{"id":18,"date":"2017-09-12T18:39:40","date_gmt":"2017-09-12T18:39:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/creative-research-center\/?page_id=18"},"modified":"2020-05-12T13:31:40","modified_gmt":"2020-05-12T17:31:40","slug":"the-danceaturgy-archive","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/creative-research-center\/the-danceaturgy-archive\/","title":{"rendered":"The Danceaturgy Archive"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Danceaturgy Archive: an anecdotal and scholarly reference work-in-progress at The Creative Research Center<\/p>\n

\"Danceaturgs

The 2020 Danceaturgs – Friday, February 14th, in the Dean’s Conference Room, Morehead Hall.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

“Dance studies has always been interdisciplinary, even if [it] has been neither sufficiently acknowledged nor fully theorized. The difficulty of traversing disciplinary divides and accommodating diverse media without losing a focus on dance is nevertheless a primary reason that ‘modernism and dance’ remains a topic in need of discussion.”
\n— Carrie J. Preston, Modernism and Dance, 2014.<\/p>\n

What is a Danceaturg and What Do We Do?<\/div>
\n

We are a group of select individuals that meets weekly in the Spring semester at 8:30 am every Friday \u2013 in the Dean\u2019s Conference Room \u2013 We convene over fruits and healthy snacks for lively conversation to conceptualize what we physicalize – and respond to provocative writing prompts on the process of dance.<\/p>\n

A danceaturg<\/em> is a reflection of the community in which he or she trains \u2013 We think from the perspective of the bird\u2019s eye, the worm\u2019s mouth, and roundabout oversight \u2013 not only of the Montclair State dance community \u2013 but of the ways in which we grow our cognitive functions from an artistic perspective while dancing, rehearsing, or experiencing dance as an audience member…<\/p>\n

Danceturgy: A Living Document (PDF)<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n

The Danceaturgy Archive\u00a0<\/strong>is an annotated, catalogued, keyword-searchable hybrid text and visual record [Web-based\/digital\/dvd\/paper documentary] of choreographic interviews, presentations and performances in The Dance Division of the Department of Theatre & Dance in The College of the Arts at Montclair State University.<\/p>\n

Danceaturgy<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em>is\u00a0<\/em>an observational strategy invented at Montclair State as<\/em>\u00a0a variant of\u00a0dramaturgy<\/em>\u00a0in the world of theatre (reiterated by Erving Goffman in homage to G.E. Lessing\u2019s\u00a0Hamburg Dramaturgy<\/em>\u00a0of 1767).\u00a0 As a pedagogical process, selected dance students\/writers are chosen from repertory classes to examine the works in which they are performing, and given the task to develop a critical analysis of the works by \u201cstepping out\u201d and looking at pieces objectively.<\/p>\n

The danceaturg is the performer-as-spectator, in contradistinction to the theatrical dramaturg; and\u00a0The Danceaturgy Workshop<\/strong>\u00a0is offered as a credit-bearing course every spring.<\/p>\n

The Danceaturgy Archive is an ongoing effort to make centrally-available published and unpublished on-site dance videos; dance writings; rehearsal notes; oral history in-person and telephone interviews with visiting\u00a0repetiteurs\u00a0<\/em>and choreographers who trained and performed with the masters of modern dance; conversations with Montclair State dance faculty;\u00a0Informance<\/em>\u00a0plans; themed repertory curatorial notes; \u201cTalkback\u201d and rehearsal\/staging videos; and weekly email\u00a0Letters from a Danceaturg<\/em>\u00a0by Dr. Neil Baldwin to Dance Division Director Lori Katterhenry (sent through her to Montclair State dance majors and faculty, and other interested readers around the College, the University and the world).<\/p>\n

The Danceaturgy Archive memorializes the historic commitment by the Montclair State University Dance Division to the modern dance legacy, and to the preservation of cultural patrimony, at a complex time in our culture when the values of a liberal education are under inordinate scrutiny. The Dance Division believes that the arts are the life\u2019s blood of that education, and is committed to inculcating in its students the necessity for\u00a0a historic consciousness of an ephemeral form<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The Danceaturgy Archive offers herewith its\u00a0first documentary compilation<\/strong>, a six-year retrospective survey\u00a0of the activities of The Dance Division:<\/p>\n

Danthology<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a02013<\/a>\u00a0| 2012<\/a>\u00a0| 2011<\/a> |\u00a02010<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0Informance 2009<\/a>\u00a0| Informance 2008<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In Spring 2013,\u00a0The Danceaturgy Archive\u00a0produced three new documentaries in what will be an ongoing series:\u00a0Bill T. Jones: Continuous Replay\u00a0(by Kenneth Spooner); and\u00a0Informance<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Jasmin Vardimon<\/a> in conversation at Kasser Theater (by Lindsey Rassmann).<\/p>\n

As of\u00a0May 2014,\u00a0The Danceaturgy Archive\u00a0<\/strong>has added the following new material to its burgeoning collections: Three Interview\/Conversations by Neil Baldwin with\u00a0Bill T. Jones<\/a> on\u00a0Spent Days Out Yonder<\/em>;\u00a0Wayne McGregor<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0Atomos\u00a0<\/em>and other works; and\u00a0Carrie Ann Shim Sham\u00a0<\/strong>on\u00a0Stardust.\u00a0<\/em>A presentation by\u00a0Jim May<\/a>\u00a0and Elizabeth McPherson on the work of Anna Sokolow. The Dance Department,\u00a0Informance, and the Danthology\u00a0<\/a>on the repertory theme of\u00a0Minding the Dance<\/em>\u00a0by the 2014 Danceaturgs.<\/p>\n

[All archival videos are filmed and edited by Kenneth Spooner].<\/em>
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

As of\u00a0May 2015,\u00a0The Danceaturgy Archive\u00a0has added the following new video material to its collections:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Heidi Latsky on Dance for Film at Montclair State University<\/a>
\nWatch Neil Baldwin interview Heidi Latsky on her new dance for film,\u00a0Soliloquy<\/em>.
\nA three-part conversation in Kasser Theatre:\u00a0Part 1<\/a>\u00a0–\u00a0Part 2<\/a>\u00a0–\u00a0Part 3<\/a>
\nA documentary “behind the scenes” of\u00a0Soliloquy<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Larry Keigwin on Megalopolis<\/a><\/p>\n

Sean Curran on Symbolic Logic<\/a><\/p>\n

Kathleen Kelley’s A Note for the Dancer<\/a><\/p>\n

The Danceaturgy Workshop Seminar spring 2015\u00a0presents its\u00a0Danthology with Informance 2015 essays<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Dance Division\u00a0<\/strong>has launched its new\u00a0Low-Residency MFA<\/strong>.\u00a0Danceaturgy<\/strong>\u00a0will be taught at the graduate level commencing\u00a0Summer 2017<\/strong>. Danceaturgy course prospectus.<\/a>
\n<\/strong><\/em>
\nIn\u00a0October-November 2016<\/strong>, Neil Baldwin interviewed guest choreographer\u00a0Larry Keigwin<\/strong>\u00a0during the process of creating and setting his new dance,\u00a0Mad Rush<\/em><\/strong>, on Montclair State University students.\u00a0The Biography of a Dance<\/em>\u00a0was conducted in three sessions:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n