Date: Thu, 4 Jan 1996 17:33:52 -0500
From: Bobbledun-AT-aol.com
Subject: Ausdrueckstanz


Douglas Edric:

In my care to enter an e after the u which would have required an umlaut, I
also missed out, on the c that should have come before the k, so:
Ausdrueckstanz, which I loosely translate as Expressional Dance.  As Isadora
Duncan in the US began a style of dance outside of ballet, so did Rudolf
Laban and his students, and they used this term  to distinguish their work as
an art of theatrical dancing with other sources than ballet.

I repeat that I found your description and interpretation of Shankai Juku
interesting and informative.  The development of Butoh is complex in origins
and is fascinating for that reason.  In the years before WWII there was
considerable artistic and intellectual exchange between Japan and Germany, so
when the Japanese moved on after the war, the Western tradition Japanese
artists of the dance knew best was this style, rather than ballet or US
Modern Dance, and they were captivated by happenings and postmodern dance in
NYC as they saw or read or heard about them.

There is considerable information about Mary Wigman, the most important of
Laban's students, and the book in English of Susan Manning is particularly
good on social and political background in relation to artistic 'intentions.'
 The last time I looked articles and books in English continued to appear.
 There is considerable literature on postmodern dance, and on the 'new
theatricality' in the work of Meredith Monk in US, Pina Bausch in Germany.

Recently I was contacted to plan a summer teaching trip to Brazil next summer
(their winter).  I was asked as someone trained in the analytic approach to
dance and movement of Rudolf Laban.  We have reason to have kept a
theoretical tradition of a great part of his work in NYC, but I am reminded
of the presence of people still trained in that approach in South America.
 And the astounding thing about it is the peaceful (?) coexistence of the
children of two waves of emigration from the German-speaking country, first
that of Jewish people, then of others who were not welcome in the after-war
German populations.  Historical contingencies, particularly in in the weaving
of artistic traditions, fascinate me, and I definitely SeniorNet, and have
seen a lot of history myself.  In fact, I felt almost in the world of the
John Cage & Pynchon mailng-lists, where I step in with minute historic detail
from time to time  
 
Of course my connection with D&G has been my admiration of their subjecting
philosophy  to sudden invention, their thought, after the philosophy of
aesthetics which I wade through at times, of something more like the
aesthetics of philosophy!

Best to all,

>Robert Ellis Dunn<  >Department of Dance<
>University of Maryland, College Park<
>(home) 6102 85th Place, New Carrollton MD 20784<
>bobbledun-AT-aol.com<
>><...to the destructive element submit yourself...In the destructive element
immerse...> -- Conrad, LORD JIM<< 



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