Sızanlı, they create together under the name of Taldans, whose works are the most exposed, especially within Europe.
Şebnem Aksan contributed to the development of contemporary dancers by organizing workshops, inviting movement researchers and choreographers from abroad, and gathering a variety of people from different backgrounds. These workshops were important occasions to learn contemporary techniques and improvisation works, and an exercise for making choreographies.
ISM (Istanbul Art Centre) was another important location in the creation of independent dancers coming from various other disciplines. Christine Brodbeck and Mustafa Kaplan led regular classes and workshops in a tiny studio where many dancers were formed.
Aydın Teker, as the influential figure for contemporary dancers today, started to realize her site specific works in the beginning of the Nineties. These works stand very much between contemporary dance and performance. She started working project-based, with some of the Istanbul State Opera and Ballet dancers and later with independent dancers. These dancers started to move in another way than their training. They developed a different style while working with Aydın Teker who does fundamental research in movement and develops a different technique in each of her projects. Her Aulos series were quite avant-garde site specific works, using some interesting and powerful spots in Istanbul. These sites differed from the study hall of the Mimar Sinan University to a section of Yıldız Palace and its garden, from a junkyard in Sultanahmet area to the Byzantine cistern, from the warehouse in Antwerp to a playground under the Brooklyn Bridge. She created other performance pieces in a variety of sites. She included dancers from various backgrounds, and each project provided a unique experience and particular movement training for these dancers throughout the creation process. This is mostly due to the choreographer’s choice of setting a challenge, and mostly a bodily challenge and to work on it in a minute detail until a weird movement technique comes out of it. Thus, in the Nineties, Aydın Teker was a very effective figure in the contemporary dance scene in Istanbul. Many dancers working with her went on to build their own independent work.
The Beginning of the First Professional Contemporary Dance Education at the Conservatory
1992 is an important date for today’s contemporary dance, as Şebnem Aksan founded the Modern Dance Department at the Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University State Conservatory, which forms dancers in contemporary techniques with tremendous emphasis on the Anatomy. The students also find occasions to create their own projects with the support of interdisciplinary and theoretical work as well as their courses on physical training and techniques of composition and improvisation. The department now offers Masters and PhD programmes and has hosted many short-term trainers from abroad, forming over the course of time its teaching staff from its own core. Tuğçe Ulugün Tuna was the very first and most contributing student of this department. She started teaching while also continuing her higher studies. She danced in Aydın Teker’s many pieces and thus, built upon her choreographic talents by working very closely with her.
1992 was also the founding year of MDT (Modern Dance Company) within the Ankara State Opera and Ballet. It is the first institutional Modern Dance Company in Turkey. Beyhan Murphy, having spent many years in London working as a dancer and choreographer, after graduating from the London Contemporary Dance School, became the artistic director and co-founder of the company. Foreign guest choreographers were invited like Ashley Page, Richard Alston, Amanda Miller, Matthew Hawkins, Mark Baldwin, Michael Popper, Samuel Wuersten and Reinhild Hoffmann to stage their own pieces. The Company staged big productions for the general audience, of a rather mainstream quality. It still continues to this day, although Beyhan Murphy is no longer connected to the Company, as she now lives and produces in Istanbul.
Dans Fabrikası (Dance Factory) was an initiative of various dancers like former Türkuaz Company dancers and independently trained dancers. It started in 1992, performing their new creations oversees. Unfortunately, performances were not on a regular basis.
Berrak Yedek, a Turkish dancer, formed in various locales abroad, started a dance company for some years called Kumpanya Bale Türk. It consisted of young dancers who performed pieces in the neo-classical style.
Festival Organizations
Assos Performance Art Festival brought an interdisciplinary approach to dance/performance organized in a rural area of the Aegean region. It was an international festival that produced site-specific works in open air and in historical sites with the collaboration of the village people. Aydın Teker and Mustafa Kaplan were among the participants. The festival was inaugurated by a very innovative performer Hüseyin Katırcıoğlu, in 1993, and lasted until his death in 1999. He was in the process of creating a performance centre through his own efforts out of the ruins of an old factory but, tragically, died falling down from the roof, while trying to repair it. This event took place and some newspapers commented that it was the result of the lack of sponsorship for avant-guard performance arts and an example of the poor conditions of the artists.
Performance Days by an association of performance artists dags + (Interdisciplinary Young Artists Association) was organized three times in 1996, 1997 and 2003. They were an occasion to bring together artists from a diversity of disciplines. They were also an occasion for innovative choreographers to experience more in the field of performance and to create avant-guard pieces. Aydın Teker’s Co-m(press)ed was one of them. Another site-specific work was created in various locations of the old mint. The piece was more of a performed installation.
In fact, there have been quite a number of festivals organized, but none of them showed a long-term sustainability. Now, we have young festivals which will hopefully continue in existence. The situation seems to be a little bit more favourable, as there are lots of dance people who work in solidarity, but the financial part is still a problem. IKSV (Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts) has not yet been capable of raising funds for an international festival devoted to Contemporary Dance. They present some mainstream modern pieces in the Music Festival and some contemporary pieces in the Theatre Festival. International CRR Dance Festival lasted from 2000-2005, as an organization of the Municipality but stopped because of the policy of the government. There have been many independent initiatives, like Görünürlük Projesi (visibility project) organized in 2005 and 2006 by Galata Perform in the streets and art spots of Galata area dedicated to interdisciplinary performance projects, Açık Alan, organized in 2005 by Şule Ateş, was centred around another area called Cihangir, and mainly its park, Ph.D. Dance Days, organized by Barefeet Company in 2005, Istanbul Reconnects, an organization by bimeras, started last year and presented international works of contemporary dance and avant-guard performance, Techne 06 was the first international festival devoted to Digital Performance in 2006, Transit Doğaçlama will realize its second edition at the end of this month, a festival devoted to Improvisation. We had many firsts this year like Dance Camera Istanbul (the first festival on dance films), Istanbul Dance Festival (as the continuation of the one shot Istanbuldanse, organized by the French Cultural Institute in 2004), ÇGSG Sahne Sanatları Buluşması (Contemporary Performing Arts Initiative’s organization) in Kadıköy, the Asian side of Istanbul. The only sustainable festival that has being organized for nine years now is in Ankara, METU Contemporary Dance Festival which is international. It is an initiation of the university students who are involved in dance in their university years, bringing with them fresh ideas through an education in other disciplines, like architecture, sociology, etc... They formed a dance group that developed throughout the years and led some to continue as a dancer, choreographer, writer or instructor or went abroad to continue in their dance training. Handan Ergiydiren Özer, Şafak Uysal with his group Laboratoire are the some who now live and produce in Istanbul. There was also an attempt to create a modern dance department in Ankara Hacettepe University, but it failed in the end.
Geyvan McMillen, one of the first generation of dance figures, founded the dance department at the Yıldız Technical University in Istanbul. This department stands as the only professional contemporary dance education in a University Department apart from the Conservatory.
Independent Dance Training
In the beginning of the year 2000, there was a growth of dance studios for an independent form of dance training. Taldans was transformed into Çatı Studio in 2001 and then into Çatı Dance Association in 2004, with dancers being formed around Mustafa Kaplan, which started to programme performances and workshops on an international level. Later on, this led to the creation of another independent dance centre Dansbuluşma Istanbul that has formed and continues to form aspiring dancers. Bilgi Atölye of Istanbul Bilgi University included open dance courses in its regular programme. Mekan was an important locale offering regular courses and workshops for dance amateurs. However, it had to leave the building. There are more and more other dance studios focussed on contemporary dance like Rolling Dance and Açık Sahne that create their own circle of independent dancers.
Dance Companies and Project Groups starting in the 2000s
Zeynep Tanbay Dance Project, which started to produce independently in 2000, has become in fact the first dance company who produce under the sponsorship of a bank, Akbank Sanat. Zeynep Tanbay, who spent many years in the States, was trained in the Graham technique, and her works show a strong modern technique. The Company is composed of young dancers.
Geyvan McMillen started a dance theatre company with the students of the Yıldız Technical University Dance department. This dance company was under the sponsorship of CRR Municipal Concert Hall. It lasted for some years but as CRR stopped its support, the dance theatre took the name of Istanbul Dance Theatre and now works independently. The company hosts foreign choreographers and has staged some modern pieces.
Çıplak Ayaklar Kumpanyası (Bare Feet Company) is an independent dance company composed of independent young dancers and choreographers from various dance backgrounds, like MSGSÜ Modern Dance department, METU Contemporary Dance Company, and others who have pursued their training abroad and who also perform in foreign companies. It is a very active company, performing their own creations along with collaborative international projects, inviting foreign choreographers to create for the company. They all have a very strong contemporary dance technique. It is probably the company that performs the most and the contemporary company which is the most well-known by the general audience. The company has a strong tendency to create dance works and installations in political discourse. The group is very active also in organization. They organized a dance festival Ph.D. Dance Days in June 2005 and a summer camp in 2006. The members are also actively engaged in their own artistic projects. The last big organization is Istanbul Dance Festival in June 2007.
Apart from the dance companies, there are some independent project groups. One of them is Dilek Evgin Dance Project. As an example of the first generation, Dilek Evgin comes from a ballet background and she is the head of the ballet department of the State Conservatory at the Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University. She is working with the dancers of the Istanbul State Opera and Ballet and her choreographies have a rather contemporary ballet style, with the dancers trained in a strong ballet technique.
Tuğçe Tuna Dance Project is a contemporary dance project of the choreographer Tuğçe Tuna. As she is training at the Conservatory, she enjoys the advantage of working closely with her students. She shows a very strong contemporary technique blended with innovative ideas. In her past pieces, she showed a very close link to her personal history.
Hareket Atölyesi is an independent group of women of different ages and different backgrounds who work in the field of performance. They have been working regularly since 2000 with the leadership of Zeynep Günsür.
Laboratuar is a group originally formed in Ankara, consisting of dancers coming from different University disciplines. Most of the members moved to Istanbul, as with Şafak Uysal, the leading choreographer of the group. They mostly produce works originating in an intellectual activity rather than in movement research.
Under 9 is another project group formed by the choreographer İlyas Odman. He is mostly known for his solo works in which he challenges himself with an object. He has just started to participate in foreign organizations.
Apart from the above, there are more independent younger generation choreographers such as Talin Büyükkürkçüyan, Aytül Hasaltun, Sevi Algan, Maral Ceranoğlu, and others, and many others to follow, thanks to the growing interest and enthusiasm for expansion, in quantity and eventually, in quality …
For some of the information in this text, I would like to thank Prof. Şebnem Aksan for her kind help, and to Prof. Dr. Jak Deleon for having left us an archive of the history of dance in Turkey.
Sunday, April 29, 2007
“Becoming” through Performance
photo: from stelarc's site(This paper was presented at IVSA Conference 2005, Trinity College, Dublin, and also at Digital Cultures Symposium 2005, Nottingham Trent University)
An analysis of the body in Stelarc’s performances
By Aylin Kalem
This paper deals with the new condition of the body in the face of the cyber-technologies. Looking at the debate of disembodiment and embodiment, this study is a discussion on the dialectic of the body as subject and object by analysing the ambiguity of the body in Stelarc’s performances. The notion of “becoming” in Deleuze and Guattari that goes beyond this dialectic will be examined, and I will suggest the conceptualisation of the body as performance.
New Technologies and the debate of disembodiment/embodiment:
The technological age in which we are living, marks a turning point in the evolution of mankind. The human kind undergoes a mutational period, a process of transformation towards the “post-human”. The question is whether the post-human condition includes a future with or without the body. There are two radically opposing approaches that co-exist in the analysis of the relation of the body to the cyber-technologies.
Disembodiment à “body as object”:
The neo-Cartesian point of view of disembodiment envisages a future freed of the limits of the body where mind can travel freely. The cyber-theorist Michael Heim says that “in cyberspace minds are connected to minds, existing in perfect concord without the limitations or necessities of the physical body.”(1) Similarly, William Gibson, in his novel Neuromancer, envisages a cyberspace in which the body is taken as inferior to the mind and thus, is left behind.(2) These ideas, based on the Cartesian Dualism, suggest an objectification of the body, by splitting the mind from the body. In the Cartesian philosophy, the mind constitutes the essence of man, and the body is just a tool to master. According to Descartes we can grasp the reality only from the activities of the mind; we cannot count on the bodily experiences, for our senses mostly deceive us. This leads to the idea of “I have a body but not its reality”.
Embodiment à “body as subject”:
On the other hand, there is a second approach that formulates a post-evolutionist configuration through embodiment. Susie Ramsay, in her article “Bring your Body: The Dance Community and New Technologies” maintains that the only possibility of the union of man with the new technologies passes from embodiment.(3) Similarly, Susan Kozel affirms that “it is through flesh and not in spite of it that we gain access to the virtual.”(4)
These views maintain that the challenges of Virtual Reality and of dance intersect at the possibilities of developing the proprioceptive (of, relating to, or being stimuli arising within the organism) and vestibular (of, relating to, or functioning as a vestibule: the central cavity of the bony labyrinth of the ear or the parts of the membranous labyrinth that it contains) capacities. Both areas aim at augmenting the capacities of the positioning of the body in space, and in its relation to others, as well as at developing its adaptation to velocity. Thus, phenomenologists, basing their premises on the idea of the “body-subject” suggested by Merleau-Ponty, argue that it is due to the body that we can interact with the new technologies.
Although situated at the opposite poles, both views have equally strong followers. The first suggests the statement of “I have a body” and thus, underlines the possibility of not having it; whereas the other puts forth the assertion of “I am a body” and maintains the impossibility of an existence without the body.
The ambiguous character of the Stelarcian body:
The performances of the Australian artist Stelarc are worth analysing in terms of the conception of the body, for they are situated at the very heart of the problematic issues generated around new technologies, and also for they present a body of a dubious character. At a first glance, he seems to be taking the “body as an object,” an object of design as he also admits himself; however, he also deals with the sensory aspect of the body which reminds us of the notion of the “body-subject.” He puts the body at the centre of all his concerns about the human existence, and this approach has some common points as well as some opposing ones with the idea of “being a body.”
Stelarc has been a sensational artist since the 70s for his exceptional performances in which he manifests the questions concerning the body in the face of new technologies. They are scandalous in political, ethical and physical terms. His suspension events, which altogether took place 27 times, were designed to test the physical and psychological limits of the body against gravity. These events differed in terms of the position of the body or the space in which they occurred. To name some of them: Sitting / Swaying event for rock suspension that took place at a gallery in Tokyo in 1980; City Suspension above the Royal Theatre, Copenhagen in 1985; Event for lateral suspension; Seaside suspension : Event for wind and waves...
Apart from his performances with low technology, Stelarc also uses excessive technology with cables, electrodes, and machines to create a cyborg. His performances are in the form of scientific experiments: He was invited to give a conference at NASA on his third arm project. He collaborates with scientists and medical doctors. His high-tech performances are grouped as “technology-attached,” “technology-inserted,” and “Net-Connected.”
His Net-Connected performances are Fractal Flesh, Ping Body and ParaSite:
In order to give an account on the performances we are going to discuss, I hereby include the descriptions as cited in his website:
“At the November 1995 Telepolis 'Fractal Flesh' event, Paris (the Pompidou Centre), Helsinki (The Media Lab) and Amsterdam (for the Doors of Perception Conference) were electronically linked through a performance website allowing the audience to remotely access, view and actuate Stelarc's body via a computer-interfaced muscle-stimulation system based at the main performance site in Luxembourg. Although the body's movements were involuntary, it could respond by activating its robotic Third Hand and also trigger the upload of images to a website so that the performance could be monitored live on the Net. Web server statistics indicated the live event was watched worldwide.
During the Ping Body performances, what is being considered is a body moving not to the promptings of another body in another place, but rather to Internet activity itself - the body's proprioception and musculature stimulated not by its internal nervous system but by the external ebb and flow of data.
The Ping Body performances produce a powerful inversion of the usual interface of the body to the Net. Instead of collective bodies determining the operation of the Internet, collective Internet activity moves the body. The Internet becomes not merely a mode of information transmission, but also a transducer, effecting physical action.
In the ParaSite performances, the cyborged body enters a symbiotic/parasitic relationship with information. Images gathered from the internet are mapped onto the body and, driven by a muscle stimulation system, the body becomes a reactive node in an extended virtual nervous system (VNS). This system electronically extends the body's optical and operational parameters beyond its cyborg augmentation of third arm, muscle stimulators and computerised audio visual elements.
A customised search engine gathers, analyses, and randomly scales incoming jpeg images. In real time the digital data are simultaneously displayed on the body and its immediate environment and, to the characteristics of the data, muscle movement is involuntarily actuated. The resulting motion is mirrored in a vrml space at the performance site, and also uploaded to a website as potential (and recursive) source images for body actuation.
The body's physicality provides feedback loops of interactive neurons, nerves, muscles and third hand mechanism with digital video and software code reverberating through the internet. The body, consuming and consumed by the information stream, becomes enmeshed within an extended symbolic and cyborg system mapped and moved by its search prosthetics.” (5)
Stelarcian body and the “body as object”
In these performances, Stelarc’s understanding of the “body as object” differs from the Cartesian notion of the body in the sense that in Stelarc’s performances the body is not conceived as inferior to the mind, on the contrary, the body occupies a primordial place; it determines the existence of
The Cartesian Dualism, while considering the body as an object, confers to the mind, a subjectivity that forms the essence of
The stelarcian body is not performing to acquire a new identity. Its actions are not directed to produce meaning. The body exists in its particularity only when it functions according to the performance. The total abandonment of the psychic and social subjectivity implies a body that rests outside the Cartesian dualism. Stelarc deliberately leaves out the human emotions, desires, pains in his body projects, and he is working solely with the structure of the body. The objective here is to augment the capacities of the body without attributing it an identity, subjectivity. It is a bodily project and not the project of a duty outside the body.
Stelarcian body and the “body-subject”:
Even if Stelarc takes the “body as an object” at the beginning, the fact that he positions the body at the centre of all his problematic about the human existence, and observes what it becomes, directs us to the formulation of “I am a body” that refers to the notion of the “body-subject.” Maurice Merleau-Ponty, in his Phenomenology of Perception, puts the act of perception at the origin of the comprehension of the world. The perception of the subject occurs with the phenomenon of “being in the world”. This is the subject of a lived body, which is called the “body-subject.” Respectively, the activity on Earth is an aspect of the corporeality in its “being in the world.” This activity is accompanied with the play of sensations, in which the body is conceived as an interface of communication with the world.
The relation of the idea of the “body-subject” to the conception of the body in Stelarc is to be found on the matter of the senses. Stelarc challenges the perception by artificially stimulating the musculature. As in the performances of Fractal Flesh, Ping Body and ParaSite, the agency of the body is moved from the interior to the exterior of the body; the action and the sensation are separated. The senses gain a capacity of a telematic scale. The body as a sensible object is amplified. Its presence is augmented. New sensations are experienced by exteriorisation of the senses. The sensation is not reached by an action-perception as in the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty which moves us away from the singularity of the body. The senses are stimulated by an external entity, be it other bodies or the web flow. The singularity of the body is transformed in multiplicity. The body abandons its state of the subject to become a collective site.
In Ping Body and ParaSite, the interaction occurs not only at the level of body to body, but of body to technological space. The body comprises the movement in this space. Therefore, the body is not included in the space; it is the space which is included in the body. As Derrick de Kerckhove implies, this phenomenon invites us to integrate the world in us in a different way than in the past. He talks of the “repositioning of the subject in the environment” with the integration of the world in the body. (7) While questioning the body, Stelarc seems to question also both approaches of the body by stating “as supposed free agents, the capabilities of “being a body” are constrained by “having a body.” (8)
Then, his performances seem to propose a body concerned not with “being in the world” but “becoming” the world. This is a world equipped with a technological structure open to a multiplicity of operations. The body then exceeds the boundaries of an individual body. It allows for the invasion and interaction of other entities. The body traverses the subject state, giving way to a mobile and ephemeral collectivity. It becomes a collective site for performances. Thus, the body in performance with new technologies, fuses the two notions of the body, the “body as object” and the “body-subject,” to lead to an incessant process of “becoming.” This is a cyborgian becoming of a body in project.
The notion of “becoming” in Deleuze and Guattari:
“Becoming” is the engagement in transformation. With the new technologies, the transformation is not about meaning or form, but particularly about operation. This is what Deleuze and Guattari propose in A Thousand Plateaux, by the “rhizomatic” analysis.(9) It is a method focusing on the way it functions and what it becomes, rather than what it is or what it has.
In the context of Stelarc’s cyborgian performances, the body becomes an “assemblage” -in deleuzoguattarian terms-, capable of proliferating an infinity of operations. However, in order to achieve this capacity, it is essential that it first undergoes an effacement of subjective operation and then a process of opening for new operations. Stelarc fulfils this, first by the suspension events in which the body is retained, paralysed and deprived of its attributes, qualities and proprieties in order to recover many others through the operations it will execute. It then becomes an undefined entity, “a body without organ” –in deleuzian terms-, to which an infinity of external elements can be attached. The body is carried to a state of in-betweenness, of intermediary, like a nomad, characterized by movement and change. Its aim is to continue to move between the centres, like a cyborg that moves in transitions.
Stelarc starts out with the idea that the body is obsolete. He states: “It is time to question whether a bipedal, breathing body with binocular vision and a 1400cc brain is an adequate biological form. It cannot cope with the quantity, complexity and quality of information it has accumulated; it is intimidated by the precision, speed and power of technology and it is biologically ill-equipped to cope with its new extraterrestrial environment. …” (10)
Stelarc takes the body as a biological reality, examines it objectively, and determines in what way it is obsolete, particularly in the suspension events. Then, he experiments the ways to augment its capacities through his high-tech performances. Although, he states that the body is obsolete, his solutions are centred on the body. So, he is a strong follower of the ones who take the body with themselves while interacting with new technologies. This interaction puts the body in a constant process of “becoming.”
His suspension events are a strong confirmation of his argument that the body is obsolete. He hangs the body depriving it from the gravitational activities thus, assigning it the obsolete nature. The verb to suspend has the meanings of “to stop” and “to hang.” The second definition implies a physical state, to be held in the air. To be deprived of its contact with the ground means to remove the body of its physical activities thus, to show the body’s incapacities. The suspended body becomes immobile, inactive and deleted for a while. It is disconnected from the world, from his “being in the world.” It is deactivated, unplugged.
This aspect of the body reflects the concept of the BwO of Deleuze and Guattari: “the BwO is the unproductive….” (11) There is a strong parallel between the BwO and the sewn suspensions in particular. In these events, the eyes and the mouth, as the organs of expression and communication are surgically sewn. As each organ creates a subjectivity by the operation it executes, the process of becoming requires, according to Stelarc, being freed of the subjectivity. Blocking the entrance and exit by sewing the mouth and the eyes implies a BwO. An organ as an instrument is the representative of a certain subjectivity. The organ constitutes the surface on which the subjectivity is viewed most openly. Then, to be deprived of the organs means to get rid of the subjectivity. The BwO is, then, a neutral body, a body at the zero degree. It is only through this state that the body can be opened to other connections. The subjectivity is left out when “being” is replaced by “becoming.” That is the reason why Stelarc aims at a body without memory, without history, without meaning.
What is important to this “becoming” is that it does not end in fixing to another form of subjectivity. This would contradict its aim. “Becoming” is a constant process of being unfix, undetermined, being neither this nor that, but to be held in the state of in-betweenness.
The suspension events seem to be a preparatory phase for the process of cyborgisation. Stretching the skin with hooks represents a preparation for a metamorphosis. And the possibility of stretching the skin proves that the skin is neither firm, nor permanent, nor immutable. It is rather flexible and mouldable, thus open to reconfigurations and to connexions that will mark its metamorphosis. This transformation of the body already indicates a certain degree of cyborgisation. The hook penetrating the skin is also a representative of the intrusion of technological prosthesis. The hook becomes the physical extension of the body.
The connectivity:
Stelarc proposes a new mode of instrumentalisation, the “connectivity” of the body, while abandoning the identity, he declares: “the body is designed to interface with its environment.” … “What is important today is no more the identity of the body but rather its connectivity – not its mobility or its location but its interface.” …“Consider a body remapped and reconfigured - not in genetic memory but rather in electronic circuitry.(12)
The connectivity of the body presents a possibility to disconnect and to reconnect to another interface, which provides it with a bodily multiplicity. Stelarc proposes the connectivity as an artifice of embodiment, but it is an ephemeral and versatile embodiment, made possible through the plugging and unplugging of the body to technology. He has developed diverse strategies to concretise this.
Becoming through performance: An analysis of the strategies of Stelarc’s performances:
The cyborgian strategies of “becoming” bring the body beyond the dichotomy of object/subject. Although “becoming” in the theories of Deleuze and Guattari is conceived as outside of biological reality, Stelarc concretises, in his performances, the concepts formulated around the notion of “becoming”. He engages himself in these concepts materially.
In his Net-connected performances, Stelarc is using information as prosthesis. As Mark Dery articulates Stelarc transforms the Net from a means of transmission of information into a mode of execution of physical action.(13) Carole Hoffmann states similarly: “The computer is envisaged as an extension and exteriorisation of the central nervous system which is the body. The computer is becoming a pseudo-organ.” (14)
In Ping Body and ParaSite, by the fact of transmitting the web traffic into the body and translating it into movement, the body becomes a site. It integrates the web in itself. This sort of becoming refers to the relation between body and space in the Phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty: “Being a body is being entered in a certain world, and our body is not at first in the space: It is the space.” (15) According to the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty, in the experience of the lived body, I am not separate from what I perceive. This idea is adaptable to the Net in general, as one perceives only when he is immersed in it. To perceive something is being absorbed by it. It is the opening of the body to the world.
The Net as an extension functions also as a site of the fulfilment of the notion of “deterritorialisation” that Deleuze and Guattari speaks of. Our relation to space and time changes due to electronic and digital prostheses. According to Stelarc, this deterritorialisation produces a psychological collapse in the perception of time and space. “We have a different perception of the world than before” says Stelarc in his interview made by Yannis Melanitis.(16) Carole Hoffmann articulates that “it is actually possible, thanks to the computer, to travel geographically without travelling physically.”(17) Simialrly, Paul Virilio formulates as “Going elsewhere without going anywhere.”(18)
Stelarc achieves corporeal multiplicity and displacement through spatially separated but electronically connected to other bodies in other places. This notion derives form the schizophrenic cult of Post-structuralism due to the process of de-individuation, decentralisation, fragmentation of the self, as in the concept of the “body without organ.” Stelarc achieves this process in Fractal Flesh by using the electronic connection and experiencing deterritorialisation of the intelligence of the body towards another.
Body as performance
Stelarc calls his performances “physical experience of ideas” in which “expression and experience are united” and the body becomes an “actual manifestation of a concept.”(19) Brian Massumi names the stelarcian body, as “objectified sensible concept.”(20) After having discussed in what ways the stelarcian body is neither an object nor a subject, but that it launches itself into a process of deleuzoguattarian “becoming,” I propose the formulation of the “body as performance” in preference to the body as concept that Brian Massumi proposes.
“Becoming” is already a characteristic of performance. The body that becomes is a body as performance. Performance starts from an idea, a concept, but it is not exactly the concretisation of this idea because as soon as this idea is incorporated it becomes something else. The cyborgian process of “becoming” is not about fixity. Although a concept is definite, “becoming” is not. It is a process. Experiencing ideas corporeally does not make a body a concept. The concept can exist only at the level of the conceptualisation of strategies, at the level of starting the project, but it disappears at the level of realisation. It becomes a multiplicity of things. Thus, we can presume that Stelarc’s performances do not create a body as concept but a body as project. And this project is the performance.
About the “body without organ” Deleuze and Guattari state: “It is not a notion or a concept but a practice, a set of practices.”(21)
This statement reflects the stelarcian body for it is about a generation of a new body through performance. It is through the experimental performance that Stelarc produces a body. But, the body is not a fixed one. The body is “anticorps” (antibody). It is no longer a definite entity. It is a nomad wandering in-betweens. Through performance, the body becomes performance. There certainly remains a concept. On the other hand, the transformation is achieved through the practice. But what it becomes is not a representation of the concept, nor a concretisation of it. It is a performance of a continuous transformation. And this is a body that can only exist through the indefinite performance. Therefore, the body is not performed nor performing, but it is the performance itself.
Although the issues of performance studies are crucial for a diversity of other disciplines, it is rather difficult to define what performance is. The theories of Victor Turner, a leading character in the field of performance studies, are important in the analysis of the stelarcian body. He formulates a definition of performance in comparison with the “rites of passage.”(22) Underlying the transitory aspect of the rites of passage, Turner evokes the character of process and the state of in-betweenness of these rites, by emphasising “the function of transition between two states of cultural activities more stable and more conventional.” This vision of performance sets it on the borders, in margin. This indicates the nomadism of performance in betweens, in indefinite spaces that reminds of the stelarcian body.
In the suspension events, the body suspends its terrestrial activities and is left in this state of in-betweenness, floating in the emptiness. It is detached of its state and this state is not replaced by another. The body is experienced in the emptiness in order to be isolated from every construction that would mark the stability of a state. Its structure is examined in its absence, in the course of transition. Stelarc’s suspended body, in its transitory aspect, resembles then to a performance.
In his Net-connected performances, the stelarcian body also floats in the digital circuit. It is a nomad of circuits, a passenger in transit. When it is connected, the body is suspended in the Net traffic. It is caught in the movement of the Internet and its constant flow. It is integrated in the circuit. It is the circuit. The body marks the transition. It is an intermediary among many entities, nets or bodies. In this respect, the stelarcian body is a body that makes itself a performance. Each connection creates a unique and indefinite body. The body becomes a site where other entities interact. It becomes the space for a game, a project, a performance. It is no longer the performance of the body. The performance is the body.
Another aspect of performance is the idea of game developed by Johan Huizinga and Roger Caillois.(23) Both of them tried to find a definition of performance by relating it to the functions of a game. A game is a site. It has its own rules. It marks moments of rupture, it is voluntary… The body has a capacity, then it has its own rules. The moments of rupture are the moments of connection and suspension. And the desire is of letting itself carried away through the transformation without resting on anywhere. It is about transiting without going anywhere, wandering at the borders.
Caillois emphasises the importance of the alea or chance, a characteristic of performance. This implies the random, the incertitude. It is an aspect that abolishes the stability of performance. Marvin Carlson remarks that the physical sensation leads to corporeal conscience that liberates the body from conventional structures of control and from signification.
Incertitude, ambiguity, eventuality are the traits that can be equally attributed to the stelarcian body, open to a multiplicity for the fact that it makes itself a site. This site is open to the alien operations. Multiple actions are fulfilled at this site. The body is transforming itself to the performance of a multiplicity. And this process is marked by a continuous and indefinite becoming.
Notes:
(1) Michael Heim, The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality. Oxford University Press,1993. p.34
(2) William Gibson, Neuromancer. Ace Books, 1988
(3) Susie Ramsay, “Bring your Body: The Dance Community and New Technologies.” Art and Technology Zone
(4) Susan Kozel, "Virtual Reality: Choreographing Cyberspace," Dance Theatre Journal, vol. 11, No. 2, p. 34-37 (Spring-Summer 1994)
(5) Stelarc’s website: www.stelarc.va.com.au
(6) Ibid.
(7) Derrick de Kerckhove, “Art, technologies du virtuel, et psychologie. L’élargissement du champ cognitive”, Netmagazine
(8) Stelarc’s website
(9) Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaux: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Athlone, London, 1988
(10) Stelarc’s website
(11) Gilles Deleuze, Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Univ. of Minnesota, 1998, p.8
(12) Stelarc’s website
(13) Mark Dery, Escape Velocity: Cyberculture at the End of the Century. Hodder & Stoughton, 1996
(14) Carole Hoffmann, “Le réseau comme extension prothéique du corps.” Publication électronique des actes des 1ères rencontres internationales, novembre 2000
(15)Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Phenomenology of Perception. Gallimard, 1945, p.173
(16) Yannis Melanitis, “Interview with Stelarc.” 1999
(17) Carole Hoffmann, “Le réseau comme extension prothéique du corps.” Publication électronique des actes des 1ères rencontres internationales, novembre 2000
(18) Paul Virilio, “Du corps profane au corps profane.” Art Press, hors série no :12, 1991
(19) Stelarc’s website
(20) Brian Massumi, “The Evolutionary Alchemy of Reason.” Cyberconf
(21) Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaux: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Athlone, London, 1988
(22) Marvin Carlson, Performance. A Critical Introduction. Routledge, 1996
(23) Ibid.
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