FALL/WINTER 1993/1994
Editors: Cathy Edwards and Guy Yarden
As we begin a new season at Movement Research, we want to update readers on the resolution of our battle with the NEA, which began two years ago with the publication of Performance Journal #3: Gender Performance.
After being debarred from receiving any federal funding because of our refusal to return grant money used for PJ3, Movement Research was about to file a law suit in federal court seeking reinstatement at the NEA when a new administration seemed to look more favorably on forgetting the whole thing. From MR’s perspective, litigation would have been costly and most likely undertaken with very little support; from the NEA’s perspective, we can only assume that the less publicity over a publication such as Gender Performance, the better. We settled with payment of a token $225 to the NEA; consequently, MR was reinstated as eligible to receive federal funding. No one made any admission of wrongdoing, and MR as an organization has decided to move on.
This issue of the Performance Journal, States of the Body, is both a legacy of Gender Performance, and a way in which to continue a dialogue. As the issue took shape we thought about the fact that after Gender Performance was published in 1991, MR was classified by many (artists and funders as well as conservatives and politicos) as a fringe group that was pushing buttons without thinking of what the ramifications might be. We disagree, and unlike the NEA, we don’t want to forget that Gender Performance ever happened. We continue to feel that bodies come in many forms, and our willingness to play with them, experiment with ideas of gender, and stretch the boundaries of performance, are fundamental to dance and performance in the 90’s. We asked Holly Hughes and Bill T. Jones to contribute pieces to States of the Body because we wanted to reflect on the Gender Performance legacy and the debate that ensued.
Other contributors have written about specific dance techniques, about the metaphorical body politic, about differing cultural attitudes about the body, about human body cycles (i.e. death, age, and fitness), and about the relationship of dance as a body-dependent art to a technological and mediatized society. By organizing the issue around the title States of the Body we cast a wide net. Ranging from Hanya Holms’ spine to the intersection of body and technology in Trisha Brown’s work; from Scott Heron’s experience handcuffed to a table to Elizabeth Streb’s performance zone; from Jerri Allyn’s stories about her grandmother and disability to Wendell Beavers’ questions about the place of dance technique, we have assembled an eclectic group of perspectives on the body, art, and society. We hope you enjoy them all, and many thanks to all of our contributors.
