Hailed as “the most promising performing artist of her generation,” choreographer and director Faye Driscoll unabashedly creates a new and wholly visceral vocabulary to relay the human experience through her work. Often incorporating an eclectic range of elements in her pieces, her ultimate product usually tows the line between dance, theater, and performance art. A Brooklyn-based artist, she grounds her work in a personal “obsession with the problem of being ‘somebody’ in a world of other ‘somebodies.” This seemingly abstract concept is actually broken down, built up and then blown out of proportion through the work, thereby allowing participants to really contemplate our daily performances of self. With evident interest in hyper-theatrics and excess emotionality, Driscoll appears to be one of the few contemporary artists who has taken on a uniquely experimental form to explore the messier aspects of what it really means to be human in a postmodern society. Born in Los Angeles California in 1976, Driscoll earned her Bachelors of Fine Arts in Dance from New York University’s Tisch School for the Arts. A very private person, there is little to no record of her past or current life online. In an interview with the San Francisco Bay Guardian, she explains that because she “had a lot going on in [her] home that was kind of crazy,” dance became the fluid structure that afforded her the space to finally express who she really was. A member of Doug Varone and dancers, she
Influenced primarily by cultural roots and incredibly opportunity, Dunham had the luxury of studying in the West Indies as well as anthropological study of other cultural style dances. The West Indian experience changed forever the focus of Dunham’s life and caused a profound shift in her career. This initial fieldwork began a lifelong involvement with the people and dance of Haiti. And, importantly for the development of modern dance, her fieldwork began her investigations into a vocabulary of movement that would form the core of the Katherine Dunham Technique. Though many of Dunham’s primary influences lies within her multicultural experiences, Mark Turbyfill also seemed to play a large role in her future dance career, giving her private lessons despite his doubt in the opening of her student company (Kaiso! 187). Katherine Dunham has been list as an influence to “everyone from George Balanchine to Jerome Robbins, Alvin Ailey, Bob Fosse and Twyla Tharp. American dance, including ballet, modern dance, Hollywood and Broadway, would not be the same without her” (Aschenbrenner 226).
While the speaker has succeeded in providing an enhanced image of the performer, the act of assigning meaning to the performance and the representation used holds the capacity to limit the experience. As the speaker continues to reconfigure her strip tease into a “[graceful] and calm” artistic dance, he makes a simultaneous attempt to distance himself from the crowd, making no mention of his gender or race directly (5). However, the speaker’s attempt to portray the dancer from objective eyes falters as his
Born on October 16, 1960, in Colgate, Jamaica and later moved with her family to Scarsdale, New York. Renée Cox began studying photography at Syracuse University and received her master’s degree at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. After completing her MFA, Cox participated in a year-long Whitney Independent Study program. From the very beginning, her work showed a deep concern for social issues. In her first show at a New York gallery in 1998, Cox created a superhero named Raje who tried to overturn stereotypes such as in the piece “The Liberation of Lady J and UB,” where Raje is with Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben. In her next photographic series, “Flipping the Script,” Cox took a number of European religious masterpieces, including Michelangelo’s David and The Pieta, and reinterpreted them with contemporary black figures.
Tiana Woods is an ambitious second-year undergraduate student studying Political Science and Dance. She is currently attending Columbia University as a Kluge Scholar. Tiana started her learning journey in the East Orange School System at the Little Ones Preschool. Her Preschool teachers cultivated in her a passion for reading. Ever since then she has loved to tell stories through different art forms. Dance being her favorite platform through which to do so. For Tiana, there is something magical about being able to instantly connect with people of different backgrounds through movement. That's the beauty behind artistry in dance—movement can be interpreted in so many different ways, by so many different people. But it will always inspire. Tiana
“Go within everyday and find the inner strength so that the world will not blow your candle out” (A Quote by Katherine Dunham 1). Once one of the most successful dancers in both American and European theater, Katherine Dunham, a dancer, anthropologist,social activist,and educator, continues to inspire people throughout the world. Named America’s irreplaceable Dance Treasure in 2000. Dunham remains a name heard regularly in dance schools across the world (“Katherine Dunham Biography” 4). She is known for always trying to make a difference and in the process she has become of the world’s greatest humanitarians (Osumare 5). Katherine Dunham’s work in African American rights in the dance world and her creation of new styles of dance makes her an important figure in American dance History.
Alone at the start of “Pavement,” the choreographer Kyle Abraham establishes the distinctive movement language that’s gained him attention. It’s a style in which the body — and by implication, the psyche — is pulled in multiple directions, out of the ground and into it. Sourced in contemporary dance and the street, twisting together aggressive male posturing with the kind of hip-hop moves that summon comparisons to ballet, it expresses confusion with searching, eloquence.
Baglia, Jay, and Elissa Foster. “Performing the ‘Really’ Real: Cultural Criticism, Representation, and Commodification in The Laramie Project.” Journal Of Dramatic Theory And Criticism 19.2 (2005): 127-145. MLA International Bibliography. Web. 10 Feb. 2016.
Vanessa Beecroft is an Italian performance artist who is considered part of the movement called relational aesthetics. In relational art, the viewer is the stimulant for the work, but not the focus; the work is not truly interactive, but the viewer feels like they are a part of it. Relational aesthetics artwork typically involves large installations in a space, but Beecroft’s work primarily uses female models and human forms as the artwork, both clothed and nude, giving her work as a whole a very feminine touch. She uses these female models, especially when they are nude, to make a provocative statement, and push the area in between art and fashion, or lack of clothing.
Molly Levy is a dancer, and occasional choreographer, who has been trained classically, as well as trained in modern dance. She is an alumna of The Alvin Alley School of Dance in New York City, although she began her classical training when she was six, at Berkeley City Ballet, and then later at The San Francisco School Of the Arts during high school. (Molly Levy Bio) Levy now works at a place called LED, an experimental dance studio in Boise, Idaho. (Levy) (LED)
A choreographer’s creative process in real times shows Wayne McGregor’s passion about dance, watching it, participation. His passion is not only in the dance but the creativity, he finds to be the most critical. McGregor talks about the technology of the body, meaning the way we communicate ideas with our body as an expression. We move them to help think differently. He uses his choreography as a process of physical thinking, combining the mind and the body.
No artist illustrates more concrete art than the 20th century avant-garde artists, but one in particular during the 60s, Lygia Clark’s work based on perception and interaction. This period was best known for artists that were considered pioneers of Latin America avant-garde. These groups of artists returned from Europe, where they took part in cutting-edge movements such as Cubism and Constructivism. Clark’s work illustrates more vocabulary into the interactive and materiality than any other during her time. She contributed to the development of a unique vocabulary of interactivity, merging the body-mind duality, focused primarily on the subjective and psychological-sensorial experimentation. Clark’s work responds to aesthetic dimensions and unexplored links between the viewer and the artwork making the viewer a participant. Clark’s work based on participation can only be understood if the viewer-participant physically interments with the work. Using resources from different books and journals from scholars, this essay explores this question of viewer-participant, using a series
It has been seven years now since I became a fan of one of the most influential artists of our generation. Lady Gaga is truly a master at what she does, and her music has inspired millions of fans to love and accept who they are. Even though she is known for her outrageous costumes and her unique theatrical performances, she is truly one of the most talented artists out there. Some people may see her as an attention seeker but beneath all of the crazy wigs and makeup, she is just a human who loves making music and is dedicated to her fans. Lady Gaga has millions of fans around the world because she is extremely talented, an amazing role model, and one of the most relatable, down to earth artists of our generation. Being a fan of Gaga has encouraged me to never
Highlight in your personal certain instinctive journey from attempting artisan to pop popularity with Katy Perry in the enjoyable and also unusual universe of Katy Perry Pop.
In this essay I will analyse performance works, particularly by female artists in the decades after minimalism. How they used both the literal body, and participatory art as a vehicle to communication contemporary art practice. Evaluating the affects these works have had on contemporary art practice.
In examining the work of the impressionist artist Edgar Degas, though he himself preferred to be considered a realist, the very mention of his name conjures images of ballerinas. From the most famous statue of Little Dancer Fourteen Years Old who stands prominently defined in our mind’s eyes or the swirling masses of color and form that showed visions of Parisian Operas in the 1800s like that seen in the painting Dancers in the Wings, Degas’ work is indelibly linked to the world of these petite dancers. On the surface it appears a brief glimpse into their lives, but the work of Degas, much like himself is shrouded in heavy layers of enigma and meaning. Why did he focus so highly on the youth of the Parisian ballets, and in what ways does this convey and reveal the attitude of Degas towards his subjects but also his approaches to art? By examining the world of these ballerinas, we can dissect the juxtaposing values of pain and beauty found in their lives, as well as the underlying voyeuristic and sexually charged undertones of Degas’ own perspective.