According to Judith Butler (Gender Trouble, 33) ‘gender is the repeated stylization of the body, a set of repeated acts within a highly rigid regulatory frame.’  Using specific examples of choreographers or choreographies, what implications does this have for our understanding of the relationship between dance and gender theory?

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1. Introduction

 

By means of autobiographical material, Victoria Thoms stresses the relevance of “considering the personal histories of subject-hood that influence a feminist consciousness”, questioning as well “how these are the condition of possibility for making other readings” (2006, p.357).  In the same vein, I would like to include some of the reasons why I am interested in studying the relationship between dance and gender theory, specifically through a feminist lens. I have existed within dance institutions for over fifteen years and since the beginning, as a young girl, I was already aware of my disadvantages of being female in the dance world. Even though “[…] women overwhelmingly populate dance, women do not hold power in dance” (Thoms, 2006, p.361). Since then, I have been convinced that women have the toughest position within the dance industry.

 

Nonetheless, recently, while rehearsing for ‘there won’t be glitter’[1], one of the dancers requested to be referred to as they or she. We all understood and respected their wish, but this dancer explained to us how our response is rare in a dance/rehearsal context. By now, they do not even attempt explaining and they just swallow their pride, since whenever they try, the choreographer says ‘yes’ and afterwards says ‘boys’ section’ pointing at them. This was the moment when I consciously acknowledged that instead of thinking of women as being discriminated, one should just say that the only one who is not discriminated is the straight white man, as in every other context. Similarly to Thoms, my use of autobiographic examples in this introduction, demonstrates “[…] the cumulative and discontinuous effects of subjectivity” (Thoms, 2006, p.369).

 

Additionally, these introducing thoughts seemed relevant since Simone de Beauvoir (1997) suggested that “a man would never set out to write a book on the peculiar situation of the human male. But if I wish to define myself, I must first of all say: ‘I am a woman’; on this truth must be based all further discussion” (p.15). Also, my interest in approaching this research through a feminist lens within a dance analysis arose from the way women are and have been represented from the male spectator perspective and its voyeuristic gaze (Manning, 1997).

 

Moreover, the terms ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ are used and repeated throughout this essay, since

 

[…] the argument that the category of ‘sex’ is the instrument or effect of ‘sexism’ or its interpellating moment, […] that ‘gender’ only exists in the service of hetero- sexism, does not entail that we ought never to make use of such terms, as if such terms could only and always reconsolidate the oppressive regimes of power by which they are spawned. On the contrary, precisely because such terms have been produced and constrained within such regimes, they ought to be repeated in directions that reverse and displace their originating aims (Butler, 2011, p.83).

 

This essay will be focussing on Pina Bausch’s work, specifically on one scene from Waltzer (1982), and on Richard Move’s and Roy Fialkow’s performances inspired by Martha Graham’s work. While researching and thinking about examples of choreographers and its implications for our understanding of the relationship between dance and gender theory, Bausch and Graham immediately crossed my mind. They both apply strategies of otherness in their work that effectively criticised women’s social roles (Sally, 1998). However, since this essay is concentrating on the links between dance and gender theory, I thought it would be essential to englobe other genders besides female. That was when Move and Fialkow were pulled into this text, who not only are male gendered, but their work also embodies the fluidity of gender and how that characteristic might be represented in dance. Bausch and Graham are examples of women who have represented the female body “[…] at the margins of the socially acceptable” (Sally, 1998 p.125) and Move and Fialkow introduce the idea and “[…] proliferation of confusion around binaries such as past/present, dead/alive, he/she, high art/cabaret, acting/dancing, and real/fake” (Thoms, 2013, p.109) in their work through the interpretation of a female choreographer’s dances.

 

 

1. Pina Bausch – Waltzer (1982)

 

Even though often Pina Bausch presents her dancers in the heteronormative standard appearance, the female dancers are habitually in power of the narrative and structure of the piece. Concurrently, the male dancers are presented in a physically subservient way. This may be a nod to systems of power within western cultures, but it also brings to mind the position that the female dancer embodies in ballet. One of ballet’s main features is indeed “[…] the division of labor along gender lines […]” (Foster, 1996, p.8) and female and male bodies do not appear in equal ways (Foster, 1996). The male ballet dancer hides behind the ballerina during their duets, presenting her body and bringing the audience’s attention only to her while embodying the role of supporter (Foster, 1996). In ballet, this relationship between the two genders results in erasing the ballerina’s identity (Foster, 1996). However, in Bausch’s work, this similar relationship seems to have the opposite goal and result. The female dancer gains agency and endures her identity through this process.

 

Bausch frequently presents her female dancers and herself as eroticised commodities. Once again, there seems to be a parallel with how the ballerina is presented in ballet. The ballerina conveys desire in her performance (Foster, 1996). This desire is demonstrated, nonetheless, it is not real, “she is, in a word, the phallus […]”  (Foster, 1996, p.3). This statement problematises how the ballerina is presented as an object of male desire and criticises the male viewer’s gaze (Foster, 1996). The ballerina is not only commodified but also objectified through capitalist strategies (Foster, 1996). Nevertheless, the female ballet dancer has attempted to repel the audience by being represented in ephemeral ways (Foster, 1996). Contrarily, Bausch presents the female dancers as glamorous and visceral women. There is nothing ephemeral about them. They look real and organic with long hair, striking dresses and even though their bodies are ballet trained (i.e.: elegant, slim and with leg and feet lines required in ballet) they are simultaneously muscly. Opposing to the female body in ballet, their breasts and bellies acquire attention, while in ballet one becomes aware of “[…] the ballerina’s ‘non-natural’ status as a non-childbearing character” (Foster, 1996, p.3).

 

Through these strategies and others, Bausch becomes a feminist choreographer. She stated what is expected and then cleverly subverted it, bringing one’s attention to one’s imbedded and culturally imbedded expectations and prejudices. Bausch offered strong critiques without explanations. Besides, she presented the body as a site of resistance through her choreography, which belongs to the realm of experimental performance practices from the second half of the twentieth-century (Burt, 2004). Bausch was one of the choreographers who questioned how bodies are subject to normative ideologies and how she could resist that through her work by exploring the presence of the dancing body (Burt, 2004).

 

Bausch always included an ever-evolving play between how she presents people and their gender and how these people and their genders interact with each other. Nevertheless, I am opting to concentrate on one scene in specific, where a woman wearing a blue swimming suit performs a long solo with various layers. This character seems to embody and verbalise various characteristics of women, what is expected in a woman and a woman’s relationship to her body. She begins by requesting two spot lights and then leaving, simultaneously evoking power and comedy. She then comes back carrying a big table while wearing high heels. Wearing heels, even when executing difficult physical tasks such as this one, draws a parallel to the point shoes in ballet. Ballerinas dance difficult ballet movements while wearing point shoes, which destabilises their balance and causes pain, as it happens when wearing heeled shoes. While the dancer does this task, she repeats: “I don’t need your help or anybody else’s help, thank you!” This moment reminds one of the ballerina’s need for the male dancer and his physical support and help during the big pas-de-deuxs present in every ballet (Foster, 1996).

 

After, she moves on explaining how to make one’s legs look elegant when sitting and explaining a bra’s function. This section transparently exposes how a woman’s body is constantly objectified in our society through a woman’s voice. Here, Bausch exposed this woman’s personal concerns about her body, while signalling to how universal these concerns are (Royd, 2008). Bausch showcases how these “joys and fears, frustrations and confusions of everyday life are mined to find their kernel of hidden truth […]” (Royd, 2008, p.50) while allowing each audience member to process it and make connections with their own life experiences (Royd, 2008).

 

Here, the dancer describes her legs with adjectives such as “fat, ugly and revolting” when showing how a woman should avoid sitting down. Bausch approached representation in a descriptive way, in this case, the female dancer constantly describes her female body, but while describing, Bausch presents us with “[…] the condition of our bodies in the revelation of experience” (Royd, 2008, p.50). This shows how for Bausch dance is created from “[…] confrontation with behavior and bodily presentation” (Royd, 2008, p.51). Moreover, this dancer’s attitude also reminds me of how “[…] gender is made to comply with a model of truth and falsity which not only contradicts its own performative fluidity, but serves a social policy of gender regulation and control” (Butler, 1988, p.528), and once acknowledging this, the dancer seems to represent the ‘model of truth’ while also being the embodiment of gender regulation.

 

This section selected from Walzer may illustrate how Bausch worked with her dancers. One watches it and notes how the dancer is definitely not merely presenting Bausch’s ideas but that her own experiences propelled Bausch’s work (Royd, 2008). Bausch also encouraged the audience to include their own ideas and histories while watching her work and making connections within both (Royd, 2008). Likewise, that is what I have been attempting while analysing Walzer. Furthermore, Bausch’s repertoire is immensely vast and every piece I have watched subverts various societal norms, sometimes in a serious manner and other times in a parodical way. Viktor (1986), for instance, is another piece where gender identity is rethought through the appearance of a drag-queen/cross-dressing character. While this essay will not cover this character, the role of drag and cross-dressing in performance in relation to gender identity will be further explored.

 

 

1. The role of drag and cross-dressing in Richard Move’s and Roy Fialkow’s haunting of Martha Graham

 

Both Move’s and Fialkow’s work represent new possibilities for the future of Graham’s work and “[…] can be said to bring Graham back from the grave” (Thoms, 2013, p.106). These dance artists’ work is specifically relevant for this section of the essay since they both work with drag performance to interpret Graham’s choreography (Thoms, 2013). Move became popular for his performance Martha@Mother at a nightclub in Manhattan called Mother “[…] where he transformed himself into Martha Graham” (Lepecki, 2010, p.40). Fialkow is a former dancer of Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo[2] who was also trained in Graham technique and has created Lamentations of Jane Eyre (1980s)[3] (Thoms, 2013).

 

These dance artists’ work is particularly significant when mentioned as a means in which performance may be involved with a culture and the past (Thoms, 2013). Dance is seen as an ephemeral art form and for this reason it “[…] has the power to illustrate that being is not as solid as we have been led to believe” (Thoms, 2013, p.107).  Their work allows us to acknowledge the nuances between the real and unreal. In fact, Judith Butler (2004) examines the term ‘phantasmatic’, which seems like a very suitable way for describing one of the effects these works have created. Butler describes ‘phantasmatic’ as something that “[…] becomes essential to the construction of the real […], the distinction between real and unreal contrives a boundary between the legitimate domain of the phantasmatic and the illegitimate” (Butler, 2004, p.186). According to Butler, “[…] it is precisely in the moment in which the phantasmatic assumes the status of the real […] that the phantasmatic exercises its power most effectively” (Butler, 2004, p.186). This acknowledgement of the non-binary condition of the real and unreal existent in Move’s and Fialkow’s performances might explain one of the reasons why their work has been so effective and how it may relate to gender theory.

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Essentially, it is possible to draw parallels between the terms ‘queer’ and ‘ghost’ (Thoms, 2013). They both raise concerns and provocations which then open the prospect of reaction (Thoms, 2013).  Queer theory challenges “[…] the traditional understandings of an identity based on a knowable and distinct gender, underpinned by biological sex” (Thoms, 2013, p.107). This challenge not only questions the connections between sex and identity, but it also shakes other hegemonic structures from where heteronormativity and homophobia are founded on (Thoms, 2013).  Performing drag implies an ambivalence, however, it does not always mean subverting gender norms (Butler, 2011). In fact, drag may “[…] be used in the service of both the denaturalization and reidealization of hyperbolic hetero-sexual gender norms” (Butler, 2011, p.85). Moreover, drag presents the nuances of doing one’s gender, even though “[…] one does it in accord with certain sanctions and proscriptions, [it] is clearly not a fully individual matter” (Butler, 1988, p.525).

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Nevertheless, in Move’s and Fialkow’s cases, “the proximity between ‘original’ bodies and ‘performed’ bodies […]” (Thoms, 2013, p.112) creates a sense that the dead is haunting the present, indeed disrupting “[…] the assumed truth of definite and distinct sexed categories as guarantors of corporeal existence” (Thoms, 2013, p.112) and refuting the idea of gender inscription according to an individual’s biological sex. Indeed, feminist theorists have distinguished sex from gender and debated conventions that corelate sex with social meanings for women (Butler, 1988), and in Move’s and Fialkow’s performances, the same may be applied to men who perform drag. Truly, their queering of dance performances’ conventions is a way of rewriting dance history (Thoms, 2013). Within this idea of rewriting history through the haunting of the present, particularly in this context (Graham’s work and its future), may be a connection to what Beauvoir (1997) suggested about American women: “The attitude of defiance of many American women proves that they are haunted by a sense of their femininity” (p.13).

 

 

1. Conclusion

 

 

All agree in recognizing the fact that females exist in the human species; today as always they make up about one half of humanity. And yet we are told that femininity is in danger, we are exhorted to be women, remain women, become women. It would appear, then, that every female human being is not necessarily a woman […] (Beauvoir, 1997, p.13).

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Beauvoir’s quote elaborates on what a woman can be beyond the socially and historically constructed norms. Attention is brought to the women’s body and its femininity, however, there is a sense of wonder about its connections. Throughout this essay, these associations have been approached through Bausch’s work and Move’s and Fialkow’s performances (from Graham’s legacy) by noting ways in which not only the female body is constructed in dance but also ways in which dance allows the making and remaking of gendered identity in general. Indeed, the works chosen demonstrate kinds of subversive repetition used in performance that disrupt the norms of identity. Additionally, while finding connections between dance and gender theory, I came across the idea that “[…] gender is an act which has been rehearsed […]” (Butler, 1988, p.526). For this reason, dance seems to be a highly appropriate ‘stage’ to explore and disrupt societal gender conventions, since every piece we may analyse in this context has been rehearsed and then performed, while gender is performative and always rehearsed.

Having recently seen Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch’s new piece Bon Voyage, Bob (2019) by Alan Lucien Øyen, the question of how one should confront the future of choreographies and companies founded by people who have died comes back into mind. Graham’s work has been haunted by Move’s and Fialkow’s performances in a way that seems to work, while Bausch’s legacy has been followed by other choreographers’ pieces. One can still notice certain remnants of her subversion of gender and other social patterns, but one thing must be said about this possible future, Pina Bausch is missed.

 

Within these concluding thoughts, it is crucial to state “[…] how gender performances are potentially unstable and dynamic, while also grounding and stabilizing, and always relational and context-specific” (Entwistle & Mears, 2013, p.321). Moreover, while analysing the choreographies and performances selected, I hope to have expressed the ways these subversive works suggest how gender performativity may be disruptive through the body and movement (Morris, 1996). Additionally, studying gender theory through the lens of dance allows a practical manifestation and an understanding of how, “the effect of gender is produced through the stylization of the body and, hence, must be understood as the mundane way in which bodily gestures, movements, and styles of various kinds constitute the illusion of an abiding gendered self” (Butler, 1999, p.191). Gender performativity can be unpredictable and ever evolving, however, while observing these works a feeling of being grounded through this performativity seemed possible.

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Bibliography

 

Beauvoir, S. (1997). The Second Sex. London: Vintage Books

 

Butler, J. (1988). “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory”. Theatre Journal, Vol. 40, No. 4. (Dec), pp. 519-531.

 

Butler, J. (2004). Fantasy, Censorship, and Discurssive Power. In S. Salih & J. Butler (Eds.), The Judith Butler Reader. Pp.181-241. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

Butler, Judith (2011). Bodies that matter: on the discursive limits of "sex". Published London: Routledge.

Burt, R. (2004). "Genealogy and Dance History: Foucault, Rainer, Bausch and de Keersmaeker". In A. Lepecki (Ed.), Of the presence of the body: essays on dance and performance theory. Pp.29-44. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press.

 

Entwistle, J. & Mears (2013). “Gender on Display: Peformativity in Fashion Modelling”. Cultural Sociology. Vol. 7, pp. 320–335. London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi: SAGE Publications.

Foster, S. (1995). The ballerina's phallic pointe. In S. Foster (Ed.), Corporealities: Dancing Knowledge, Culture and Power. Pp. 1-24. London: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Lepecki, A. (2010). “The Body as Archive: Will to Re-Enact and the Afterlives of Dances” Dance Research Journal. Vol. 42, No. 2 (Winter), pp. 28-48. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Manning, S. (1997). The Female Dancer and the Male Gaze: Feminist Critiques of Early Modern Dance. In J., Desmond (Ed.), Meaning in Motion: New Cultural Studies of Dance. Pp.153-165. Durham, London: Duke University Press.

Morris, G. (1996). Moving words: re-writing dance. London: Routledge.

Royd, C. (2008). Pina Bausch. Published London: New York: Routledge.

 

Sally, B. (1998). Dancing women: female bodies on stage. London: Routledge.

Thoms, V. (2013). Martha Graham: gender & the haunting of a dance pioneer. Bristol: Intellect.

Thoms, V. (2006). “Reading Human Sex - The Challenges of a Feminist Identity through Time and Space” European Journal of Women’s Studies. Vol. 13, No. 4, pp. 357–371. London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi: SAGE Publications.

 

[1] A piece choreographed by Fraser Buchanan for ‘Resolution’ festival at The Place, which explores the future possibility of a queer utopia.

[2] An all-male drag ballet company.

[3] A take-off of Graham’s work Deaths and Entrances (1943).