Avelengo, Italy -
“Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.” So said jazz legend Thelonious Monk. Or was it Martin Mull, Frank Zappa, or Laurie Anderson? I never liked the line, which has not been reliably attributed to anyone.
Go ahead. Dance about, with, and to architecture all you want. No doubt, one or more of these misunderstood musicians said these words to castigate critics. As if dancing about architecture, however, would be anything but creative and interesting.
Even a rank amateur like me can align dance and architecture movement and movements in their relationships with space, form, and performance.
Sure enough, as with most everything, there is considerable thinking and work on the subject. The field is called archichoreography and it underscores the interpretive power of - and not prohibitions against - crossing boundaries.
It seems the postmodern choreographer Lucinda Charles collaborated with Frank Gehry 30 years ago on an archichoreographic installation entitled “Available Light.”
I just watched a 2008 dance recital called “Rapture” undertaken on the roof of the Gehry-designed Fisher Center at Bard College by choreographer Noémie Lafrance. With Gehry’s curving, folding, and undulating style, it’s no wonder he once told Lafrance that he thinks of dance and movement when designing buildings.
The University of Arizona scholar Beth Weinstein apparently delves deep into this subject in her new book, “Architecture + Choreography: Collaborations in Dance, Space, and Time.” Indeed, the author and educator Phil Beadle wrote a 2011 book on creativity entitled, “Dancing About Architecture.” There are other books on the subject, too.
Dancing about architecture is a form of synesthesia at its best. It should be welcomed. As should truly excellent writing about music. My love of jazz surely sprung from my passion for Nat Hentoff’s writing and augmented by what Stanley Crouch had to say on the subject. So take that, Monk, Mull, and company.
Image courtesy of University of Nebraska