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"Something old, something new, something borrowed...": eclecticism in postmodern dance

Monten, Joshua Lee

Abstract Details

2001, Master of Arts, Ohio State University, Dance.
The rising use of quoting and eclecticism represents a distinctive development in the field of concert dance choreography in the United States. In this thesis it is argued that an examination of quoting and eclecticism--also called bricolage--is of crucial importance for understanding many features of the contemporary dance world: new modalities of creating meaning, communicating with an audience, and training performers. Nowadays, without the modus operandi of eclecticism, a dance work is liable to appear na¿ve, predictable, monochromatic, or just quaintly old-fashioned. Numberless are the postmodern choreographers whose work is said to draw upon an eclectic, quirky range of movement, or create a fusion of disparate elements; legion are the modem dance teachers whose technique classes offer their own idiosyncratic, culled-from-many-sources movement. The present work traces the development of eclecticism from the divertissements of classical nineteenth-century ballets and the compendiums of world dances in Denishawn productions, through the modernist choreography of Alvin Ailey, Martha Graham, and George Balanchine. A distinctive employment of quoting begins to appear in the 1970's, during the latter days of the Judson Church movement. Special attention is devoted to the work of Twyla Tharp and Bill T. Jones: the former for her role in popularizing eclecticism and for her characteristic use of double-coding, irony, and uncertainty; the latter for his consistent use of bricolage--even after it lost its shiny veneer of novelty--to explore themes of crisis, hybridity, and diversity. The study concludes by examining contemporary models of dance training, whose eclectic breadth departs considerably from the intense, narrow focus of earlier (modernist) programs. Rather than being immersed exclusively in Russian-style ballet or Graham or Limon classes, many of today's performers are expected to have studied a broad range of dance styles, and to be able to move between them swiftly and fluidly. These changes indicate a fundamental shift in the "discipline" of dance training (understood in a Foucauldian sense) and in the concrete experience of what it means "to be a dancer."
Karen Eliot (Advisor)
Johannes Birringer (Committee Member)
54 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Monten, J. L. (2001). "Something old, something new, something borrowed...": eclecticism in postmodern dance [Master's thesis, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1407405704

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Monten, Joshua. "Something old, something new, something borrowed...": eclecticism in postmodern dance. 2001. Ohio State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1407405704.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Monten, Joshua. ""Something old, something new, something borrowed...": eclecticism in postmodern dance." Master's thesis, Ohio State University, 2001. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1407405704

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)