Inside Performance Volume 24 no. 4 2011

By Rachel Lois


Misalignments in this issue of Dance Theatre Journal yield interesting thoughts about editing, published mistakes and the columns of my columns.

Inside Performance for Dance Theatre Journal  Volume 24 no. 4 2011, entitled Writing AVANT GARDE PERORMANCE OR, is written in two vertical columns to a page. The columns are read in parallel, moving towards and bouncing off each other at certain critical points.

The left hand column is the dominant narrative outlining key critical aspects of US writer Richard Kostelanetz’s On Innovative Performance(s), Three Decades of Recollections on Alternative Theater ; a fascinating thirty year collection of Kostelanetz's typed notes-cards from the burgeoning 1960-1980 New York performance art scene. Staying close to On Innovative Performance(s) the left column presents excerpts from Kostelanetz's text, posits the context for his work, and outlines his outsider position in relation to the mainstream New York and dominant theatre press, including his living and working within a small circle of Manhattan artists (an infamous roll-call of performance pioneers such as John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Alison Knowles, Nan Goldin, Deborah Hay, Dick Higgins and Ann Halprin amongst others). The left hand column touches upon Kostelanetz’s critical modus operandi, his writerly rootedness to Manhattan, and his sometime lay approach to experimental performance. The text also speculates on the familiar patterns of the performance Avant Garde (professional exclusion, public incomprehension, gathering a small yet loyal following and eventually leading to widespread critical acclaim) and the scene's inherent smallness.

Running alongside, the right column often accompanies the left in the form of no comment or long silences (blanks). At other times the right column openly interrogates ideas in the left and is more aphoristic and circumspect in tone. 

Left column (An excerpt from Richard Kostelanetz's On Innovative Performance(s)):

Vito Acconci

Claims (private loft, 93 Grand Street). 

I’d not seen any of Vito’s new performance pieces-at least not since the deep breathing at N.Y.U a year and one-half ago, which I liked more in contextual retrospect than I did then. Always ‘experimenting with himself’ so to speak, he sets up a situation hazardous, initially to himself, whose results compromise the piece. For example, he had the Post Office forward his mail to the Museum of Modern Art, where he had to go and pick it up. Or he does the same exercise (such as jumping on and off a stool) for a fixed period of time every day. Or he burns the hair off his chest. The term ‘body art’ might be appropriate, because what happens to his body is now the content. ‘Conceptual Art’ is really a more accurate epithet. For Claims Vito sat at the bottom of a stairway with a collection of long poles. Blindfolded, he assigned himself the job of protecting his territory – the bottom of the stairway- from intruders. A close-circuit camera was trained on him, and the results were immediately broadcast ‘live’ on a TV monitor upstairs, as well as recorded on videotape. Thus, his voice could be heard not only through the door leading downstairs but also over the electronic playback system. He did this for a full four hours, constantly mumbling to himself that he had to protect his territory; but nothing else ‘happened’ or changed in the course of the performance. The audience never numbered more than a dozen people, most of whom were (like me) his friends. (September 1971) 

Right column:

I do find myself wanting to question 1960’s – 1980’s New York as bedrock for AVANT GARDE PERFORMANCE.  Maybe this kind of reverse reflection is a symptom of the AVANT GARDE. The smallness that once was in part its generative appeal, to both those both inside and out, festers and begins to look flawed upon insertion into the history books. To this end, it is interesting to note that Kostelanetz recalls Carolee Schneeman ‘feeling excluded’ from the then PERFORMANCE scene. Perhaps then, hindsight is not required in order to see the AVANT GARDE as insular (in this case as a predominantly North American white, male domain).

The misalignment of the text in Volume 24 no. 4 2011 gives way to several new readings from left to right. 

Left column:

On Innovative Performance(s) comprises of thirty years worth of 4 x 6” typed note-cards that Kostelanetz  made from PERFORMANCEs he saw between 1960 and the late 1980’s.  For publication the note-cards were sifted through, re-typed and sorted into alphabetical order by artist name. Several contextualising essays on experimental PERFORMANCE are also re-printed. As a collection, it remains almost entirely unedited from the original cards.

Right column:

Indeed.

The mistakes continue through the text with varying degrees of success. My particular favourite is pictured and re-typed below. 

Left column (An excerpt from Richard Kostelanetz's On Innovative Performance(s)):

Vito Acconci

Claims (private loft, 93 Grand Street). I’d not seen any of Vito’s new performance pieces-at least not since the deep breathing at N.Y.U a year and one-half ago, which I liked more in contextual retrospect than I did then. Always ‘experimenting with himself’ so to speak, he sets up a situation hazardous, initially to himself, whose results compromise the piece. For example, he had the Post Office forward his mail to the Museum of Modern Art, where he had to go and pick it up. Or he does the same exercise (such as jumping on and off a stool) for a fixed period of time every day. Or he burns the hair off his chest. The term ‘body art’ might be appropriate, because what happens to his body is now the content. ‘Conceptual Art’ is really a more accurate epithet. For Claims Vito sat at the bottom of a stairway with a collection of long poles. Blindfolded, he assigned himself the job of protecting his territory – the bottom of the stairway- from intruders. A close-circuit camera was trained on him, and the results were immediately broadcast ‘live’ on a TV monitor upstairs, as well as recorded on videotape. Thus, his voice could be heard not only through the door leading downstairs but also over the electronic playback system. He did this for a full four hours, constantly mumbling to himself that he had to protect his territory; but nothing else ‘happened’ or changed in the course of the performance. The audience never numbered more than a dozen people, most of whom were (like me) his friends. (September 1971) 

And the right column simply: Hmm.

I am struck by the new levels of meaning created in relation to this comparatively niche publication by Kostelanetz. It has me wondering. Examples of essayistic misprints are no doubt numerous throughout history. An anthology of such texts, bound together in their full and wrongful glory, to my knowledge has not recently been published and seems overdue. 

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Inside Performance is a serialised writing project developed by Rachel Lois Clapham for Dance Theatre Journal that takes the form of a regular newspaper or magazine column. The column features Rachel Lois' own writing on and as performance, as well as conversations, commissions, page works and texts from other artists.

Previous columns in the series

Volume  23 No. 2  

Volume 23 No. 4 

Volume 24 No. 1 

Volume 24 No. 2

Volume24. No.3

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Dance Theatre Journal is the UK's leading magazine for dance and live art. Published four times a year, it contains reviews, features, interviews and in-depth discussions by leading dance writers and artists, as well as talented new writers. It also includes up-to-date listings of dance performances and workshops throughout the UK.

Open Dialogues is a UK collaboration, founded by Rachel Lois and Mary Paterson in 2008, that produces writing on and as performance. www.opendialogues.com