MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

In Banquet of Vultures (2005), Paul Taylor critiques the meaninglessness of the politician-driven, ever-cycling war machine. A cast of dancers clad in military fatigues are manipulated to physical exhaustion by a single, suit-donning politician. The dancing bodies are subjected to the orders of this single authority figure and endure the subsequent violence from following orders. Yet, the work itself fails to address the conditions of its own production—a choreographer operating with absolute power over the bodies of his dancers in their onstage life.

Dance has often served as such a platform to critiqued systems of power. Despite the explicitly anti-authoritarian content of these works, little focus is given to the conditions of each work’s production. The dominant style of American modern dance production features a sole choreographer exercising absolute control over the bodies under his command. William Forsythe has referred to this process of choreography as the “art of command” (Lepecki 16). This model of creation denies performers the ability to consent to movement without coercion. If the performer is asked to mold their body into the conditions of the outside choreography or face dismissal from the piece, then any consent given by the performer is coerced.

This paper asks, does the choreographer, who wields absolute power over the bodies of his dancers, differ from the authoritarian ruler? Where can dancers exercise agency in a system where the choreographer retains choreographic and casting control, determining what bodies will “live” onstage through the work and what physical risk they will endure. Building on Michel Foucault’s concept of the docile body, André Lepecki’s studies of authorship and choreography, and Mark Franko’s analysis of the labor of dance, this paper questions the traditional methods of American modern dance production.