Historical Context

Steve Paxton: Historical Context  

        Steve's early collaboration with Merce Cunningham exposed him to new ways to approach dance and art. Merce Cunningham was the first choreographer to challenge notions of linear narrative's in concert dance works. Cunningham sparked the shift in dance from modern art to postmodern art. Postmodern art is characterized by art for arts sake, authenticity, universality, and medium specificity. Postmodern art questioned and blurred the lines between high and low art. It put an emphasis on the process of creating art more so then the product of art. Postmodernists value human experiences and interpretations because they believe that is what defines and makes up reality for each individual. At the same time as Cunningham, visual artists like Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. Below is an example of Merce Cunningham, Robert Rauschenberg, and Jasper Johns in which one can see an emphasis on the technique and process of inventing art. 

Merce Cunningham, Coast Zone, 1983

 

Robert Rauschenberg, Collection, 1954
http://www.sfmoma.org/explore/collection/artwork/262

Jasper Johns, After Untitled, 1976
http://www.artnet.com/artwork/426195458/425105436/
jasper-johns-after-untitled-six-screen-prints.html

        Based on Copeland's article Postmodern Dance, Postmodern Architecture, Postmodernism, the Judson Dance Theatre grew out of Cunningham's work and immersed itself in the shift of concert dance into post-modernism. The artists made this shift by declaring that dance could have no meaning. Their work was characterized by repetition, disconnect with or no music at all, pedestrian movement, verbal noises, props, and lack of emotion. Copeland states, "The found movement, like the found object, is estranged from its "natural" context, and the ultimate effect of this displacement is to increase, rather than decrease, the distance between spectator and performer" (32-33). Fellow member and collaborator, Yvonne Rainer, composed the "No Manifesto," which rejected the dramatic performance and defined the group's purpose. The Judson Dance Theatre and post modern artists expanded what was accepted as art which in turn gave future artists more freedom with subject matter and processes. 

   Yvonne Rainer "No Manifesto"

      "No to spectacle.

       No to virtuosity.

       No to transformations and magic and make-believe.
       No to the glamour and transcendency of the star image.
       No to the heroic.

       No to the anti-heroic.

       No to trash imagery.
       No to involvement of performer or spectator. 
       No to style.
       No to camp.
       No to seduction of spectator by the wiles of the performer.
       No to eccentricity.
       No to moving or being moved"

         After Judson, Paxton furthered his research in contact improvisation. He premiered the first contact improvisation performance called Magnesium in 1972 at Oberlin College. Soon after this performance, Paxton's collective performed in New York at the John Weber Art Gallery. Paxton's invention of contact improvisation allowed dancer's and non dancers alike to experience a universal understanding of dance where anyone could relate to time, space, and another body. This invention is not only part of concert dance history but has integrated into acting and forms of therapy. Paxton's contributions to the dance world have been immense and without postmodern artists our culture would have a more narrow approach to art. Below is a video of Paxton discussing how he came to create Magnesium.

       Another one of his famous works is Satisfyin' Lover which was performed in 1968 and reviewed by Jill Johnston from the village voice. Johnston wrote, "let us now praise famous ordinary people" which comments on Paxton's use of anyone breaking the barrier of who is a dancer. This piece was re performed this year in a dance series called "Some Sweet Day" from October through November. Claudia La Rocco reviewed this new exhibition in which she says, "there is still a dismaying amount of resistance to the crucial Judson idea that dancers and dance need not be virtuosic to be artists and art." The Judson's ideas are still present in today's society. Their questions remain unanswered and dancer's are still exploring these idea's today.

Link to Copeland's article: (http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.lib.indiana.edu/stable/pdfplus/3245292.pdf)

  Link to Rocco review: (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/19/arts/dance/steve-paxtons-satisfyin-lover-and-state-at-moma.html?_r=0)