CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, NORTHRIDGE
SYNERGOS
INTEGRATION OF SCULPTURE AND DANCE
An
abstra~t submitted in partial satisfaction of the
requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in
Art
by
Theresa Tarbell Potterveld
May 1986
The Abstract of Theresa Tarbell Potterveld is approved:
Bernice Colman
Dr. Dolores Yonker
Robert
Chair
California State University, Northridge
ii
The intent of my work during the Master of Arts
program has been to create sculptures and integrate them
with modern dance.
I consider this work to be primarily in
the realm of sculpture, however, the project has involved
developing the choreography and selection of dancers as well
as music.
My goal has been to fully integrate the sculpture
and dance rather than merely creating a stage set as
background to a dance.
The culmination of the project was a
performance entitled "Seventh Season" presented at the
Modern Dance Spring Concert at California State University,
Northridge, on the evening of May 2, 1986.
There have been attempts in the past to integrate
these two fine art forms.
One thinks immediately of the
collaboration begun in the 1930's of dancer/choreographer
Martha Graham and sculptor Isamu Noguchi.
Graham rejected
traditional scenic backgrounds and painted flats and instead
commissioned artists to create three dimensional sculptures
to be used in the open space _of the stage.
She invested
these abstract structures with meaning through the action of
the dancers.
LeRoy Leatherman, in his book on Martha
Graham, elaborates on this notion when he states: " ••• one of
Martha's strategies is to use an abstract object as a place
for a character, a home base where the character is first
discovered and to which, throughout the action, he returns,
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so that at the last poetic import the character and the
object, the specific experience of both, are, in the
imagination of the spectator, all but inseparable."(!)
It is this inseparability of art and dance which
defines the integration as a success.
her book
Towards Dance and Art,
Elizabeth Watts, in
states that integrated
artforms "suggest a concept of a whole which would be
incomplete without one of its parts, and of parts which
would be merely raw material away from the whole - like
cloth woven in several colours on both the warp and the
weft, so that if you remove one colour entirely you destioy
both the pattern and the soundness of the cloth."(2)
By creating the sculpture, choreographing the dance,
and selecting dancers and music, I have attempted to achieve
the unity described by Watts.
Specifically, this project
consists of nine large triangular/ pyramidal sculptures and
a modern dance choreographed for five dancers (three female,
two male.)
The sculptures are between eight and twelve feet
in height.
They are made with an inner layer of one-half
inch steel mesh and an outer layer of two inch mesh fencing.
Paper pulp (cotton rag and abaca) has been dyed in various
colors, then applied to the wire structures.
The paper pulp
causes the sculptures to look dense and heavy in some areas,
1. LeRoy Leatherman,
Martha Graham: Portrait of the
Lady as an Artist
(New York: Alfred Knopf, 1966), p. 79.
2. Elizabeth Watts,
Towards Art and Dance
(London: Lepus Books, 1977), p.l.
iv
and transparent in others.
As the dancers move behind and
around the sculptures their bodies are sometimes hidden from
view, at other times they appear to be inside the sculpture.
The choreography employs occasional geometric forms to
create an affinity to the sculpture, as
fluid and supple movements.
~ell
as contrasting
Sometimes the dancers appear
as static as the sculptures, at other times they rapidly
perform a flurry of counterpoint movements.
The dancers
also relate to the sculptures by picking them up and moving
them to create new patterns.
Dancers and sculptures act
together in a dynamic interplay during the performance.
The title of the work, "Seventh Season," is based on
a Japanese story.
It is told that nothing grew following
the American bombing of Hiroshima until the seventh season
when a cherry tree pushed its way up through the rubble and
blossomed.
This story symbolizes the emergence of hope and
new life in the midst of barrenness.
The performance
commences with each dancer sitting behind a sculpture.
As
the music begins, a hand (not unlike the cherry tree branch)
reaches out along the side of one of the sculptures.
From
that first sign of movement, the dancers move from isolation
to relationship, from rigidity to free and spontaneous
movement.
Throughout the dance these dualities and the
tension they provoke are explored.
An important facet of an art and dance collaboration
is the choice of music.
Music can either support or defeat
a performance and is usually most successful when it becomes
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an integral part of the work.
Although some modern
choreographers choose to have their works performed in
absolute silence, most interweave sight and sound.
Influenced by John Cage's philosophical writings and
teachings in the midfifties, many artists began exploring
the synthesis of the visual and audible.
"Music will then
be more than an accompaniment; it will be an integral part
of the dance."(3)
The music chosen for "Seventh Season" was written by
Paul Dresher, a young musician from San Francisco, whose
music would be categorized as "New Age."
The particular
selection for the dance is entitled "We Only Came - Dream
Music'' from "Night Songs'' (1979-81).
Composed primarily as
a vocal work, there is occasional utilization of a
synthesizer.
The music is slow, dream-like, and sounds at
times like a Gregorian chant sung in a large, old, dark
cathedral.
The music undergirds the mood and theme of the
sculpture/dance through the interplay of the Gregorian and
the contemporary sounds.
Like the cherry branch, the
contemporary music bursts forth with new life in the midst
of the traditional music.
"Seventh Season" challenges the traditional notion
of art as a permanent, durable, or static object by creating
a transitory experiential environment for the viewer.
The
success of this environment was eloquently expressed by a
3. John Cage,
Silence (Middletown, Connecticut:
Wesleyan University Press, 1939), p. 88.
vi
viewer who experienced the show in the gallery:
fascinating experience.
I keep expecting the people in the
picture to appear in the room.
that, mysteriously, they
"Truly·
are
But then it occurs to me
in the room.
The great cones
are both houses for and (it seems to me) embodiments of the
dancers, and they create an environment which preserves the
dancers and renews their dance, in spirit, or Spirit."
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Cage, John.
Silence. Middletewn, Connecticut:
Wesleyan University Press,
1939.
Ellfeldt, Lois.
Dance: From Magic to Art.
Dubuque, Iowa: Wm. C. Brown Co. Pub.,
1976.
Humphrey, Doris. The Art of Making Dances.
New York:
Grove Press, Inc.,
1959.
Leabo, Karl.
Martha Graham.
New York:
Theatre Art Books,
1961.
Leatherman, LeRoy. Martha Graham: Portrait of the Lady as
an Artist.
New York:
Alfred Knopf,
1966.
Lifton, Robert Jay.
Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima.
New York:
Ramdom House,
1968.
Redfern, Betty.
Dance, Art and Aesthetics.
London: Dance Books Ltd.,
1983.
Shafranski, Paulette.
Modern Dance: Twelve Creative
Problem-Solving Experiments.
Glenview, Illinois:
Scott, Foresman and Co.,
1985.
Smagula, Howard.
Currents: Contemnorarv Directions in the
Visual Arts.
New Jersey: Prentice-Hall Inc.,
1983.
Watts, Elizabeth.
Towards Dance and Art.
London:
Lepus Books,
1977.
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