This is something I wrote to Rita Feliciano, a dance critic in the Bay Area, about my upcoming show, Sentimental Pussyfooting – a study in plagiarism. She was wondering how the show fits into the concept of dance.
“This work fits right into dance. In this show, I am
using works by Yoko Ono, Trisha Brown, John Cage, Jess
Curtis and Paul Taylor as points of departure.
The idea behind the show is to use structures that
have been created by and are attached to specific
artists and re-use/reclaim/re-examine them. The way I
see it dance, or most dance, has the same structure.
Lights go on, music and movement start. It’s
essentially the same skeleton every time. Whether
it’s ODC or Scott Wells, the skeleton is the same.
Just the meat around the bones has changed. The
costumes are different, the music is different etc.
But still essentially the same piece. Or is it?
The piece by Yoko Ono that I will be examining is her
“Cut Piece”. First done in ’64, she sits on stage and
audience members come on stage and cut her clothing.
In my show I will do this piece again. I will sit on
stage, audience members will come on stage and cut off
my clothes. Some people will say that I am doing
Ono’s piece again. But am I? The scissors are
different, the clothes, the audience, the location,
the pathways cut into the clothing will be different.
If ODC and Scott Wells are different pieces then Ono’s
piece and mine are different. In both cases, the
costumes are different. The people executing the
movements are different. The pathways of the bodies
and scissors are different. The lighting is
different. The soundscore is different. Yet the
skeleton remains the same.
People are more likely to say that I am repeating
Ono’s piece because it is a different enough of a
skeleton from the basic dance skeleton. No one says
to ODC or Paul Taylor – “Oh lights, movement, and
music…that is So and So’s piece” Why not? Because
that skeleton is from time immemorial. And most dance
I see is just repeating the same skeleton over and
over again. And dance is so rich because we keep
investigating the same skeleton over and over again.
Where would dance be if people stopped making dances
to music because that had already been done?
By keeping certain structures identified with certain
artists, the collective artistic investigation is
limited. By saying – Oh we can’t do that because that
is So and So’s piece – we cut ourselves off from so
many possibilties. Every piece in this show that I am
relating to, I consider a door that was created when
the pieces were originally made, a door for us to walk
through. Those artists pointed us in new directions.
It is up to us to continue in those directions and
continue their investigations.”