File spoon-archives/deleuze-guattari.archive/deleuze-guattari_1996/d-g_Jan.96, message 10


Date:         Wed, 03 Jan 96 12:10:08 EST
From: "Charles J. Stivale" <CSTIVAL-AT-CMS.CC.WAYNE.EDU>
Subject:      Re: effort


On Wed, 3 Jan 1996 10:33:18 -0500 (EST) malgosia askanas said:
>Douglas, I am curious how you (and others interested in this "effort" topic)
>regard things that aim at creating the impression of effortlessness -- magic
>tricks, for example, or most forms of dance, which I think work by creating
>a constant flow between effort and effortlessness.  I think that it would
>miss the point to say that such things are goal-oriented -- that in order
>to talk about "effortlessness" one has to have in mind a goal which one
>then reaches -- or pretends to reach -- effortlessly.  Rather, the goal
>is the effortlessness itself.
Mal, although this is directed to Douglas, I thought I'd jump in (dance in?)
briefly. I like the first sentence formulation above more than the third,
which seems contradicted by the second. Your sense is right, I think: to
reflect on the Cajun dance arena, where there do exist many complex struc-
tures and frames depending on the venue and the crowd, there is also a
a flow both for dancers and for spectators, both during the musical pieces
*and between*. This gives a very literal sense to the expression "making the
scene," because just one's mere presence contributes to the "becoming" of
the event. These ease of movement, the mastery of skills, the appearance of
effortlessness is all in a complex relation between dancer and spectator.
I.e. my wife and I recently did a dance demo for one of my French classes,
and since we don't get out to dance Cajun much in the town of Bob Seger
and the turf of Ted Nugent and Megadeath, we were definitely out of shape.
So just chugging through one number was a feat in itself. But for those
watching, the 'performance' was seamless (or nearly so.. I'm also out of
practice with my lead). This was more artificial an event than, say, a
night at Randol's in Lafayette or Mid-City Lanes in New Orleans, or even
a folk festival with lots of dancing. But all of these dance scenes are
processes of becomings to which musicians, dancers and spectators all
contribute, degree zero of goals, just "making the scene", an in-between of
the goal-oriented and the goal-less. Listen to the live albums (CDs) of The
Savoy-Doucet Band or Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys or Beausoleil. The
musicians try to jump in from the bandstand through their music, stirring
things up. Marc Savoy and Michael Doucet are quite exemplary of this.
  Neither does it do justice to these things
>to say that what really "counts" is the effort which was expanded to reach
>the goal of effortlessness; it is not this postulated underlying effort
>that is beautiful about magic tricks or dance.
I agree, and could one speak of an "aesthetics" of hecceities? Seeing the
same card trick over and over, or set of dance moves, the same ones but
interpreted anew in each _ritournelle_?
CJ Stivale

     ------------------

   

Driftline Main Page

 

Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005