Professional Documents
Culture Documents
4 The Death of The Dancer
4 The Death of The Dancer
Dancer.
About the dancer/choreographer’s authorship in
contemporary dance.
• Roland Barthes, Structuralism and
Post-structuralism
• Theoretical Task
author
scripto
r
A text is a coherent set of symbols
that transmits some kind of
informative message.
The word choreography literally
means "dance-writing" from the
Greek words "χορεία" (circular
dance, see chorea) and "γραφή"
(writing).
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choreography (Retrieved 14/02/2010)
structuralism: there are
unobservable structures within a
system that generate observable
phenomena
texts could be interpreted based solely on the
cultural and social circumstances of the author
came to believe that the reader's culture and
society shared an equal part in the
interpretation of a piece. If the reader sees it
in one way, how do we know that that is the
way the author intended? We don't. [...] the
interpretation and criticism of any literature is
in the hands of the individual reader and will
necessarily include that reader's own cultural
biases and assumptions. While many
structuralists first thought that they could
tease out an author's intention by close
scrutiny, they soon found so many
disconnections, that it was obvious that their
own experiences lent a view that was unique
to them.
Search for
analogies:
• “text” = “dance performance”, “art work”
• “author” = “choreographer”, “dancer”,
“artist”
http://www.catalogueraisonne-jeromebel.com/player.php?ep=5
•To X: Who would you entrust with
the task to create a performance in
your style called “Y”?