Deconstructing Dance

Anything can be a text; it is important, then, to apply the principles of theory not only to written texts, but to those that move and sway--namely, to dance. Tango is the perfect fodder for Gender Theory; ballet is rife with material for the New Critics; salsa could be successfully viewed in terms of Postcolonialism or Orientalism, etc. But what of poststructuralism? How do dance and theory align herein?

Modern dance, alongside modern literature, sought to bend the rules that had so long been cast over the field of dance. The balletic hegemony was turned on its head as rigidity and tradition were joined by freedom and play in movement; lines, literally, became bent.

If perhaps not the civilian, any dancer, at least, can recognize modern dance. But what of postmodern dance? Does such a thing even exist? Indeed it does.

Jacques Derrida writes of différance, exploding Plato's notions of the metaphysical. The cave is rendered meaningless, and the notion of a transcendental signified is obliterated. There is, it seems, no more truth in the outside of the cave then on the inside, as to even make such a distinction between the two necessitates the preceding of spatial differentiation before metaphysics. Derrida robs modernists of truths and structuralists of firsts and originals. Thoughts and ideas, just like language, are governed by laws of signs.

The text known as dance was not exempt from Derrida's discovery. As the "internal" became as suspect as the "external," the "trained" dancer became as worthy as the "untrained." What, asks the postmodernist, is not dance? Steve Paxton, a postmodern dancer, presented the eating of a sandwich as a dance. Notions of stage were questioned as impromptu performances on lawns and in churches became the thing to do. Music was replaced with silence or white noise, movement with stasis. There are instances of actual fornication, too, being presented as dance. Modernists would balk, asking perhaps, is nothing sacred anymore?

In the poststructuralist ideology, the answer is no. Nothing is sacred any longer. All is an endless series of signs. I (the poststructuralist) only know that this is first position because it is not second position. I only know that this is ballet because it is not jazz. I can only know that this subject is Isadora Duncan because she is not Margot Fonteyn, and in either case, I (the poststructuralist) cannot classify either as dancer or non-dancer because that would assume there are inherent, "inner," unsubstantiated, assumed, Platonistic qualities in perhaps one and not the other.

Just as you dance any step on any count, you can analyze any text with any theory.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-3VsujvTjo&feature=related