「編創舞蹈與編舞者」 — 編舞一詞的由來與演變

藝術評論第十八期頁 1－25（民國九十七年），台北：國立臺北藝術大學 1

ARTS REVIEW, NO. 18, pp.1– 25 (2008)

Taipei National University of the Arts

ISSN: 1015-6240

「編創舞蹈與編舞者」

— 編舞一詞的由來與演變

蘇珊‧李‧佛斯特著美國加州大學洛杉磯校區世界藝術與文化系教授

林亞婷譯國立臺北藝術大學舞蹈理論研究所專任助理教授

摘要

當我們將「舞蹈的藝術」分為編創、表演與學習時，會面臨什麼問題？當舞蹈被歸類為

傳統與現代、社交性與藝術性，又如何影響我們對其產生過程的詮釋？本文探討編創舞蹈兩

種迥異的定義，以評估它對全球的舞蹈與舞蹈創作的理解。我將評析編創舞蹈的意識型態之

轉變，尤其著重在其如何鞏固和規範舞蹈訓練，並舉不同藝術性與社會價值的舞蹈種類為

例。透過檢驗編創舞蹈在不同歷史時期所展現的文化意涵，希望能提供一種當今的觀點，以

理解目前我們如何教導和理解來自世界各地的舞蹈。

關鍵字：編創舞蹈、舞譜、世界、民族、歷史

2 蘇珊‧李‧佛斯特著林亞婷譯

我不認為自己是近來美國極度走紅的兩個電視才藝大賽節目：《你認為你會跳舞嗎？》

﹝譯註：台灣《舞林大道》的參照﹞和《與明星共舞》的專家或粉絲，但令我驚訝的是兩個

節目對編創舞蹈的過程之輕視與忽視。我指的「編創舞蹈」是什麼意思呢？這篇文章的目的

就是想探討這個詞近幾年來的用法。過去一年，我在《洛杉磯時報》上看到這個詞用在描述

伊拉克戰爭、養狗專家西撒‧米蘭（Cezar Milan）的肢體動作、許多理監事會議的討論形式，

甚至交通尖峰時期的紅綠燈控制等方面。

對於「編創舞蹈」（choreography，簡稱編舞）一詞，《牛津英語字典》提供兩種解釋：

其一、一個簡單到令人信以為真的解釋，表示編舞就是「跳舞的藝術」；其二、是一種已經

荒廢的用法，指「在紙上書寫舞蹈的藝術」。根據第一種解釋，舞蹈的所有面項都包含在編

舞裡，從教人跳舞的過程、學舞的行為、舞蹈的演出、甚至創造一支舞的勞力付出。

無論《牛津英語字典》或《洛杉磯時報》的解釋與用法，皆不能完全囊括我心目中對編

舞一詞的認知。但進一步分析討論前，我想先簡要回顧這詞的系譜（genealogy），尤其著重

在它如何鞏固與規律化舞蹈訓練，並以具有藝術性與社會性貢獻的舞蹈類型舉例說明。我堅

信透過此歷史的回顧，將有助於揭示我們如何思考與研究現在世界上的各種舞蹈。

佛耶的編舞

1670 年左右，﹝法國國王﹞路易十四命令他的主要舞蹈老師皮爾‧玻相（Pierre

Beauchamps）去「發明一種能在紙上記載舞蹈的方法」。根據玻相，他開始研發一套舞譜，

以代表芭蕾舞中的舞步之符號，讓想學舞的人自己就可以解讀。1 當時為了回應路易十四

的指令，出現了三種以上的舞譜系統，但以拉伍‧奧古‧佛耶（Raoul Auger Feuillet）於

1700 年出版玻相的系統最占優勢，因此根據其書名出現了[choreography]這個新名詞，解

釋為「書寫舞蹈的藝術」。

佛耶以平面式（planimetric）再現舞動身體的方式凸顯了舞者穿越空中的路徑以及腳

與腿的動作。除了以一條線畫出舞者的路徑，一旁也會有符號標示腳的位置與動作。就像

其他皇家學院也需要建立一套該領域的基礎體系一樣，佛耶氏舞譜發明了一套普世

（universal）動作的統一語彙，來描述所有舞步。動作被簡化為起降的組合、沿著一定路

1 請見 Harris-Warrick and Marsh 1994, 84 頁。

「編創舞蹈與編舞者」— 編舞一詞的由來與演變 3

徑移動，或者展現腳與腿的節奏性變化。2

在如此單一的分類方式之下，這套舞譜將舞蹈隸屬於一個似乎所有動作都共有的規律。

不同文化與歷史背景所產生的特殊性舞蹈，都因這套絕對的垂直與水平的空間觀，以及固定

韻律節拍的時間觀（metricized time）而被抹平或抹滅。3 如同文學史學家羅倫堤（Jean-Noel

Laurenti）解釋說：

法國舞蹈老師必須將源自不同地方的舞步加以統整，無論是來自國外或其他省分的：

為了發覺這龐大的舞蹈種類之共同性，他們必須先將其構成成份加以辨認。如此一

來，他們就能以同一個符號（當然是在不同的順序裡）記錄源自西法的三拍小步舞

曲（minuet）或帕斯皮耶（passepied）舞步、來自東南方的加佛特（gavot）與里加

敦（rigadoon）舞步，甚至是「帶有西班牙風味」的撒拉邦德（sarabande）與四分之

三拍的夏空（chaconne）樂舞。4

佛耶不僅建立一套基礎原則以統整所有動作，他還教導人們的身體一種在空間裡的新定

2 不只身體以此平面的幾何圖形思考，連舞步的命名也是想像身體是個垂直的軸心。依據威福（John

Weaver）譯的佛耶舞譜：舞蹈包含身體的站姿、舞步、降、升、彈跳、小跳（Caper）、跌、滑、轉

身、節奏或時間、隊形，等等。

「沈降」（sinking）一詞，雖然只是解釋為屈膝，卻意涵了身體以垂直軸的方式進行移動。屈膝僅代

表了對身體某特定部位的覺察，但身體沈降的概念強調全身在空中的位置關係。身體設定為垂直的，

無論在沉、升或跌，都是和直立有關的。

如此一來，可否延伸到一艘船在海上的比喻？依據羅拉‧布朗（Laura Brown），殖民式的拓展就是

面對不可知的土地與水域。對布朗而言，這些河川與海洋的解讀開始展現為「一股具有移動性的雄

偉力量，它同時是流動的、無情的、拓展性的、令人興奮的、以及危險的。它代表著一股流動的勢

力，邁向一種劇烈諷刺性或深具猶疑性、同時包含限制性或矛盾性的方針。而此目標的終結，則被

預測為一股無法避免，甚或近乎世界末日般（apocalyptic）的命運，一種勝利與災難、滿足與毀滅、

樂觀與絕望並存的情境。」（Brown, 71 頁） 3 羅倫提（Laurenti）解釋說：「一個看似簡單並富有律動的 contretemps balonné 舞步之舞譜記錄……

其實包含了至少八個步驟：起步的腳向前邁進，沉，跳，一隻腳在空中，再第二次沉和跳的[單腳]

（half-position）符號標示；這兩組符號，代表兩套動作，並以一畫（trait）連結而成為一小段落

(measure)。如果這個 contretemps balonné 舞步執行時有方向的改變，則必須再以另一個附加符號標

示出來。（Laurenti 1994, 87 頁） 4 Laurenti 1994, 87 頁。


位。為了說明如何學習這套舞譜，佛耶還替每位初學者指出他該如何握著印有舞譜的紙張。

為了保持頁面與房間的正面之對應關係，他對讀者解釋如何在轉 1/4 圈時，手與握著的紙之

旋轉關係。值得一提的是，身體對地上的平面和紙上的平面所指的固定正面方位之觀念，並

非眾所皆知的。佛耶覺得必須提供詳細的說明，使舞者的身體在沿著迂曲的路徑時，仍然能

夠維持一個「固定北方」（true north）的方針。

佛耶舞譜在規律化每一個舞步的同時，還教導習舞者的身體如何維持一個單一的方向，

以及對自己的路徑之俯瞰能力。佛耶對舞蹈的影響有如林內（Carl Linnaeus）對植物界一般。

保羅‧卡特（Paul Carter）提出林內的植物分類法是將每個物件從他的生態抽離，遠離了

它們生長的「歷史與地理環境。在這樣的過程中，它失去了透過氣候、土壤、方位等因素更

茁壯的力量。總之，植物的生態，以及它在特定生存空間的存在，都因科學發現的一霎那而

消失。」5 佛耶的舞譜為了將所有舞步同樣放置在純粹幾何的平面上，以提供各種舞的比較

與評比，卻因此將舞步的地域性也同樣的抹除了。如此一來，這個被佛耶規訓的舞動身體，

享有一種對世界統整化與單一化的視角，並以此出發點去對應自己與他人的發展。

普拉特（Mary Louis Pratt），艾德尼（Matthew Edney）以及卡特皆論述過，這種純粹空

間與絕對觀點的結合，有效地強化了殖民的計畫。一個結合空間與觀點的身體存在性

（corporeality）將自己從一個中央的垂直性，透過未經設定的空間延伸到外圍。在這樣的空

間裡，中立的身體之特質與行為，就像佛耶舞譜裡所指的，確認了一套所有身體該服從的絕

對條例。執行這套身體規範時，殖民政權可以先在自己家園設立一套有關舉止的遵循模式，

再將這些標準繁衍到他們想要統治的外國身體上。這些模式之所以具有說服力，在於它們成

為人類行為中最基本，也因此普世化的單位。編創舞蹈，如同植物的分類法，帶著舞者們從

單一分類法的框架去思考世界的舞蹈。

創作舞作

佛耶以及類似的舞譜系統到了十八世紀末就不再盛行，而編創舞蹈（choreography）一

詞在十九世紀的英文與法文裡也很少被使用。但到了 1920 年代末期到 1930 年代初期，「編

創舞蹈」一詞又再度以新的用法盛行起來，尤其是在美國；它廣泛出現在演出節目單、報章

舞評，以及班寧頓夏季舞蹈節的課程裡（許多後來的舞蹈教育者均參與過此盛會，這些人之

5 Carter, 22 頁。


後又陸續到美國各大專院校成立舞蹈科系）。

1935 年起，班寧頓開設了一個結合舞蹈創作練習（dance composition）、音樂分析、歷

史與評論，以及舞臺技術的綜合課程（General Workshop）。此外另有一門工作坊（Workshop

Program），包括由葛蘭姆教授的技巧課，以及她在其中發展全新舞作《全景》Panorama 的

編舞（Choreography）課程。6 接下來幾年，工作坊分別由不同藝術家帶領，如 1936 年是韓

福瑞與魏德曼，1937 年是霍姆。7

班寧頓區分舞創練習（composition）與編舞（choreography），似乎暗示學生必須先學會

創作的原理，主要學習從空間、時間，與重力方面分析舞蹈的能力。8 在這堂課裡，學生可

能創作（create）短的練習曲，讓他們理解立體的身體在空間裡產生不同形狀之可能性、以

及如何將那些形狀按照不同音樂結構加以組合，但他們並未探討如何透過舞蹈去發展一套論

述或看法。只有在編舞工作坊（Choreography Workshop）才讓學生經歷與協助一支舞作的誕

生，而舞作的主題來自藝術家的靈感與才氣。9 當 1936 年班寧頓加開新的編舞主修（Program

in Choreography）時，「對象是針對較資深的學員，……每人呈現兩支全本的作品」，印證了

這個精英式的編舞觀念，因為只允許少數的資優生加入。10

經由創作的過程所產生的編創舞蹈（choreography），是屬於藝術家自己的，不是像佛耶

6 報名參加這門工作坊的課之學生，也必須同時報名（由約翰‧馬丁授課的）「舞蹈形式的創作練習」

（Composition in Dance Forms）以及「舞蹈史與評論」。

作曲家與音樂教育者路易‧霍斯特（Louis Horst）也曾開過「舞蹈形式的創作練習」這門課，他將

課分為兩階段：前古典（Pre-Classic）形式，以及現代（Modern）形式。 7 1936 年，查爾斯‧魏德曼（Charles Weidman）帶領了一個男生的工作坊並發展出舞碼《探索》Quest，

而韓福瑞（Doris Humphrey）則率領女子工作坊創作了《以我的紅火》With My Red Fires。1937 年，

瑪麗‧魏格曼的學生霍姆（Hanya Holm）發展了舞作《趨勢》Trend。 8 例如由瑪莎‧席爾（Martha Hill）開授，並由貝西‧熊博格（Bessie Schonberg）擔任助教的「舞蹈

創作練習」（Dance Composition）課，內容簡介為：「對舞蹈創作的研究，包含姿勢之連結以及群體

在空間中的設計；一個單一的創作因素，或結合許多因素如方向、高低、節奏、動力等等；舞蹈，

內容，主題與觀念。」（Kriegsman 232 頁）

同樣由席爾開授、熊博格擔任助教的另一門課為「基礎技巧」（Fundamental Techniques）--「一個關

於舞蹈動作的基礎技巧研究，分為力道、空間與時間等因素；關於舞蹈動作的形式與意義等元素。」

（Kriegsman 232 頁） 9 這種將藝術的過程分為技巧、創作與名師舞碼（repertoire）—也就是由老師發展新舞碼的課—成為

後來美國主要[舞蹈科系]課程設計的基礎。 10 這是由席爾與霍斯特共同主持的課程（Kriegsman 236-237 頁）。


的時代是由一群從事舞蹈的群體所共同組合出的舞步，而是包含創造出的動作以及該動作在

一段時間中的發展變化。此外，[編創舞蹈] 這個詞也意涵舞蹈分為學習舞蹈的教學過程，與

製造舞作（making a dance）的創作過程兩種。在十八世紀初，學舞直接從學一支舞開始。但

到了 1930 年代，訓練一名舞者通常是經由學習某位特定編舞者所研發出的一套融合普世性

動作原理之練習組合。例如，在班寧頓學院時，葛蘭姆、韓福瑞、魏德曼、與霍姆都教自己

的一套現代舞技巧，提出一套特殊的原理作為舞蹈動作的基礎。

編創舞蹈的排他效應

回想韓福瑞所形容為「編創理論」（choreographic theory）興盛的 1930 年代，她認為當

時因為第一次世界大戰所帶來的社會動盪，引發舞者重新思考他們作為藝術家的任務。在美

國與德國，舞者們針對自己提出嚴肅的問題。「我的舞在表達什麼？」、「對我這樣的人以及

我所生活的世界有意義麼？」、「如果不，那麼世上應該存有哪種舞蹈，以及如何組織它？」

11 對韓福瑞而言，新的現代舞編舞者被社會良知所驅使，想要重申正義，為人類社會的可能

性提供新的視野。

但如同舞蹈學者蘇珊‧曼寧（Susan Manning）在她的開拓性的著作《現代舞、黑人舞》

(Modern Dance, Negro Dance)所揭示，新的編舞觀念，因帶有歧視的美學標準，而對有色人

種的藝術家產生了排他效應。黑人舞者尤其被要求推出「自然的」（natural）與「不需思索

的」（spontaneous）動作，因此不是被剝奪編舞的機會排在門外，要不就是他們的編舞辛勞

不被肯定。在班寧頓教舞蹈評論課的約翰‧馬丁（John Martin）經常將美國非洲裔編舞者的

現代舞作品評為「抄襲的」（derivative）而非「原創性的」；但當這些編舞者凸顯非洲性元素

時，他以及其餘的舞評家又將他們視為「天生的表演者」，而不是「具有創意的藝術家」。

同時，葛蘭姆與海倫‧塔米瑞絲（Helen Tamiris）卻覺得他們的舞作能夠代表全世界的

身體，因此以自己的白人身體演出黑人靈歌、美國印地安舞蹈，甚至黑奴常見的蛋糕舞步

（Cakewalk）等舞。由於編舞者是一位可以擷取所有動作的普世元素之藝術家，因此他們能

舞出世界上全人類的共同關懷與價值。

即使在第二次大戰之後，非洲裔藝術家在舞臺上演出的機會驟增，但他們的作品仍然被

要求展現其特定族群的價值與議題，而白種人藝術家卻可以繼續以一種沒有被賦予種族包袱

11 韓福瑞撰寫的《製舞的藝術》(The Art of Making Dances) 18 頁。


的精神，在形式與意義方面繼續「實驗」著。

編舞者這個新詞的出現，不僅合理化白人藝術家的工作，也同時提昇了現代舞課的地

位。這種有靈感、有才氣的個人編舞者，比起社交舞老師，或為歌廳與夜總會、百老匯等別

種娛樂性舞蹈排舞的人，似乎更有光環。

這種觀念還產生了另一種排他效應：鞏固了由單一藝術家所作的舞之地位，以區隔於世

上許多無法追溯特定創作者的其他舞蹈形式。延續當時人類學對於傳統與創新的對立觀念，

現代舞編舞者聲稱他們產生的動作語彙是全新的。即使他們大量借用了美國印地安人、亞洲

人、與黑人的形式，他們卻與這些日漸盛行的「不變的」、「根深蒂固的」的舞蹈形式保持距

離。因此，現代舞藝術家是實驗「新」舞蹈形式者，而「民族舞者」僅是研究與專攻世上許

亙古不變的舞蹈形式者。

羅素‧梅麗魏德‧修（Russell Meriwether Hughes，或稱「拉梅麗」La Meri）宣稱發

明了民族舞（ethnic dance）與民族舞者（ethnological dancer）兩個名詞，以「區隔出反映各

國或各種族、階級中不變的習俗之舞蹈」，有別於芭蕾這個國際精英的共同產物，以及現代

舞這個單一個人天才的投射。12

不像聖丹妮絲（St. Denis）根據廣泛的旅遊以及與不同文化的人短暫接觸後由自己發展

出的舞步，拉梅麗更深入學習各種舞蹈。同時，拉梅麗發明一套解釋這些舞蹈如何因為含有

普世的生命力而蓬勃的理論，一種比產生芭蕾或現代舞更基本、更有驅動力的能量。她這種

分類架構，加深了一般人認為世界舞蹈類型永遠不變的刻板印象，歧視它比現代舞或芭蕾更

原始。

拉梅麗學習佛朗明哥、巴拉達那提雅（Barata Natyam）式印度舞、爪哇舞以及其他歐洲

民俗舞，經過自己編排後在世界各地巡演，獲得觀眾的掌聲。這些舞臺版本，就像佛耶舞譜

中所記錄的其他區域之舞蹈一樣，已經將它們自原生的環境中抽離，為鏡框式的舞臺空間重

新打造。因此拉梅麗收集這些舞蹈時，已經微妙地抽離掉它們的歷史背景。她的舞臺呈現方

式抹滅了長久以來當地的舞蹈大師們之貢獻。她又因為仔細記載了所有搭配舞蹈演出之個人

或小型樂團的音樂，而刪去了樂師與舞者之間的即興互動機會。

總之，第一種編舞的模式，經由舞譜的建立，規範了身體與動作，以建構一套似乎可以

衡量所有舉止的普世標準。它將舞蹈抽離出原生地的環境，再將它投射在一個純幾何空間。

12 拉梅麗（La Meri，全名：Russell Meriwether Hughes）著，Total Education in Ethnic Dance. New York:

Marcel Dekker, 1977，1-2 頁。


它的另一個主要目的，是去除個人式教導。經由人體與人體之間傳授舞蹈資訊的細膩性，也

被普世的舞蹈執行標準模式給取代了。

第二種對編舞概念的推動，鞏固了個人創作者，卻排擠了群體合創的、或不具名的作品。

它因此忽視，或至少輕視，大眾娛樂性舞蹈或社交舞蹈的編舞辛勞。因此，十八世紀的編舞

概念將動作普世化（universalized），二十世紀舞蹈將情感（expression）普世化。它將編舞的

藝術視為一種個人天才表達全人類共同的議題或關懷之藝術。

編舞者角色的淡化

1960 年代開始，編舞者一詞又再度因應新的編舞方式與演出而演變。丹尼爾‧耐吉林

（Daniel Nagrin）在 1968 年聚集了多種族裔的團員，一起參與一場整晚的即興演出時，以

導演而非編舞者自稱。13 這種即興舞蹈表演引發藝術家以新的名詞來形容這位召集大家並引

導集體探索的人之角色，畢竟動作的創發與其精確的順序，都是由舞者在演出中現場決定，

即使他們是遵循著導演事先預設的結構與指示而行。

同時，對「既存」動作（“found” movement）的新喜好，例如傑德森（Judson）舞蹈劇

場的編舞者們所使用一般人在日常生活中之勞動與活動元素，拆卸天才 / 藝術家型的創作

者身分。因此，許多藝術家僅列出舞名，以及「由某某人推出」（by）而非「由某某人編創」

（choreographed by）。14 緊接著的下一波趨勢，借用許多不同來源的動作，或透過結合舞者

的編舞來形成舞作的方式，更是催生了新的用語，例如「由某某人構想」或「由某人組織」

的舞作。

這些新的藝術形式反映出藝術家的新身份，屬於較接近工藝匠師（craftsperson）而非被

靈感召喚的天才。「製作舞蹈」（making dances）甚至「製作新作品」（making new work）的

說法，代表一個每天必須進入排練場建構（construct）動作的決定，或組織排列一套現有的

動作。如此一來，藝術家被重新定位成勞工（laborer）或合作夥伴（collaborator）。這也強調

13 根據 Schlundt 的研究，耐吉林 1958 年的節目僅註明舞名與音樂作曲者。但 1972 年組團時，節目單

卻標示為「由丹尼爾‧耐吉林導演」。 14 例如 1963 年的《地形》（Terrain）是以依凡‧雷娜編創（choreographed by）註明，燈光由羅森伯格

（Rauschenberg）設計，而 1968 年的《心智即肌肉》（The Mind is A Muscle）僅以由依凡‧雷娜推

出（by），和 1970 年的《持續性計畫—每日更改》（Continuous Project – Altered Daily）也是標示為

由依凡‧雷娜推出。


了動作的實質[材料]性（materiality），因為動作就是舞蹈的元素。這種視動作為實材，以及

視編舞者為編排這些材料者的觀點，使得舞蹈本身有了超越創作者意圖的內涵與意義；同

時，舞蹈作為一項製作的成果（made event）也與其被執行的過程切割開來，於是編創出的

舞蹈便獨立於編舞者以及舞者。

以上三種編舞的思維模式，皆賦予動作一種舞者可能會或可能不會經歷到的實質性。對

佛耶而言，舞蹈動作佔用一定的空間以及在特定的時間內完成，而這些座標協助他鞏固任何

舞步以及舞動的「事實」（fact）。每個舞步顯示其特定形狀與時間，並且所有動作確實證明

其充足的內容可以經由舞譜在紙上記錄下來。對拉梅麗式的現代性理論而言，動作是內心情

感的具體表現，可轉化為物理世界中的形狀、節奏與質地（texture）等物質性。此外，動作

的實質性（substantiality）使它可被精緻化並賦予變化——被擴張或壓縮，反轉或交織出其

他對立的元素。雖然動作的移動性（motionality）暗示了情感的轉移，但動作仍維持一種物

性（objecthood）並透過此物性傳達其意涵；換句話說，動作以一己之力創造並傳達了舞蹈

的旨意。另一方面，依據後現代的編舞理念，動作仍保有其物質性，而編舞者與觀眾則專注

於將日常生活動作或高難度動作語彙視為舞蹈製作的「材料」。

基於舞蹈動作的這種實在/物質屬性（objective status），無論其美學或宗教的傳統為何，

都經常被視為可以自組成其整體藝術環境的音樂、服裝與建築等面向中抽離出來，自成一套

身體訓練。1960 年代，當來自世界各地的舞蹈被引進大專院校課程時，內容也脫離了舞蹈

的歷史背景。它以一種體現信仰系統而非編創舞蹈之方式呈現，學生在空無一物的方形現代

舞教室學習這些舞蹈。如同在佛耶的時代一樣，他們以直接學習舞作的方式習舞。但由於課

程設計與經費的限制，通常造成他們無法學到堂奧階段。這種教學方式加深了這些舞蹈是永

恆不變的印象，因為學生沒機會學習如何在當下即興，如何與樂師互動，以及如何編排或重

排這些元素，以符合特定演出的需求。

對這些舞蹈的學術性探討，也同樣反映編創舞蹈一詞的歷史演變。一方面，佛耶這套能

對應所有舞蹈動作的統一體系，被一些依據拉邦理論為基礎的研究實現了，例如 1960 年代

羅邁斯（Alan Lomax）根據舞蹈動作所使用的平面空間（spatial planes）之研究。而近期則

有維斯卡羅（Peggy Vissicaro）啟動的一套運用電腦衡量舞蹈影片中空間與時間的使用方式，

包含手的高度、腳步的快慢、以及動作的弧度，以比較與歸類所有的舞蹈。

而另一種探討模式，延續現代舞對編舞的觀念，保留了個人式創造力與傳統舞之間的拉

鋸；前者被視為具個人的革新或實驗性、以及個人情感的表達，後者則指不變的、和整體文

化的表達。這種模式假設世界上舞蹈的差異性僅在表面上，而暗藏在這些變化下的，是一個


共同的人性。

我想見到的又是編創舞蹈之概念的哪種版本的呢？我想像編舞是一種對身體認同、個人

認同，以及社會認同的理論化過程。我喜歡將編舞與表演分開，如此編創舞蹈過程中的理論

性決策（theoretical decisions）才得以被評估。參與《你認為你會跳舞嗎？》電視節目面試

的年輕藝術家，表演他們自編的舞作。但接著他們被安排上數週的技巧課，裁判再對他們上

課時忠實模仿另一個身體的能力加以評分，而不在乎他們的編舞能力；他們沒有舞蹈創作的

課程，也沒被教導如何發明或串連動作。同樣的，《與明星共舞》中的「訓練員-舞伴」編了

一套讓明星演出時看起來很棒的動作，但他們僅以優秀的舞者與舞伴的身分被肯定。

為何忽視或抹煞[編舞]這項勞力付出？是因為我們被透過辛苦規訓（disciplining）的身

體所呈現的看似優雅或自然的演出給迷惑了，而不著重其中塑造動作的過程？或是不願意想

像一個人的身分認同（identity）可能且確實因為所作出的動作而被形塑？

與其抑制編舞的意涵，根據《洛杉磯時報》對此詞所引用的方式可以看出編舞這個名詞

頗富潛力，甚至被擴充應用到包含具名或無具名的群體行動，只要有人參與其中即可。然而

[《洛杉磯時報》的]那些例子仍保留了即興的演出與事先決定好的行為之對立性。編創舞蹈

一詞也似乎成為社會行為的總指揮。這種即興的與事先編好的對立關係，促進合理化了世界

上的舞蹈被歸為永久傳統的以及激進創新之分類，造成此兩種舞蹈無法在世界舞台上平起平

坐的情況。

我們不妨將即興視為一種當下實現的編創舞蹈，同時兼顧製造舞蹈和跳舞的雙重符碼體

系（codes）。讓我來舉例說明（譯註：以下這段由原文作者當場一邊演說一邊示範演出）：

好，我現在正在即興，但我的動作已經和一套陳述有關：

首先，我身上已經累積了五十幾年的舞蹈訓練。外開、對脊椎的照顧不周，柔軟的四

肢——這些都源自某些舞蹈傳統，也暗示特定的身體符碼。

接下來，我有我偏好的動作方式──我動作的支解性（disjointedness）。你看，但如果我

決定動作由身體的核心啟動再將它連續向外延伸，又很不一樣；這種動作模式勾勒的身分

（identity）比較集中，而另一種則疏散到全身。

接著，還有我的凝視（gaze），以及我決定如何看你，我可以一一注視每一個人，或假

裝我不知道你的存在。

然後我的行徑；是沿著直線走、或向你衝過去，或完全跳出、從局外向內探。


然後接下來還有──這個新的人物角色（persona）會擁有獨特的身分，還是溶回先前的

角色？

這一切都和我的編舞決策有關，而非關我執行這些決定的完整度如何。

如果你只關注到我作為一名舞者的能力表現，那你可能覺得我很具有說服力，或很急，

或很疏遠，甚至很幽默，但你無法全面掌握我的舞想要傳達的意義。

所以，我希望我們一起繼續辯證編創舞蹈（choreography）可以是什麼——思考將它與

表演分開的後果，以及如何將它應用到這個千變萬化（protean）的舞蹈行為（dancing）當中。

尤其需要重視編創舞蹈作為一套先前或當下進行的決定，而透過這些決策，產生出舞蹈的意

義。

譯者後記：

本文源於佛斯特教授於 2008 年 5 月 31 日在國立臺北藝術大學舉辦的「臺灣舞蹈研究學

會 2008 初夏研究生研討會」之英文專題演講，並也在印度以不同形式發表。英文演講稿經

由她的同意一併刊登。更完整的全文將在其主編的 Worlding Dance 一書中出版。譯者在此感

謝匿名審查人、陳雅萍、程沛光、主編王雲幼以及巴洛克舞專家 Linda Tomko 等老師與同事

對本人中譯過程的諸多建議，也歡迎讀者的回應。

參考書目

列於本刊第 25 頁的英文原文末。


“Choreographies and Choreographers”

— a History of the Term Choreography

Susan Leigh Foster

Professor, UCLA Department of World Arts and Cultures

Chinese Translation by Lin YaTin

Assistant Professor, Graduate Institute of Dance Theory

Taipei National University of the Arts

Abstract

What is at stake in partitioning “the art of dancing” into the acts of making, performing, and

learning to dance? And how has the categorization of dance into traditional or contemporary,

social or artistic, effected the interpretation of the processes by which it comes into existence?

This essay excavates two distinctive meanings of the term choreography in order to assess how

they have impacted our understanding of dances and dance-making world-wide. I evaluate the

ideological legacy of choreography, paying special attention to how it has been used to consolidate

and regularize dance practices, and to instantiate typologies of dance with distinctive artistic and

social merit. By examining the cultural work it has performed at different moments in history, I

hope to offer a perspective on its meanings today and their impact on the ways we teach and

conceptualize dance around the world.

Keywords：choreography, notation, world, ethnic, history


“Choreographies and Choreographers” –

A History of the Term Choreography

A Talk by Susan Leigh Foster

Professor, UCLA, Department of World Arts and Cultures

I can’t claim expertise or even fandom for the two recent and highly popular TV shows that

feature dance, So You Think You Can Dance and Dancing With the Stars, but one thing that strikes

me about both is their neglect or even suppression of the process of choreographing the

performances. What do I mean by “choreography”? The purpose of this talk is to generate

some discussion around current usages of the term. In the last year I have seen the term used in

the Los Angeles Times to describe the war in Iraq, the movements of dog whisperer Cezar Milan,

the management of discussion at board meetings, and even the coordination of traffic lights for

commuter flow.

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) offers two definitions for the word “choreography”:

the first, a beguilingly simple assertion, informs us that choreography is “the art of dancing”; and

the second, marked as an obsolete usage, refers to choreography as “the art of writing dances on

paper.” The first definition identifies all aspects of dance as choreographic, whether the process

of teaching someone how to dance, the act of learning to dance, the event of performing a dance,

or the labor of creating a dance.

Neither the OED nor the LA Times references quite what I imagine the term choreography to

encompass. But before talking about that, I want to rehearse a brief genealogy of the term,

paying special attention to how it has been used to consolidate and regularize dance practices, and

to instantiate typologies of dance with distinctive artistic and social merit. Its history, I want to

argue, tells us a great deal about how dances of the world are conceptualized and studied today.

Feuillet’s choreography

Sometime in the 1670s, Louis XIV ordered his principal Dancing Master Pierre Beauchamps


to “discover the means of making the art of dance comprehensible on paper”. According to

Beauchamps he set about “shaping and disposing characters and notes in the form of tablature in

order to represent the steps of the dances and ballets” in such a way that they could be learned

“without need of personal instruction.i Although at least three other distinctive notation systems

emerged in response to Louis’ mandate, Raoul Auger Feuillet’s publication in 1700 of

Beauchamps’ system predominated, and thus the term “choreography” was neologized in its title

as “the art of writing dances.”

Feuillet’s planimetric representation of the dancing body highlights the path it takes through

space and the motions of the feet and legs. A single line notating the dancer’s path is embellished

on either side by characters indicating the positions and actions of the feet. Analogous to work

being done in the other Royal Academies, each of which was being asked to establish the basic

precepts and norms of its discipline, Feuillet notation invented a regularized vocabulary of

universal actions subtending all steps. Movement was thereby reduced to a set of possibilities to

elevate and lower, to move along a specified path, or to articulate rhythmic patterns with the legs

and feet.ii

Using this single classificatory rubric, the notation subjected dancing to laws that all

i Quoted Harris-Warrick and Marsh 1994, p. 84. ii Not only is the body summoned into this horizontal geometry, but the naming of steps belies a vertical axis

along which the body is similarly aligned. According to Weaver’s translation of Feuillet: Dancing is

composed of Positions, Steps, Sinkings, Risings, Springings, Capers, Fallings, Slidings, Turnings of the

Body, Cadence or Time, Figures, etc.

Although defined as a bending of the knee, the term “sinking” conveys a sense of the body’s relationship to

a vertical axis along which it is moving. To bend the knee places awareness in the part of the body

specifically, whereas the notion of the body sinking emphasizes the total body’s positionality in space. In

this way, the body is presumed to be vertical, its sinking, rising, or falling, signs of its relationship to

erectness.

Is it farfetched to see in this description an analogy to ships at sea? According to Laura Brown colonial

expansion is as confronting unknown lands and unknowable waters.

For Brown: these representations of rivers and seas begin to develop as a “powerful force in motion, that is

fluid, inexorable, expansive, exhilarating, and dangerous. It represents that force in motion on a career

characterized by radical irony or profound undecidability, conditionality or contradiction. And it projects

the end point of this career as an unavoidable and apocalyptic fate in which triumph is matched with

disaster, fulfillment with destruction, optimism with despair.” (p. 71).


movements appear to share. Cultural and historical specificities of particular dances were

smoothed out or erased through the implementation of absolute conceptions of vertical and

horizontal space as well as metricized time.iii As literary historian Jean-Noel Laurenti explains:

"The French dancing masters had to unify a vocabulary of steps with diverse origins,

from the provinces or from abroad: to discover what this vast repertoire had in common,

it was necessary to first distinguish all the constituent parts. This would permit the use

of the same signs (in different sequence of course) to note down a minuet or passepied,

originally from the west of France, as well as a gavot or a rigadoon, imported from the

southeast, or a “Spanish-style” sarabande or chaconne.” iv

Not only does Feuillet establish clear underlying principles that govern each movement, but

it also teaches the body a new locatedness in space. As part of the instructions for learning to

read the notation, Feuillet discusses the relationship of the aspiring dancer to the page on which

the notation is printed. In order to keep the page aligned with the front of the room, he explains

to the reader how to hold the hands while doing a quarter turn. What is significant in this

explanation is that the body’s ability to remain oriented with respect to the fixed horizontal planes

of floor and paper is far from given. Feuillet finds it necessary to provide meticulous instructions

so that dancers can maintain a kind of “true north” even as their bodies wind along a circuitous

path.

Feuillet notation thus teaches bodies to maintain a single directional orientation and a bird’s

eye view of his or her own path while at the same time, regularizing each step. The effect of

Feuillet on various dance forms was not unlike that of Linnaeus’ botany on the world of plants.

iii Laurenti explains: “Thus the notation of an apparently quite simple and very dynamic contretemps

balonné…requires no less than eight indications: a step forward with the free leg, a sink, a spring, a foot in

the air, a second sink and a spring on a half-position sign; the two groups of signs, corresponding to the

two movements, are joined by a trait within the frame of the measure. And if this contretemps balonné

were to be executed with a change in orientation, a supplementary sign would have to be added” (Laurenti

1994, p. 87). iv Laurenti 1994, p. 87.


Paul Carter argues that Linnaeus’ taxonomic project extracted each object of scrutiny from its

ecology, “its historical and geographical surroundings. In this process it loses all power to signify

beyond itself, to suggest lines of development or the subtler influences of climate, ground and

aspect. In short, its ecology, its existence in a given, living space is lost in the moment of

scientific discovery.” v Feuillet’s notation similarly erased the locality of dance steps in order to

place all dancing on the plane of pure geometry where each dance’s specificities could be

compared and evaluated. Performing this evaluation, the dancing body disciplined by Feuillet

enjoyed a consolidated and singular perspective onto the world from which to track his or her own

progress in relation to others.

As Mary Louis Pratt, Matthew Edney, and Carter have all argued this synthesis of pure space

and absolute viewpoint worked effectively to undergird the colonial project. The corporeality

that connected space and viewpoint extended itself outwards from a central verticality towards a

periphery through an unmarked space. Within such a space, neutral bodily features and motions,

such as those identified in Feuillet notation, operated to confirm the existence of an absolute set of

laws to which all bodies should conform. Implementing this bodily disciplining, the colonial

regime could first institute protocols of comportment at home and then proliferate these standards

and indexes of behavior to those foreign bodies that it desired to govern abroad. These protocols

acquired their persuasive force by standing as the most basic and therefore universal units out of

which human behavior is composed. Choreography, like the taxonomic project of botany, invited

its practitioners to envision the world’s dances as subject to placement within a single

classificatory framework.

Composing choreography

Feuillet and similar notation systems were abandoned by the late 18th century, and the term

choreography generally fell out of use during the 19th century in both French and English

languages. Beginning in the late 1920s and early 1930s, however, the term “choreography” starts

to come into widespread and new usage, especially in the United States. It was used regularly in

concert programs, newspaper reviews, and significantly, in the curriculum of the Bennington

v Carter, p. 22.


Summer Dance Festival, a course of study attended by a majority of the dance educators who went

on to found university departments of dance around the country.

Beginning in 1935, Bennington offered a General Workshop that included courses in dance

composition, music analysis, history and criticism, and stagecraft. It also offered a Workshop

Program that consisted of a Technique course taught by Graham and a Choreography course in

which she created and rehearsed her new work Panorama.vi For the next several years, the

workshop program was directed by different artists, Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman in

1936, and Hanya Holm in 1937.vii

The distinction made at Bennington between composition and choreography seems to imply

that students should first learn compositional principles that primarily impart an ability to analyze

movement in terms of space, time, and weight.viii In such a course students might create short

studies that demonstrated their understanding of the possibilities for shaping the body as a

three-dimensional object in space, and for sequencing those shapes according to various musical

structures, but they did not focus on the development of a vision or argument in dance form.

Only in the Choreography Workshop could these students witness and assist in the birth of a dance,

one whose thematics depended upon the inspiration and genius of the artist.ix When, in 1936

vi Students enrolled in this course were also required to enroll in Composition in Dance Forms and Dance

History and Criticism (taught by John Martin).

Composer and music educator Louis Horst also taught a course entitled Composition in Dance Forms,

which broke down into two parts: Pre-Classic Forms and Modern Forms. vii In 1936 Charles Weidman led a Men’s Workshop where he developed Quest, and Doris Humphrey

presided over a Women’s Workshop where she created With My Red Fires. And in 1937 Hanya Holm, a

student of Mary Wigman’s, developed Trend. viii For example, the description for the course in Dance Composition taught by Martha Hill with Bessie

Schonberg as the assistant read as follows: “A study of dance composition from the standpoint of

sequential form and group design in space; a single compositional factor or a combination of factors such

as direction, level, tempo, dynamics, and the like; dance content, theme, or idea.” Kriegsman, p. 232.

Also assisted by Schonberg, Hill taught a course entitled Fundamental Techniques – “A basic study of

fundamental techniques of movement for the dance analyzed into its force, space, and time aspects; the

elements of form and meaning in movement for the dance.” Kriegsman, p. 232. ix This division of the artistic process into technique, composition, and repertoire – a course in which a

faculty member developed a new work – formed the basis of a majority of dance curricula across the U.S.

in subsequent decades.


Bennington added a new Program in Choreography, a course in “independent composition for

advanced students”, who each “completed and presented two full-length compositions”, it

reaffirmed this elite conception of choreography by identifying an exceptional few students as

eligible for its study. x

The choreography, as the outcome of the creative process, was the property of an individual

artist, not as an arrangement of steps that are shared amongst a community of practitioners, as in

Feuillet’s time, but rather, as a creation of both the movement and its development through time.

Furthermore, the term implied a separation of dance into the pedagogical process of learning to

dance, and the creative process of making a dance. In the early 18th century, one learned to dance

by learning dances. By the 1930s one trained to become a dancer using a regime of exercises,

often devised by the choreographer, that embodied universal principles of motion. At

Bennington, for example, Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, Charles Weidman, and Hanya Holm,

each taught their own versions of modern dance technique, proposing distinctive sets of principles

as the underlying foundation for dance movement.

Choreographic exclusions

Reflecting back on the burgeoning of what she calls “choreographic theory” in the 1930s,

Doris Humphrey speculated that the social upheaval provoked by World War I prompted dancers

to re-evaluate their mission as artists. “In the United States and in Germany, dancers asked

themselves some serious questions. ‘What am I dancing about?’ ‘Is it worthy in the light of the

kind of person I am and the kind of world I live in?’ ‘But if not, what other kind of dance shall

there be, and how should it be organized?’” xi For Humphrey, the new modern choreographers

were galvanized by a social conscience that aspired to redress injustices and provide new visions

of the potential for human society.

Yet, as Susan Manning has shown in her pioneering study Modern Dance, Negro Dance, the

new conceptualization of choreography functioned in an exclusionary capacity because of the

prejudicial aesthetic criteria applied to artists of color. Black artists, in particular, were expected

x This program was co-directed by Hill and Horst, Kreigsman, pp. 236-237.

xi The Art of Making Dances, p. 18.


to produce “natural” and “spontaneous” movement, and this assumption either barred them from

dance-making or else discredited their compositional labor. Thus, John Martin, who taught

criticism at Bennington, frequently rated African-American choreographers who followed the

modern dance approach to choreography as "derivative" rather than "original" artists; whereas

when they foregrounded Africanist elements, he, along with other critics, considered them "natural

performers" rather than "creative artists."

At the same time, artists such as Graham and Helen Tamiris felt empowered to represent all

the world’s bodies in their dances, casting their own white bodies in the performance of Negro

Spirituals, Native American dances, and Cakewalks. Because the choreographer was an artist

who could tap the universal fundaments that all movement shares, they could dance out the

concerns and values of all peoples of the world.

Even after World War II, when an increasing number of African-American artists appeared

on concert stages, their works were required to display the values and issues associated with their

specific communities, while white artists could continue to “experiment” with an unmarked radical

newness in form and meaning.

Not only did the new term choreographer justify a white artistic practice, but equally, it

helped to raise the new modern dance in class. The inspired genius of the individual artist took

on a new luster in comparison with the role of social dance teachers and arrangers of dances, such

as those who were setting pieces for revues, night club entertainments, or other Broadway

attractions.

And it accomplished one further exclusion: it secured a special place for dances authored by a

single artist as distinct from forms of dance practiced world-wide that could not be traced to a

single creator. Implementing the opposition then practiced in anthropology between tradition and

innovation, modern choreographers claimed that the movement vocabularies they devised were

entirely new. Although they borrowed extensively from Native American, Asian, and “Negro”

forms, they distanced themselves from these “unchanging” and “deeply embedded” forms even as

they were becoming more familiar. Thus alongside the modern dance artists who experimented

with “new” forms of movement, the “ethnological dancer” emerged as one who studied and

mastered various enduring world forms.

Russell Meriwether Hughes, known as La Meri, claims to have invented the terms ethnic


dance and ethnological dancer as ways to distinguish dances that “reflect the unchanging mores of

the people of all classes…of a particular land or race” from ballet, the product of an international

elite, and modern dance, the reflections of a genial individual. xii

Unlike St. Denis, who traveled extensively and “made up” dances based on her brief contact

with peoples of different cultural traditions, La Meri took it upon herself to study and learn various

dances in more detail. At the same time, she necessarily invented a theory of how all these dances

had been spawned by a universal dance of life, a more fundamental and generative energy than

those that produced either ballet or modern dance forms. Her classificatory framework thus

reinforced stereotypical prejudices about world dance forms as unchanging and more primitive

than either ballet or modern dance.

La Meri studied Flamenco, Barata Natyam, Javanese dances, and several European folk

forms, but then arranged her own versions of dances which she performed to great acclaim from

audiences around the world. These staged versions, not unlike Feuillet’s notation of various

regional dances, removed them from their original locations, reframing them within the space of

the proscenium. Collecting the dances for the stage, La Meri’s concerts subtly de-historicized

them. Her presentations obfuscated any indigenous attributions of artistic contributions that

might have been made over the years by various masters of the forms. They also eliminated any

opportunities for improvisation, especially in the exchange between dancer and musician, by

transcribing and notating all the distinctive musical forms for a soloist or small group that

accompanied her dancing.

So, to summarize: the first version of choreography, as the notating of dances, disciplined

the body and its movement so as to establish seemingly universal standards upon which all

comportment could be assessed. It uprooted dances from their local surround, and projected

them into the space of a pure geometry. It also had as a principle objective the elimination of

personal instruction. The specificities of dancing imparted by body-to-body transmission of

information were to be abandoned in favor of universal standards of execution of movement.

The second implementation of the term choreography secured individual authorship while

xii La Meri (Russell Meriwether Hughes), Total Education in Ethnic Dance. New York: Marcel Dekker,

1977. pp. 1-2.


excluding group authored or anonymously authored works. It likewise excluded dances or at

least obscured the choreographic labor entailed in the creation of popular culture or social dance

forms. Where the 18th century version universalized movement, the 20th century version

universalized expression. It marked the art of making dances as one in which the individual

genius could express issues or concerns shared by all humanity.

De-choreographing choreography

Beginning in the 1960s, the term choreographer began to undergo yet another set of

modifications due to the changing nature of dance composition and performance. Daniel Nagrin,

who summoned a multi-racial cast to work collectively on improvising choreography in

performance in 1968, began to refer to himself as the director, rather than the choreographer of

their evening-length presentations. xiii The performance of improvised works challenged the artist

to devise a new nomenclature for describing the role of the person who convened the group and

guided its explorations, since the invention of the movement and the precise sequencing were all

determined by the dancers during the performances, even though they were guided by certain

structures and scores that had been determined in advance by the director.

At the same time, the new interest in utilizing “found” movement, such as the pedestrian

tasks and activities deployed by Judson choreographers, provoked a de-centering of the

artist-as-genius model of authorship. As a result, many artists simply titled the work and then

used the phrase “by”, rather than “choreographed by”.xiv The subsequent emphasis on borrowing

movement from multiple sources, on integrating dancers’ choreography into the piece have

resulted in yet other nomenclatures, such as “conceived by” or “arranged by”.

These various artistic initiatives reflected a new status for the artist as more craftsperson than

inspired genius. The terms “making dances” and “making new work” came to signify a daily

xiii According to Schlundt, Nagrin, for a program in 1958 uses simply the Title of the dance and the

Composer of the Music, whereas when he convened the Workgroup in 1972, he specified in the program

that the performance was "Directed by Daniel Nagrin". xiv For example, Terrain, 1963, was listed as choreographed by Yvonne Rainer, with lighting by

Rauschenberg, whereas The Mind is a Muscle, 1968, was listed as by Yvonne Rainer, as was Continuous

Project - Altered Daily, 1970, by Yvonne Rainer.


decision to enter the studio and construct movement or to sequence phrases of existing movement.

They worked to re-position the artist as laborer and collaborator. They also emphasized the

materiality of movement as the substance with which dances are created. This focus on

movement as material and on the choreographer as the arranger of material imbued the dance with

a substance and significance beyond that of its maker’s intent, and at the same time, it separated

the dance as a made event from its execution. The choreography becomes something separate

from both the choreographer and the dancer.

All three versions of choreography imbue movement with a materiality that dancers might or

might not experience. For Feuillet dance movements take up a certain space and occur in a given

amount of time, and these coordinates help to solidify any given step and also the “fact” of moving.

Each step thus exemplifies its designated shape and specified timing, and all movement evidences

sufficient substance that it can be translated, via notation’s categories, onto the written page. For

modernist theories such as La Meri’s, movement becomes the physical manifestation of the psyche,

taking on the material properties of the physical world such as shape, rhythm, and texture.

Moreover, its substantiality enables it to be elaborated and varied -- expanded or contracted,

inverted or interwoven with other contrasting movement. Even though its motionality indicates

the peregrinations of the emotions, it maintains an objecthood through which it makes its message

felt. It alone makes and conveys the dance’s argument. With postmodernist conceptions of

dance-making, movement retains this material status as choreographer and viewer focus on

everyday actions or virtuoso vocabulary, all, as the “stuff” of which dances are made.

As a result of this objective status, dance movement, regardless of its aesthetic or religious

tradition, is frequently treated as a physical practice that can be separated from its full artistic

surround, including its music, or even costuming or architecture. When dances from around the

world were introduced into university curricula, beginning in the 1960s, they were

de-contextualized in just these ways. Presented not as choreography, but as the embodiment of a

belief system, students learned these dances within the blank, white cube of the modern dance

studio. As in Feuillet’s time, they learned to dance by learning dances. Yet curricular and

financial constraints often inhibited them from acquiring substantive proficiency. As a result,

pedagogy reinforced the image of these dances as unchanging, since students never learned how to

improvise within the forms, how to collaborate with musicians, or how to arrange and rearrange


material to meet the specific demands of a given performance.

The scholarly investigation of these dances similarly reflects the history of the term

choreography. In one branch of inquiry, Feuillet’s conception of a unified system subtending all

dance movement has been put into practice by Laban-based studies of dance, such as those of Alan

Lomax from the 1960s who looked at dances in terms of the spatial planes that they activated.

More recently, Peggy Vissicaro has initiated a computer-based study that measures and compares

films of dances using spatial and temporal criteria such as the height of the arms, the quickness of

the step, and the curvature of the movement in order to compare and categorize all dances.

A second branch of inquiry, upholding the modernist conception of choreography, preserves

the fundamental tension between individual approaches to creativity, seen as innovative or

experimental and expressive of the individual, and “traditional” dances, seen as unchanging and as

expressive of culture. It assumes that all the world’s dances evince only superficial differences,

and that underlying these variations is a common expression of humanity.

What version of the term would I like to see? I imagine choreography as a theorization of

corporeal, individual, and social identity. I like to separate it from the performance, so that the

theoretical decisions that go into the making of the dance can be assessed. The young artists who

auditioned for So You Think You Can Dance performed their own original choreography. Then

they were put into technique classes for weeks and judged, not on the basis of their choreographic

skills, but instead on their abilities to take class – that is, to faithfully copy what another body is

doing and then perform that fully. They were never given a course in dance composition or

taught anything about how to invent or sequence movement. Similarly, the “trainer-partners” on

Dancing With the Stars made up the routines that made the stars look good in performance, but

they were only credited with being excellent dancers and partners.

Why ignore or suppress this labor? Is it the lure of a pure or natural performance, achieved

by hard work at disciplining the body but not at crafting its motions? Is it a reluctance to imagine

that one’s identity can be and is shaped through the moves one makes?

Rather than suppress choreography, the LA Times references to it signal a promising

expansion of the term to include plans of action, authored or authorless, in which any or all bodies

participate. Yet their examples likewise preserve an oppositionality between spontaneous


performance and pre-determined actions. Choreography becomes a kind of master-minding of

social behaviors. This oppositionality between the improvised and the choreographed has helped

to rationalize the categorization of the world’s dances, as timeless traditions or as radical

experimentation, and kept them from achieving equal footing on the world stage.

We could, however, see improvisation as a spontaneous implementation of choreography, of

the codes of dancing-making as well as codes of dancing.

let me offer an example:

ok. i’m improvising, but my actions are already engaged with systems of representation:

first off, there’s the 50 odd years of dance training insinuated into my physical structure.

the turn-out, the relative neglect of the spine, the loose-limbed flexibility – these come from

certain dance traditions and they activate specific bodily codes.

then, there are my preferences for certain ways of moving,

the disjointedness of my movement. you see, it’s entirely different if i decide to initiate the

movement from the core of the body and have it travel sequentially to the periphery. in this,

one’s identity is depicted as centralized; in this, as diffused throughout the body.

then, there’s my gaze, how i decide to look at you,

either encountering you individually or pretending that i don’t know you are there.

then, there my use of floor path; whether i follow a line, or come at you, or step outside the

action and look at it.

and then there’s what comes after that – whether this new persona maintains a distinctive

identity or instead merges with what has come before.

and all of this has to do with the choreographic decisions i’m making, not so much how well i’m

executing those decisions.

If you focus only on my abilities as a dancer, then you could see me as compelling, or urgent,

or remote, or funny, but you wouldn’t be able to address the full range of meanings that my

dancing is articulating.

So, I guess I would like to see us continue to debate what choreography might mean – to


consider what is at stake in separating it from performance, and how it might apply to a very

protean thing called dancing. And especially to pay attention to choreography as a set of

decisions that have been made or are being made spontaneously, through which meaning is being

produced.

References:

Brown, Laura. Ends of Empire: Women and Ideology in Early Eighteenth-Century English

Literature. New York: Cornell University, 1993.

Carter, Paul. Road to Botany Bay: An Exploration of Landscape and History. New York: Knopf,

1988.

Feuillet, Raoul Auger. Chorégraphie ou l’art de décrire la danse [Choreography, or the Art of

Describing the Dance]. New York: Broude Brothers, 1968 (A Facsimile of 1700 Paris

Edition.)

English Translation by John Weaver, titled as: Orchesography; and A Small Treatise of

Time and Cadence in Dancing. London: Gregg International, 1706; 1971.

Harris-Warrick, Rebecca and Carol G. Marsh. Musical Theatre at the Court of Louis XIV : Le

Mariage de la Grosse Cathos. Cambridge [England] and New York : Cambridge University

Press, 1994.

Humphrey, Doris. The Art of Making Dances. New York: Rinehart [1959].

Kriegsman, Sali Ann. Modern Dance in America--the Bennington Years. Boston, Mass.: G.K. Hall,

1981.

La Meri. Total Education in Ethnic Dance. New York: Marcel Dekker, 1977.

Laurenti, Jean-Noel. “Feuillet's Thinking,” in Traces of Dance: Drawings and Notations of

Choreographers. Edited by Laurence Louppe; translated from the French by Brian Holmes,

Peter Carrier. Paris: Editions Dis Voir, 1994.

Manning, Susan. Modern Dance, Negro Dance: Race in Motion. Minneapolis, MN: University of

Minnesota Press, 2004.

Schlundt, Christena L. Daniel Nagrin: a Chronicle of His Professional Career. Berkeley:

University of California Press, 1997.

http://ucr.worldcat.org/oclc/36017089&referer=brief_results

「編創舞蹈與編舞者」 — 編舞一詞的由來與演變

Documents

Transcript of 「編創舞蹈與編舞者」 — 編舞一詞的由來與演變