TheArts World of Dance I
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Delight” with Gabby Miceli and Dancers is all about. The series then jumps back in time. “A Delicate Balance” performed by Danse Baroque, will transport the audience “back into a time when good dancing built good character.” “Violently lyric . . . radical classicism” is the account of “The Illogic of Movement.” Jennifer Mascall, “the enfant terrible of Canadian Dance”, will demonstrate the meaning of the above quotation. Early Dance Films from 1894 to 1912 are featured in the sixth performance of the series, logically titled “Turn of _ the Century”. Storytelling colours the stage in “Myths and Legends” with Aaloka, Kathak dancer from, India. Earlier this year, she had presented “Eternal Dance of Spring”. As part of this series, she will enact solo dance-dramas. Remember Al2 That Jazz? Series Eight entitled “And One and Two” lets you watch the dancers “get put through their paces.” And is there such a thing as new wave dance? It appears so as T.I.D.E. (Toronto Inde-
“Two feet, or not two feet?” Is that the question that audiences will be asking when attending performances of the World of Dance Series? It’s hard to say but anyhow, the programs scheduled for this dance series at the Humanities Theatre are wonderfuily diverse. So much so, that one could probably say that there is something there for everyone. The first in the series, entitled “It’s a Small World” is asn unual joint performance of dances by the Waterloo Caribbean Students Association and the Schwaben Dance Company. They will be performing West Indian and Germanic dances repsectively. Native Indian dance follows next in “To Dance is to Live”. Jim Sky and his group of dancers will perform the Mohawk Dance. Sky is a resident of the Six Nations Reserve and is considered to be one of North America’s leaders of this traditional dance. What would a dance series be without at least one performance of modern dance? That is what “Danci-g to
pendent Dance Enterprise) presents “Ebb and Flow.” Their splashy repertoire consists of “outrageous movement and essential concepts and essential movement and outrageous concepts.” “The Distance Between Two Points” will be explained by Dancesmiths, directed by former prima ballerina of the National Ballet, Lois Smith. Last in the series is “How Does Your Dance Garden Grow?” in which little sprouts (otherwise known as young people) who have rooted their way into The Carousel Dance Company will perform for other tender young things. This series runs from Sep- ’ tember 23 until December 2, every Wednesday afternoon at 4:30. (Performances usually end at 5:30 except for series#2 and #8.) Tickets are available now by subscription - only $10 for students (less than a dollar per show). Incidentally, this series is part of a credit for students taking Dance 110. So not only will you get inexpensive entertainment , you may learn something as well.
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Anna Lehn
Arts Editorial
Art: watChing more but enjogrin In 1445, the Mazarin Bible was printed on the first machine using movable type. Invented by Johannes Gutenberg, the machine was the forerunner of the modern printing press and caused a real revolution in the written word. LJp until that time, writing was a painstakingly slow process undertaken by hand. For this reason, very few people could write or, due to the lack of books, read. These priveleges were usually restricted to the clergy and some aristocrats. The perfection of the printing press meant that written works could be mass-produced with relative ease and at a much reduced cost. With an abundance of literature, literacy became more widespread, and, as more presses produced more books,.more people learned how to read. This much is clear. The printing press was also responsible for a great change in the use of the written word. When writing stopped being limited to those interested solely in religion, it was only a matter of time before the writing of fiction became an art. Put in more succinct and general terms, art forms are created by technological advances. When the technology is relatively new, as was the case with the printing press, the new art form begins where the old social function (i.e. -the writing of religious documents) left off. When there is a multiplicity of technologies (such as we have today), the new art form owesa lot. to its predecessors (film, for instances, owes much to live theatre, etc.) A close analysis of today’s art (especially popular art) and technology shows us some startling trends, trends which can with little modification be applied to all forms. Have you ever wondered why there are so few good movies these days? Why television is so boring?, Why many of your favorite musicians seem to have “sold out”? It is apparent that all of our forms of entertainment, all of this society’s art is getting worse and worse as time goes on. But, why? Having just been forged from the fires of technology, most art forms prosper for a period of time. As the technology continues to improve, cost continues to drop, and the products of the art form become enjoyed by more and more people. In literature, this process took a relatively long time, culminating in the creation of paperback novels, works of art for less than a dollar. However, most art forms (particularly those which gain great popularity) reach a pinnacle from which the only way to go is down. The natural tendency in capitalistic societies is towards -profit, and, even in time of prosperity, this tendency will cause acertainamount of artistic perversion. Coupled with rising production costs, the integrity of the art form will decay as it searches for a lower and lower common denominator in hopes of increasing profit. Television is a most obvious victim of this problem. The process does not end there, however. As technological advancement continues, newer art forms are created which, during their period of prosperity, push the older forms into obscurity or a premature, though welcome death. Popular art can thus be seen as cyclical in nature. As technology increases, art forms are created. These forms prosper and become widespread (available to all classes) as their technology improves. To a point. Costs start to increase, and the art becomes “commercial”, loses critical appeal and waits to be replaced by
a new art form created by newer technology. To see this practically, let us look at the film industry. In 1872, Thomas Edison invented the kinetescope, a logical extension of photography. The kinetescope took several pictures taken one after another and, by rapidly replacing one with the next, gave the illusion of movement. With the perfection of photographic film by Eastman-Kodak, a new art form was born. With the perfection of sound in the 1920’s, all of the conventions of the old art form had to be reworked to fit the new one. Many filmmakers couldn’t make the adjustment and found their careers cut short; others continued to make silent films well into the 1930’s (most notably, Charlie Chaplin). The march of progress cannot be halted, however, and sound had come to stay. In the 1940’s, Hollywood, at the forefront of commercial film, hit its apex, churning out 600 feature films a year. Box office failures, while not greeted with open arms, could be tolerated because the volume of movies was such that what money was lost on one could be made up by half a dozen others. The 1950’s brought two technological advances, one of which remains with us to this day. The use of colour is surprisingly now taken for granted, considering it wasn’t perfected very long ago. The transitions from silent movies to sound and black and white to colour show a tendency towards the most realistic representation of the world by the artist; obviously, neither advance could have been accomplished without an appropriate technological advance. Because of the prohibitive cost of such ventures, lukewarm receptions from critics because of a poor choice of subject matter and the inconvenience of wearing special glasses to the viewer, 3-D movies never caught on. With this use of laser holograms, however, a better form of 3-D art may be available in the future. With them economic prosperity of the 1960’s, a lot of independent film studios sprang up. Not immediately
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concerned with economy, these film studios could concentrate on making artistically satisfying movies. This boom led many to believe that Hollywood was leading the world in a new golden age of film. They were, of course, crushed when the 1970’s brought home some very basic economic realities to the movie industry. Almost overnight, all the independent filmmakers were forced to look for other jobs as they found they could no longer afford to make movies. This left the big studios, whose output has been decreasing steadily since the 1950’s due mainly to rising costs. We are now at a point where Hollywood puts out just over 100 feature films per year, a small fraction of what it used to. Moreover, the attitude of the major studios has changed. They seem to hold a Madison Avenue approach to making movies: the product is not as important as the package. For this reason, movies are made with ridiculously large budgets (which cannot be accounted for merely by rising costs), each new release being hailed as an “event”. What the makers don’t seem to realize is that a 40 million dollar flop can destroy a studio ()-leaven’s Gate is only the beginning). Despite the amount of money spent or the number of big names used, Hollywood films have reached an unbelievable low in creativity. Most of today’s films are: remakes of classic films; sequels to successful films; based on successful works in other forms; exploitative genre films; or, satires of established genres. Few and far between are the original films. The proliferation of home video equipment offers many an alternative to going out and seeing a movie, and, as equipment becomes less expensive and tapes are made more easily available, there may be a serious decline in movie attendance. If this does happen, only the studios willing to adapt themselves to the new technology will survive. Whether alpha recorders, beta recorders or videodiscs are the wave of the future is uncertain, and not necessarily to the point; the fact is that as our mechanical world becomes more sophisticated and complex, our art changes, and films must eventually become one of the casualties. Film isn’t the only art form under attack. Consider: With the onslaught of rising costs, many scholars feel it is only a matter of time before most publishing houses seriously curtail or altogether stop the publication of hardcover books; l If the trend in home computers keeps increasing, paper information storage (books) may become unnecessary w-ww; l Many recording artists have recently considered putting their music on videodiscs, giving them the opportunity to work with pictures as well as music; as the cost of videodisc hardware decreases and the cost of record hardware increases, artists may find videodiscs an attractive alternative. At a time of great social and economic upheaval, a time when people look to their arts for escape, art is decaying and metamorphising in ways most people don’t understand. A world where people have to face their problems is too horrible to consider - let us hope that whatever new art forms the future has in store for us arrive soon! Ira Nayman l
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