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10 Writi •• Criticis. / History level territory and stake out a claim to lie down on it and criticize the constellations if that's what I happen to be looking at. I also stake out a claim to be an artist, a writer, if that's what I'm doing when I get to the typewriter and decide that I liked something well enough to say what I think it's all about. ... The future is upon us and the Art ofCriticism has already come into its own in those public places where the critic is lying down on a soft piece of ground to enjoy a bit of blue and yellow scenery....23 2 Working and Dancing: A Response to Monroe "What Is Going on in ,,11ft Noil Carroll Beardsley's a Dance?" Professor Beardsley's paper is distinguished by his customary clarity. Many ofthe distinctions he draws will undoubtedly be useful, not only for dance theoreticians, but for dance critics as well. Nevertheless, the way that these distinctions are placed in the service of a putative characterization of what constitutes a dance "moving" seems to us problematic. This briefnote will be devoted to exploring the adequacy ofProfessor Beardsley's proposal. Beardsley appears to conclude his paper by stating a condition requisite for a motion to be counted as a dance "moving." He writes, "If, in other words, there is more zest, vigor, fluency, expansiveness, or stateliness than appears necessary for its practical purposes, there is an overflow or superfluity ofexpressiveness to mark it as belonging to its own domain ofdance."l We interpret Beardsley's basic point here as the claim that a superfluity of expressiveness (above the requirements ofpractical exigencies) is a defining feature of a dance "moving." However, in our opinion, this attribute represents neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition of dance. First of all, "superfluity of expressiveness" is not exclusive enough to define a dance moving. We often hear of the felvor of socialist volunteers, urbanites, who travel to rural areas to help with a harvest and boost producDance Research JournalI5tI (Fall 1982). Working and Dancing tivity. Imagine a truckload ofsuch patriotic workers arriving at a cane field somewhere in Cuba. Some of them may even be professional dancers. They raise their machetes much higher than necessary, use more force than is required by their task, and perhaps their swinging becomes rhythmic. Their activity is expressive of patriotic zest and revolutionary zeal, but it is not dance. Here we have an overflow ofexpressiveness, and it is not related to the practical purpose ofthe event, which is aimed at increasing productivity , not at displaying class solidarity. Of course, a journalist might describe the harvest as a dance, but we would have to understand this as poetic shorthand, meaning "dancelike." To take the term "dance" literally in referring to such an event would commit us to such unlikely ballets as some sweeping infantry maneuvers and the dramatic tantrums ofan adolescent . If a dance critic were to review these events, we would be very surprised. Undoubtedly, a choreographer could take our truckload of harvesters , place them on a proscenium stage, and transform their enthusiasm into a dance. But in such a case, it seems to us that it is the choreographer's act of framing, or recontextualizing, rather than an intrinsic quality of the movement, that is decisive. In general, whether one is speaking about art dance or social dance, the context of the event in which the movement is situated is more salient than the nature ofthe movement itself in determining whether the action is dance. Professor Beardsley's definition not only fails to be exclusive enough, but also falters in inclusiveness. There are, we believe, incontestable examples of dance in which there is no superfluity of expressiveness in the movement. One example is Room Service by Yvonne Rainer, which was first performed at the Judson Church in 1963 and again the next year at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia. Rainer describes it as "a big sprawling piece with three teams of people playing follow-the-Ieader thru an assortment of paraphernalia which is arranged and rearranged by a guy and his two assistants."2 Part ofthe dance includes climbing up a ladder to a platform and jumping off. A central segment of the Philadelphia performance (and of particular interest for this paper) was the activity of two dancers carrying a mattress up an aisle in the theater, out one exit, and back in through...

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