Appropriation in European Contemporary Dance

Abstract

In contemporary dance in Europe appropriation has been productively applied as a production method only from 1990s. [...] Early approaches to and uses of appropriation in European contemporary dance were mostly informed by post-structuralist thought and resisted the individualistic subjective expression through operating in a semiotic field. Later approaches (those that I intend to focus on in this MA paper) approach and apply appropriation techniques in order to achieve different modes of expressivity that would go beyond the approaches that were prevailing in and still are largely forming and informing dance creation, performance and perception, namely: the subjective expression (expressing the inner self through movement) and the objective expression (approaching movement not as a self-expression but as an object in itself). I will examine appropriation procedures in the following choreographies: 50/50 by Mette Ingvartsen (2004), Le sacre du printemps by Xavier Le Roy (2007) and Rire by Antonia Baehr (2008). On the basis of the analysis of these works I attempt to find out what opportunities the various manners of appropriation provide the contemporary choreographers with and what those opportunities mean to the authors of dance in terms of their productive process, their artistic expression and their positioning as political subjects. In concrete I will focus my discussion on the following questions: 1. How does the application of artistic appropriation affect contemporary choreographic approaches and choreographic practices? 2. Which subject positions are implied by the use of the various procedures of artistic appropriation? 3. What do the various procedures of artistic appropriation indicate in terms of the subject's modes of expressivity? In conclusion, my main aim is to analyse and evaluate what the use of artistic appropriation as a production method means and has done for contemporary European dance practices.