Performance Art From Futurist to the Present: Pages 178-202

Life Style: that's entertainment!
      - Artists began to satirize and parody Hollywood films and actors to use in their performances.
      - McLean a London artist usually had zany titles given to his productions that utilized poses and even though it was satirized it was still art.
      - Other parodies involving other artist would parody the overly seriousness of art itself or did costume performances.

The punk aesthetic
      -As the punk rock era of music began artists began to use punk as an aesthetic for their art as well as some arts becoming musicians such as Alan Vega.
      - Although even when the artist would go punk they wouldn't fully commit to punk itself as they would still see music as an art and pay homage to their pieces in their music performances.
      - These works would usually have a disruptive and cynical mood to them that fit the punk style of the time as it would rebel against the establishment just as the Futurist had done.

Retrieved from: http://www.psychicgloss.com

The performance fringe

      - Performance fringe was an art dominated by images to focus on the 'stage picture' so it had no straightforward plot or narrative. 

      - Performance art was also the product of artists' performance and avant- garde theater and this style was done by Robin Wilson with many different performances.

      - Wilsons acts lasted from two to twelve hours with a repeat of performances over several months and consisted of multiple aspects such as developing experimental theaters and many other influences from other artists.

      - From the large scale of the pieces it made Wilsons' work seem traditional to actual theater compared to other performance art as wilson tried to reach a broader audience with his text and performance style.

The media generation

      - By 1979 the punk anti-establishment idea began to be rejected and instead of becoming a rock  star  artist were trying to become celebrities due to media 

      - So artist of this new media era began to try to break the barriers of art and the media. Laurie Anderson was the first landmark to break these barriers with hand-drawn pictures and blown-up photos as a background to her songs about life.

      - The ambivalence of performance artists was captured by this need to become a celebrity in the media world and allowed for a new territory to be explored in art.

      - Artist began performing in clubs like The Pyramid, 8 BC, or The Limbo Lounge for small audiences that involved sharp focus and lucid execution in order to keep their audience and attract others which showed each artists skill in their work as well as being a mock celebrity.

Retrieved from: https://ephemeralnewyork.wordpress.com

Towards Theater

      - Performance art became fun and fashionable during the 1980s due to the artists of 1979 paving the way for media in art. Thus allowing for performance art to become more traditional to theater and opera on large and small scales.

      - The work of Laurie Anderson and Robert Wilson reached Europe and inspired more artist who would also follow the traditional theater road with media references creating a stage that was like a tv screen.

      - With this came the blurring of performance and traditional theater with Robert Wilson's work inspiring operas and performances such as Greek tragedies and stories of Malcolm X were being told on a stage. 

      

Dance Theater

      - With the rise of tradition theater dance theater began to become interested in, around the same time with the request for highly trained bodies, beautiful costumes, lighting, and backdrops.

      - With this want for dance came a balance of classical and anarchistic approaches to dance and music.

Retrieved from: http://www2.mcachicago.org

By: Kyle Woods

Performance Art: from Futurism to the Present: pages 75-94

Surrealism- is a 20th century avant-garde movement that focused on the unconsciousness mind and postions of irrational behavior.

     This image summarizes the surrealist style of art and design.surrealism was a small art movement founded in Paris that revolved around the state of non being or unconscious rational into a physical image. the works of surrealism was highly influenced by Sigmund freud

     Surrealism has a focus on the imagination and the repressed aspiration. many early works were used to spur the message of contradicting views and revolutionary ties to each piece. surrealism has also been coined abstract expressionism in the way and media in which it is created. many great artist such as Salvidor Dahli with his famous canvas titles clocks. as revolutionary as this movement was the performing arts was highly influenced by

     Andre Breton- with his ground breaking work of Le manifesto de surrealism.

By: Robert Lopez

Performance Art: From Futurism to the Present: Pages 113-130

The Bauhaus Stage

            - In 1925, Bauhaus, a school in Germany, developed a new theatre building with a specially designed theater stage that looked like a cube. This he called a Black Box Theater, which incorporated alternative lighting, screens, steps, and curtains.

            - Another special type of theater that coincided with this was Molnar’s U-Theater. This stage was actually made up of four stages including one above center stage, like a balcony, to resemble a picture frame.

Retrieved from: www.steinhardt.nyu.edu

Frederick Kiesler

            - In 1922, Frederick Kiesler introduced motion picture onto a backdrop for the first time using a mostly blank stage, a blank backdrop, and a small projector.

            - The moving pictures in the background of the performance added extra impressions of realism onto the play such as feeling as though you were a part of the play.

Bauhaus Touring Company

            - In 1927, Bauhaus developed their own touring theatre company to “perform its works wherever there [was] a desire to see them.”

            - Their works included Metal Dance, which had black and white figures; Dance in Space, which incorporated different dances to different shapes to different colors; Game with Building Blocks, in which a chain reaction toward each person built up into a powerful performance; and the Dance of the Stage, which distorted the bodies of the performers into absurd yet frightening images.

            - The Dessau Bauhaus school was closed down in 1932 but lives on to be a historical center piece in Germany.

Retrieved from: www.clear-mind-meditation-techniques.com

Black Mountain College, North Carolina

            - In 1933, Black Mountain incorporated the characteristics of Bauhaus school into their theatre department, stating the arts are about how it is done, not what it is about.

            - Schawinsky introduced a stage studies program that studied the fundamentals of performance art: “space, form, color, light, sound, movement, music, time, etc.”

John Cage & Merce Cunningham

            - In 1937, John Cage was an aspiring experimental musician. He was fascinated in the sounds of noises of daily life rather than actual instruments. He “played beer bottles, flowerpots, cowbells..., dinner bells..., jawbones were banged, [and] Chinese soup bowls tinkled.”

            - His most famous work became 4’33”, an album dedicated to unintentionally created sounds. This inspired Cunningham to produce a new dance company collaboration with Robert Rauschenberg.

Retrieved from: www.coveringthemouse.com

The New School

            - In 1956, Rauschenberg combined the ideas of the many painters, photographers, directors, musicians, and poets who joined the New School for Social Research to take their art and make it unintentional, that which Cage did.

18 Happenings in 6 Parts

            - In 1959, Allan Kaprow opened 18 Happenings in 6 Parts at the Reuben Gallery in New York, an art exhibit for live performance art.

            - Guests could view live paintings, collages, and skits in a series of three rooms separated by plastic walls with chairs arranged to face different directions, where the artist wanted the audience to face and what the artist wanted the audience to view.

Retrieved from: www.gopixpic.com

By: Bretten James

Performance Art: From Futurism to the Present; pages 131-151

More New York happenings
          <the press threw together all of the works as "happenings"
          <the works however had almost nothing to do with each other and none of their artists agreed to this name, but it stuck because it worked
         

Retrieved from: https://www.studyblue.com/notes/note/n/final/deck/3252096

'Yam' and 'You'
          <the Yam Festival lasted an entire year and was held in New York
          <in April 1964, Vostell presented You in Great Neck
          <according to Vostell, You was meant to "bring the public 'face to face... with the unreasonable demands of life in the form of chaos'"

The element of place
          <when an art piece is created, the artist must pick a place for the art to be displayed or shown to the public
          <this placement can become an important element for the piece itself and can influence the artwork
          <like they say, location is everything

Retrieved from: http://archive.rhizome.org/artbase/53981/nastynets.com/index8816.html?p=161

The new dance
          <the influence of dancers in New York was essential to the evolution of art and the artists
          <dancers began incorporating experiments into their work which added a new dimension to performances by artists

Dancers' Workshop Company, San Francisco
          <it was formed in 1955 outside of San Francisco
          <here dancers were encouraged to explore unusual choreographic ideas, usually in an outdoor area
          <free association became an important part of the company

The Judson Dance Group
          <after some of the members of the Dancers' Workshop Company left and arrived in New York, they translated what they had learned from their experience at the Dancers' Workshop Company into public performances
          <Robert Dunn later found them and brought them together to form a class whilst teaching them through experimentation
          <later they became the Judson Dance Group and had many performances

Retrieved from: http://www.ballet-dance.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=5203

Dance and minimalism
          <much experimentation was done to manipulate the space around the art and see how it could be worked to coexist and become a part of the artwork
          <minimalism was the exact opposite of this however and focused on the simplicity
          <both ideas were explored

Yves Klein and Piero Manzoni
          <Yves want to find a vessel for a "'spiritual' pictorial space" led him to live action
          <he enjoyed the idea of Monochrome paintings and they freed him
          <for him, art was a view of life
          <Manzoni's actions and works were less a declaration of  'universal spirit' and more a validation of the body as a piece of the art
          <his art focused more on his observations of the everyday actions of the body
          <Klein made his artwork by pressing live models against canvas while Manzoni's works eliminated the canvas altogether

Joseph Beuys
          <a German artist who believed that art should transform people's everyday lives
          <in his work, objects and materials became something more, they became metaphorical
          <meditative conversation with himself was essential to his works
          <sometimes he went to extreme lengths to get his point across, such as when he spent a week in the wild to understand the persecution of the Native Americans

Retrieved from: http://www.wikiart.org/en/joseph-beuys/i-like-america-and-america-likes-me

BY: Samantha Lassiter

Performance Art: From Futurism to the Present: Pages 95-112

Relache
      - Satie and Leger were both glad that Relache was able to be the success that it was.
      - Satie was praising his work that intelligent people disagreed with saying it wasn't a real ballet and that he was mocking the world.
      - Leger was proud that he was able to bring ballet and music hall together.

Surrealist love and death
      - Antonin Artaud and Roger Vitrac founded the Theater Alfred Jarry in 1927 to avoid the dead end surrealism was reaching at the time.
      - From this Artaud produced Le Jet de sang(The Jet of Blood) that was almost classified as a play for reading due to its lack of words.
      - The film showed the the dream world of the Surrealist and how they utilize memory as well as lucidity.
      - Jarry and Satie were able to alter the course of theatrical developments as Surrealism began to end by introducing psychological studies into art so the mind would become material for performance.

Retrieved from: http://www.abc.net.au

The Stage workshop 1921-3
      - Bauhaus was a stage in Germany that was first a workshop for Margarete Schreyer who later resigned his position due to ideological battles with students and staff that questioned his work.
      - After schreyer's resignation Oskar Schlemmer a painter and sculptor took his place at the Bauhaus Stage and took over Bauhaus week.
      - This gave Schlemmer the opportunity to do two pieces Figural Cabinet I that consisted of differently shaped figures animated by unknown hands. Then Figural Cabinet II that involved metallic figures and was just a variation of the first performance.
      -Schlemmer was able to combine art and technology with each piece as the figures we suggested by Schlemmer's paintings and he later became the director of Bauhaus Stage.

Bauhaus festivities
      - The Bauhaus community stayed afloat due to its manifesto and social events such events included the Bauhaus festivities organized by Schlemmer.
      - Schlemmer produced a new piece called Meta that had a simple plot that moved along with placards as the actors acted around couches, ladders, and doors. Later in 1929 Schlemmer held a Metallic Festival covering the school in metallic colors.
      - These festivities set the standard for Bauhaus performance of creative theater that were expressed through parties, improvisations, and imaginative costumes. The student actors that Schlemmer utilized were never trained and niether was Schlemmer until after a few more productions.

Schlemmer's theory of permanence 
      - Due to Schlemmer's duel talent of painting and performance he struggled with "two souls" an ethical soul and aesthetic one
      - So Schlemmer had a theory where painting is a theoretical research and performance is the practice of painting.
      - In 1926-7 Schlemmer produced a dance for a piece called Gesture Dance in which he would illustrate his theory. He graphically discussed to his dancers a set of linear paths to follow.

Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com

Performance Space 

      - Schlemmer believed that there was a felt volume around dancing and what was felt was a set of straight, curved, and diagonal lines that made up a geometrical plane on stage.

      - In a demonstration in 1927 schlemmer and his students demonstrated this theory with taut wires being put across an empty stage while an individual stood center showing the cubic dimension of the stage as well as the volume.

      - These demonstrations involved a variety of elements and theater as well as circus aspects once the final product was constructed.

Mechanical ballets 

      - The Bauhaus analysis of art and technology included the man and machine aspect. Schlemmer used his own way of expressing man and machine in that the 'object' quality of the dancers captured the mechanical effect matching that of puppets.

      - By 1923 puppets and mechanical figures, masks, and costumes became the norm at many of the Bauhaus performances.

      - With these performances came a circus aspect that began to form from the puppet like figures and abstract costumes. Thus including a circus practice of juggling in to the exercises of the students at Bauhaus.

Retrieved from: http://black-mountain-research.com

Painting and Performances

      - As the theater of Bauhaus still tried to bridge the gap of performance and painting Schlemmer began a new piece that would mostly capture this blending of arts.

      - In 1928 Schlemmer began a recreation of a painting through performance by capturing the atmosphere with angles of objects, masks and an oversized mirror as well as a normal sized one.

      - With this Schlemmer was able to recreate the same atmosphere of a painting as well as its perspective.

Triadic Ballet  

      - Schlemmer finally gained an international reputation with piece called Triadic Ballet that was being considered for ten years. 

      - The piece kept with the mechanical style while the music provided a parallel to the costumes and outlines of the body. It also created a unity of concept and style with doll-like characters and music box piano music.

By: Kyle Woods 

Performance Art: From Futurism to the Present: Pages 43-58

The Magnificent Cuckold

            - The limits of artwork, theater performances, circuses, and movies were endless, with no restrictions in the early 1900’s.

            - Constructivism style of art made art more realistic, expressive, and theatrical to any time, place, or position.

            - The Magnificent Cuckold stage, created by Crommelynck in 1922, was the first stage to have flats, platforms, steps, chutes, sails, and enlarged props. Essentially, it was a playground for acrobatic actors. A modern example of this stage can be demonstrated in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Cats.

Retrieved from: www.theguardian.com

Retrieved from: www.theredlist.com

The Blue Blouse & the Factory of the Eccentric Actor

            - The Blue Blouse Group, established in October of 1923, was an avant-garde theater team who consisted of over 100,000 club members from across the country.

            - These people dedicated themselves to the arts through all sorts of synchronized forms and dynamic movements.

            - The Factory of the Eccentric Actor Group (or FEKS) influenced the design for the large-scale stage props and setting. The stages were unique, however, in the way that Fortunato Depero had incorporated them. He created a theater where “everything turns—disappears—reappears, multiplies and breaks, pulverizes and overturns, trembles and transforms.”

            - The FEKS focused mainly on features of typical American culture including “high technology..., comic books..., advertisements and so on.”

Moscow is Burning

            - Moscow is Burning was the final piece written by Mayakovsky before he took his own life a week later. It honored the 25^th anniversary of Russia’s Bloody Sunday that happened in 1930.

            - The event of Bloody Sunday hence forth had initiated a theatrical and artistic rebellion against cultural activity.

Retrieved from: www.astorino.com

Wedekind in Munich

            - Cabaret theaters became more popular in the 1916’s and onward for the intimate feeling and closeness between the actors and the audience.

            - However, a man such as Frank Wedekind abused this enclosed interaction by writing very sexually uncomfortable plays made to be performed in a cabaret theater. He was shortly (and obviously) exiled for censorship violations.

            - Wedekind continued to write explicit plays after his release from prison such as King Nicolo and Pandora’s Box (if anyone’s interested...).

Kokoschka in Vienna

            - Kokoschka, another playwright of the early 1900’s, incorporated heavy use of improvisation and stages with boards, planks, towers, and cages. He emphasized exaggeration, emotion, and drama to a fixed, stereotypical character.

Cabaret Voltaire

            - Cabaret Voltaire, created by Ball and Hennings in 1916, was a small café-theater that welcomed all forms of art and entertainment with an emphasis on music and poetry readings.

            - Many upcoming artists contributed and performed in Cabaret Voltaire, and it grew into a common gathering place for those who sought it in Russia.

By: Bretten James

Pictures and Metaphors

Metaphors of Objects
By: Samantha Lassiter

Rope:

Learn the ropes. Bind ourselves together. Come undone. Tangled in the ropes. The hanging of the ropes.

Picture:

A picture is worth a thousand words. Still life moment. Capturing the moment. Framework of life. The soul taker.

Remote Controller:

Taking control. Don't push my buttons. The power of the people. Mind control. Power in a little black box.

Sword:

The sword of truth. The pen is mightier than the sword. Sheath your sword before someone gets hurt. Cut away the ignorance. Double-edged sword.

 

Cage:

Trapped inside a cage of my mind. The iron cage. The caged bird sings. A bird in a gilded cage. Break out of your cage.

Mallet or Hammer:

The hammer of justice. Beat down the competition. Come down hard like a hammer. Hammer down. To hold the hand of justice.

 

Telephone:

Lack of communication. Speak freely. Hold a voice. Connects us to one another like a branch. The web of communication.


Sign:
Give me a sign. Pointing in the right direction. Tell you the next step. Sign of destiny. Show you where you've been.


Flowers:
Budding of life. We plant the seed. Leaves open out like arms to the world. Spread your arms like a flower. Catch the sun.


Weight:
Weight of the world. Weight on your shoulders. Carry your weight. Everyone has their own weight. Hold your weight.