“To the degree that performance attempts to enter the economy of reproduction it betrays and lessens the promise of its own ontology. Performance’s being…become itself through disappearance.” – Peggy Phelan
On September 29, 2009 at a Movement Research Studies Project event about rethinking paradigms around performance journalism held at Abrons Arts Center, Marc Kirshner, one of the panelists, was talking about his business, TenduTV. TenduTV, which recently announced a distribution deal with iTunes and Hulu, produces and distributes high definition recordings of dance, providing the art form visibility as a cultural product.
“THAT’S CAPITALISM!” one of the attendees shouted from the audience.
Like the mad inverse of the fears about socialism around health care, there is a strong resistance in the contemporary dance and performance community and deep distrust when it comes to entering into the dominant (male) discourse around penetrating new markets.
In the mid-1990’s, as video became cheaper and easier to use, dance companies and performance artists were constantly being pushed to submit “better work samples” from funders, agents, and presenters—even though the latter often held to the tenet that they couldn’t make a choice about whether to present a work unless they had seen it live. Most companies relied (and still do) on live recordings with minimal or no editing, although some were definitely engaged in creative and critical ways with the technology itself. Few, however, were film or video professionals, although of course, there have always been artistic collaborations between film (and video) and dance given the shared aesthetics.
The advent of YouTube and facebook and the myriad of sites that host dance media (see list below) have pushed our awareness of the language of video to new heights. We see ourselves and others dancing every day, and while we work towards producing the live, we also use media like never before to expand the dialogue about the live, to make the event and its processes known. Some companies now are more like collectives, with production companies integral to the mission.
Venues have hosted or linked to video excerpts for a while now, but they are also starting to get into the content production and distribution economy. Seattle-based presenter On The Boards made news in with their project On The Boards TV. While this only serves a select group at a high level instead of something more, well, socialist, I’m not personally against enhanced exposure or increased income. This is not traditionally our market, it’s driving skills towards a different direction than those needed in live performance, and even large media organizations are having trouble monetizing the web; but at least his model provides the resources and infrastructure.
But while we have been contemplating these shifts, the rug has been pulled out from under us, snatching back the ontology we have somewhat forsaken. Currently at the Guggenheim Museum, Tino Sehgal has capitalized on that part of our manifesto we have forsaken, with a pitch that sounds like a worthy scam on the Art economy.
Because Sehgal’s work is presented at museums, galleries, and art festivals, and because he doesn’t allow documentation and challenges the work of past conceptual artists, he can charge up to six figures (i.e. high art). Unlike those performances presented at The New Museum, however, Sehgal says what he’s doing isn’t performance—it’s a work of art.
I don’t detract from Sehgal as a con/artist, and his theoretical autocracy with respect to representations and recordings is admirable. But what he’s doing is definitively performance—we call it site-specific work—and to call it otherwise carries a sinister (Capitalist) tone. In any event, these recent developments once again have tensions mounting in the ongoing dialectic between live performance and its mediatized Other. I remain dubious that either shall ever triumph, but the tempestuous relationship will continue. This latest betrayal will hopefully serve to keep us mindful and engaged.
http://www.movementmagazine.com/
