ON DANCE & COLONIALISM

COLONIALISM: LANDS AND BODIES
Colonialism forms a sinful part of the history of the West in the past five or six centuries. It has been studied, analyzed, transformed, mutated into neo-colonialism and has ended-up as metaphor. Literally, “colonialism means that a significant structural segment of the economic system as a whole is…located...beyond the metropolis, outside of the daily life and existential experience of the home country, in colonies….whose own life experience and life world remain unknown and unimaginable for the subjects of the imperial power, whatever social class they may belong to” (Said, Ε.) Metaphorically it may be taken to signify the frightening experience of alienation, of the imposition of rules and regulations upon the “others’” bodies. In connection to dance, it may mean altering the tradition of movement patterns in which they have been ascribed to, for a very long time and for no apparent reason other than Eurocentrism, a cultural trait that pushed “Europeans [to] immediately begin to change the local habitat….to transform territories in places as far away…as Australia into images of what they left behind. …a huge number of plants, animals, crops, and farming as well as building methods invaded the colony and gradually turned it into a new place, complete with new diseases, environmental imbalances, and traumatic dislocations for the overpowered natives who had little choice in the matter” (Said, E.). By tradition, is meant the socio-cultural milieu within which the bodies of the colonized have grown, from childhood, to puberty and maturity. In terms of dance, the result of such practices, should be alien (“foreign”), “colonized”, imaginary bodies which succumb to the myth of the “universal truth and understanding of the language of dance”, altering their perception and kinetic integration of speed, effort, weight, balance, even of guilt, and/or internalization of the law: what is allowed and what is forbidden within a given community. Colonization and appropriation of land/space(s) was based on a series of events which may be described by the words: dislocation and transition (for the natives), accumulation (for the colonizer), imbalance (affecting both). That is, words which sound embarrassingly close to orders and action in a dance space. A legitimate way of reading it could be that colonization of both physical space and the body -exterior and interior- function similarly…


CAPTIVITY AND THE MASTER’S IMAGINATION a.k.a.: Examples from the silver screen
Long after the heyday of Charlie’s Angels, a few episodes were shot in Hawaii. It was obvious that the writers were rather tired from the longevity of the series, which then needed a spicing-up. They therefore relied heavily on the hula and allusions to a pre-colonial imagined innocence; as a result, half of the natives were presented as having a disposition for crime (the Hawaian Mafia which the Angels fought against), while the other half evidently cherished the white Christian experience and wholeheartedly entertained visitors through sensual dancing, and inviting in free love allusions–the things their hot (hot-hot) temperament could readily be expressed by.
And then, there are the Steven Segall movies, in which the colonizer approaches the Orient humbly and loses himself in the neo-pagan spirit of the colony-faithful ally/Man Friday, becoming a chief exponent in martial arts, the key to his peace of mind before embarking on the career of a vigilante. Heroes like Steven S. make contact with ex U.S. colonies promoting ideas of military subjugation, and a pre-colonial animistic wisdom. Consequently, Japan, with its American military bases and samurai tradition is always a shrine to the vigilante culture.
Pre-colonial idealist view of the past has not plagued just popular TV series and B-movies; it has been a great part of the ideologies in the era which followed decolonization in many countries around the globe, in Asia, Africa and North America. And this has been a major problem in the arts scene, as the relation to age old traditions had come to an abrupt halt, the peoples were suddenly disconnected from their heritage; they furthermore had to deal with the additional problem of class and hierarchy within decolonized societies, with people of different experience during colonization, all fighting for “authenticity”, recovery of the lost origins and re-inscription of the artistic production within their “divided selves” in the new era.
The rise of nationalism was inescapable, so were the problems it created. However, how is one to accommodate him/herself within the track of a lost tradition, especially as the foreign rulers regulated everything –as British did- in the colonies- to the last detail? Even the notion of morality was changed. Moving sensually one’s pelvis, for example, must have been a shock for a Victorian ruler who had different ways of dealing with female sexuality as well as with his own in his country, through men’s clubs, music halls, mistresses, anything that contains a “gentleman’s private world”. By imposing laws through which such a form of artistic and cultural expression is considered “filthy”, “debased”, or “cheap”, a whole heritage is quickly discarded, or is altered. Expected to participate in the master’s cultural heritage, the colony experiences new dance forms, with different social content, and sees the diversification of its dance rhythms to fit the rhythms imported from the metropolis, hybrid forms being thus created, as was the case with the Philippines.

LET’S TALK ABOUT BALLET
Regarding alienation in experiencing one’s own body, the straight, geometric lines of ballet, imply, par excellence, inhabiting a “new body”, with different axes, axioms, anxieties and rules; worse, access to this art form was not granted through cultural exchange done on an equal (?) basis, but through substituting of existing dance forms for the cultural habitat of the master. It could even be argued that in certain countries, the imposed or imported ballet tradition became successful because of the existing militarist, imperialist ideologies, which led to good technical results very quickly, as for example in Japan and China.
The superpowers in the world of ballet domination were the former Soviet Union and –later- Britain. For China and Japan, the former Soviet model was the matrix upon which ballet production and setting of standards, relied. The celebrated dancer Piotr Gusev, offered his expertise on the matter, before the relationship of the USSR with China became strenuous. Even the late Dame Margot Fonteyn remembered a Russian teacher, George Goncharov, teaching in China sometime after the WW I. Anton Dolin was also of great help to this vast country, as far as ballet was concerned. Not to mention of course La Pavlova, who toured all around the world creating new audiences for ballet. (It should be noted that the Russians “invaded” also the U.S. by modeling their new-found ballet school after the Imperial Dance School, as Mr. B. was the man of the hour). Dame Ninette de Valois, always eager to lend a hand to those who were partners of the Empire and upgrade –shape, would be a more appropriate word- their artistic view, helped to establish the first Ballet school of the Turkish State Opera and Ballet, in Constantinople.
Those who did not succumb to the mesmerizing seduction of the master, were colonies with strong dance traditions, which did not allow for an overwhelming spread of ballet. India is such an example, as most African countries. Africa is a particular example of ballet-proof attitude, with the exception of South Africa. Black diaspora did and/or does get involved with ballet, but theatrical dance on the continent is predominantly the western type modern dance, with elements from the existing folk tradition. “…Myth making went into….retrospective decolonization, by which the land was seen again,…, in a state that antedated its alienation by imperialism” (Said, E.). Confusion regarding the path that the arts should follow, is still part of a debate in countries such as Cambodia, Korea, Singapore et all. In Greece too, in which the 1936 dictatorship, (initially affiliated with the Nazi regime), called for a “deeply Greek form of artistic creation, for the rebirth of Greek civilization without influences from without”. As a result, the quest for authenticity subordinated the imported modern dance tradition –for decades- in the service of choreographing the Choruses of ancient drama. Greeks strived to please several masters: the call for authenticity made by a post-colonial authoritarian regime, the urge for artistic creation, the need for an identity in the shadow of Plato, the pursuit of the novel made by the ruling class of the era, the accommodation of contrasting notions of morality and female participation. Despite the effort and pain, the country is still striving to produce good ballet dancers. It has remained its dream and aspiration.

THIS LAND IS MY LAND (and then what?)

It is nonetheless impossible and possibly dangerous to become immune to “alien”, foreign dance forms. It is also impossible to turn time back and present works which bear nothing in common with contemporary audiences. The “Being black” attitude was expressed in Brian de Palma’s “Hi Mom!” in 1968, but also and more significantly in Alvin Ailey’s stylized works, the Dance Theatre of Harlem’s projects, and so on. Then who is more authentically “black”? What constitutes the black/Asian/Greek et al, “true” artistic identity? Colour, the past, physical resemblance to the ancestors as carefully modeled in propaganda posters by fascists, traditions often lost and reconstructed in the realm of a neo-romantic spirit? And what is this identity informed by? Anger, sorrow, self-pity, “ressentiment”? And if Dame Ninette (de Valois) and her peers offer a uniform approach to dance world-wide, through the R.A.D. system, which raises elbows, arms and legs to the same height from the Philippines, to Shanghai, to Athens and to Nairobi, creating a ballet army (like the clay soldiers of the Chinese emperor) winning trading posts where guns failed, how much more free from any colonial ideologies is the most readily imported modern dance? Miss Ruth (Saint Denis), for example, who, like Pavlova, toured extensively around the globe and practiced tolerance teaching different styles in her School, how much of a proto-globalist or a romantic colonialist was she, and how did this shape dance both in her artistic “habitat” and elsewhere? How the concentration camp survivor Trudi Dubsky influence dance in the Philippines through the transportation of the Ausdruckstanz? Reality is shaped as we speak…
Ballet/Tanz, June 2008