Comments on: Deja Donne’s “In Bella Copia” http://blogs.walkerart.org/performingarts/2005/09/30/deja-donnes-in-bella-copia/ Sat, 05 Jul 2008 21:52:33 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.3 By: Mo http://blogs.walkerart.org/performingarts/2005/09/30/deja-donnes-in-bella-copia/#comment-29 Mo Thu, 13 Oct 2005 18:07:51 +0000 http://blogs.walkerart.org/performingarts/2005/09/30/deja-donnes-in-bella-copia/#comment-29 Interesting point about dance theater often relying on text. The power of dance theater I believe is in the ability of movement to tell a story on a more visceral level than words. I did not think that Deja Donne relied exclusively on the text. "This refusal to fix on one meaning, this slippage, is a crucial element of good art, I believe. Most of the time, Deja Donne's theater isn't complex enough to slip meaning." Interesting. I wonder if you wouldn't mind expanding on this. Specifically, why is this slippage desirable? What is this slippage about? Can you provide an example? They do play a mad children's game. But chess is anything but a children's game. However I think you are on to something in comparing this work by Deja Donne to both children and chess. The beauty I found in the work was that it was both calculated and ecstatic, extremely specific yet more than abstract. Perhaps it is dancing like chess but all the chess pieces would have to be weeping. Interesting point about dance theater often relying on text. The power of dance theater I believe is in the ability of movement to tell a story on a more visceral level than words. I did not think that Deja Donne relied exclusively on the text.

“This refusal to fix on one meaning, this slippage, is a crucial element of good art, I believe. Most of the time, Deja Donne’s theater isn’t complex enough to slip meaning.”

Interesting. I wonder if you wouldn’t mind expanding on this. Specifically, why is this slippage desirable? What is this slippage about? Can you provide an example?

They do play a mad children’s game. But chess is anything but a children’s game. However I think you are on to something in comparing this work by Deja Donne to both children and chess. The beauty I found in the work was that it was both calculated and ecstatic, extremely specific yet more than abstract. Perhaps it is dancing like chess but all the chess pieces would have to be weeping.

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