Annotated Bibliography Fall 2019

Kaprow, A. (1997). Just Doing. TDR (1988-), 41(3), 101-106. Retrieved from 
     https://coyotziculturia.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/kaprow_justdoing.pdf

 In Just Doing It, Kaprow narrates whimsical artmaking experiences experimenting with play, emphasizing the value of the creation process. The author recounts playing with shadows, footprints, dirt, including incomplete conceptual art installations, highlighting dialogue and interactions that establish how creativity and art can emerge from the every day. This also provides much support for how artists can create meaningful artmaking experiences through “experimentation [— bringing] attention to the normally unnoticed” (Kaprow, 1997, p.104). Predominantly useful for art educators, this article illustrates the worth in the process itself than the finalized products of art. Most significant is the author’s sentiments on how “playing with everyday life often is just paying attention to what is conventionally hidden” (Kaprow, p.104), which in turn, are rich untapped sources that may cultivate profound, meaningful art. The author further details, “the playground for experimental art is ordinary life [and argues] playing in this ordinary world does not mean including ... more features of the common-place than [one is] used to find in exhibitions, concerts, poems, dances, films, and performances[. Since these stations/avenues may] never allow [one] to forget art’s higher station” (Kaprow, p.103). As a professional dancer, I can attest to forgetting moments I am on the stage, allowing my body to become one and move through movements as if I were not consciously thinking of performing. For dance students contrastingly, mastering how to speak with one’s bodies, forgetting about the performance aspect altogether develops through time. I deeply connected how “… the condition for experimentation [is] the art is the forgetting of art” (Kaprow, 1997, p.103). This condition, in particular, made me reflect heavily on the rehearsal process as well as comparing the incompleteness of dance rehearsals to Kaprow’s open-ended installations/artmaking experiences. For example, a rehearsal is where dancers play and experiment with shapes the body may form. One may traditionally not consider rehearsal art because it lacks all the identifiable aspects of a finalized dance production (lighting, costumes, music, staging, etc.). Yet, during the playful interactions of a rehearsal, there is insightful dialogue exchange and explorations of the body, and for an artist, those moments are profoundly significant. It is within rehearsals I, as an instructor, can identify the most artistic growth within my students. As, they begin to move and express themselves considering dance a vehicle for their nonverbal expressions; forgetting they are dancing for a set performance date as they start their process connecting to a piece or finding new insights about how they approach specific movements. It is in the rehearsal where versions are modified, and students develop meaningful connections on how to take their everyday interactions, emotions and use dance terminology, as their vocabulary and as an instructor, I highly value this learning process over the finalized dance production itself. 

Walker, S.R. (n.d). Artmaking and Nonesense, 1-27

     Through the author’s own pedological experience, as well as, highlighting works of Conceptual artist, Nina Katchadourian in Artmaking and Nonsense, Walker (n.d) illustrates how nonsense can “function as a productive catalyst for creating a new kind of sense” (p.1). The author makes a distinction and argues nonsense is not the absurd or a “stand-alone entity[;]” instead, works in conjunction with sense when further referencing, three distinct graduate students’ work and how functionally nonsense served as an artmaking tool (Walker, p.1). The author predominantly addresses art educators, yet artists alike may benefit as much of Katchadourian’s artistic work is coined for her use of nonsense strategies as it pertains to studio space and materials she engages with to create. As a dance instructor and performing artists, I deeply connected to the creation of Seat Assignment in particular referenced as, “born from an investment in thinking on [one’s] feet, from optimism about the artistic potential that lurks within the mundane, and from curiosity about the productive tension between freedom and constraint” (Walker, p.9). These words, in particular, highlight the benefits of integrating nonsensical strategies into one’s work, and as a dance instructor and performing artists, I paralleled how beneficial improvisational dance during a lesson may seem like a nonsensical decision. Improv, is greatly beneficial, allowing students to loosen and open avenues of creativity through free movement, breaking from routines. As Walker (n.d.) further states how “nonsense [serves] as a highly productive way to dislodge students from habitual and costumery ways of thinking” (p.3), I began to reflect heavily how often I incorporate nonsense strategies into my own teaching practice. Walker (n.d.) provides vast examples of nonsense strategies effectiveness, referencing artistic examples simultaneously, deciphering dense Deleuzian language like “encounters” (p.2), “line of flight” (p.3), and “deterritorializing” (p.2) through three greatly different graduate student artmaking experiences. Reflecting on this article, I found a reconnection to integrating improvisational dance predominantly within my adolescent groups concerning choreography development and positively challenging my approach to how I could connect to specific terms and make them applicable to the dance realm. For instance, I considered lines of flight the moment when clearer thoughts arise from exploratory freedom. Ballet, in particular, may feel at times as an overly rigid art form, but breaking away (deterritorializing) like doing an improvisational dance exercise or dancing outside of the routinely used studio space, may functionally fuel creativity or may reenergize ideas that may be worth creating into dance works. Most significant, this reading allowed me as an educator explore how to create lessons where I could cultivate encounters for my students to rediscover dance in new ways. 

Walker, S.R. (n.d). Rhizomatic Thinking, 22-34

     In Rhizomatic Thinking, Walker delves into Deleuze's ideas of rhizomatic and arborescent thinking; differentiating the two, as non-linear and linear ways of thinking. Addressing, predominately art educators, Walker (n.d.) points to the significant argument how “the pedological goal for fostering rhizomatic thinking in student art-making is never simply about [being] clever or entertaining, such as it might appear… but the aim is to prepare the ground for thinking about self and the world in new ways” ( p.27). Although Walker never overtly states one manner of thought better than the other, there is much support on how rhizomatic thinking allows for extensive exploratory opportunity. For example, as highlighted, “the difference between filiation and alliance speaks to a core distraction with the tree locking into internal reaction and the rhizome yielding divergent connections drawn from the outside…[and] students [should] …be encourage to generate connections from external relations, not from the already given” (p.14). Valuing the importance of fostering outside connections in my students’ lives through art, allowed me to view how rhizomatic thinking, in particular, is immensely beneficial and how I may open discussion on how to approach it in a dance setting with my dancers. Choreography, for example, is a non verbal manner to express oneself and there may be an immense array of influences that shape a student's work such as, their individual connections to their environment, dialogues, or daily interactions; all of which, may become clearer to understand through their art process constructing a dance phrase or choreographic topic/theme. I sided deeply with this reading connecting in particular to “Deleuze’s rhizomatic position that life is about becoming rather than being dictated [;]valuing process over product in art-making [because there should be, a] …continuous organic evolution through [students] process” (p.28). As a ballet teacher, I am incredibly proud of my students mastery of steps and their execution as our dance courses progress. Yet, I value immensely the growth in the process itself and the maturity that comes during the rehearsing process when approaching choreography touching on subject matter (emotions, ideas, conversation, altercations) from the world that surrounds my students on a daily basis; making connections through their movements what these intersection mean to them, and how they can use their craft to voice what they feel.