Abstract/Shmabstract
te...@access.digex.net
Okay. How's about:
abstract is often misused when what is really meant is plotless
and
perhaps,
replace abstract with spiritual?
As in, dance by its very nature is spiritual...with wordless power?
KK in a schmaltzey mood
amyr...@aol.com
>As in, dance by its very nature is spiritual...with wordless power?
Well, I do like the definition of spiritual as wordless power... After discussing
the abstract vs. added on bit about dance with my husband, he's just about
talked me back around to my original whim, that it is abstract... perhaps I'm
too mixed up now to make any sense anymore, but I believe his point was
that the concepts we communicate when we dance are abstract even if
the human body is not... sort of like the paint on an abstract painting's
canvas exists just as the dancer's body, but the patterns drawn on it are
abstract just as the patterns the dancer draws in space... I myself am
back to wondering if music & visual art are by nature abstract, where as
theater and dance are by nature added-on...
I think I'll go back to staring blankly ahead now...
___________________________________________________________
Amy Reusch - eye4...@aol.com
Dance Videographer, now based in Hartford, CT
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timv...@aol.com
>Well, I do like the definition of spiritual as wordless power... After
>discussing
>the abstract vs. added on bit about dance with my husband, he's just about
>talked me back around to my original whim, that it is abstract... perhaps I'm
>too mixed up now to make any sense anymore, but I believe his point was
>that the concepts we communicate when we dance are abstract even if
>the human body is not... sort of like the paint on an abstract painting's
>canvas exists just as the dancer's body, but the patterns drawn on it are
>abstract just as the patterns the dancer draws in space...
In following along with this debate, that's pretty much where where
I've ended up too. Even if a picture is non-representational, the paint
and canvas still represent paint and canvas at the very least. Also,
there had to be a painter somewhere sometime who put that paint on that
canvas, so it represents that person and that creative act as well,
whether or not it represents a landscape or a person's portrait.
Wouldn't it work out that way with dance too? A work represents the
dancers and the choreographer, and the personalities and labors of
everyone else who had something to do with it. And I think that meaning
has been the most important for art in the 20th century. There are huge
industries to provide us with pretty, shiny, mass-produced decorative
objects. What matters in art is what a work tells us about its creator,
about the nature of a medium, and about one particular creative act.
I have no problem calling that "abstract". But that word seems to have
picked up a pejorative meaning, so maybe it needs to be retired from
use. Does anyone mind "plotless"?
Actually, I'm kind of surprised that choreographers would have to
defend making plotless dances, when you consider how many of the best
known ballets since the start of this century haven't had stories. I'd
have thought that battle was already won. It seems like it might be an
interesting challenge to make a dance around a story without
compromising the actual dancing, but it hardly seems required these
days.
>I myself am
>back to wondering if music & visual art are by nature abstract, where as
>theater and dance are by nature added-on...
>
>I think I'll go back to staring blankly ahead now...
For everything, there is a time and purpose...
Tim Victor
TimV...@aol.com