128 performance and the classical paradigm
depend not upon anything susceptible to notational or other written record,
but upon the embodied skills of the dancers with whom the choreographer
was working. Rubidge notes, here, that
the possibility of “authentic” (in the sense of historically accurate) dance per-
formances, even from earlier in [the twentieth] century, is severely reduced.
A significant element of the work itself is literally embodied in the dancer’s
movement. Personal style in dance is affected by the individual dancer’s pref-
erence for particular ways of moving, by dance training, and, perhaps more
significantly, by the cultural environment in which the dancers operate.
(Rubidge 1996, 225)
Conroy similarly notes that, even in the case of historical dance perform-
ances whose performers are still active, “critical movement elements fall
from kinesthetic memory as the body takes on new information” (2007).
While there is a parallel problem in historically authentic musical perform-
ances concerning the ways in which period musicians played period instru-
ments, the problem in an art form where bodily movement itself seems to
be the medium is especially acute.^19 We do not have to share the general
postmodernist hostility to enduring performable works expressed by Mark
Franko (1989), one of the most trenchant critics of dance reconstruction, to
understand his skepticism as to the ability of the latter to contribute to our
understanding of past dance performance.
We have seen that serious questions can be raised about the utility of apply-
ing the classical paradigm to at least some works of dance. In earlier sections of
this chapter, we identified the conditions that need to be met if the paradigm
is to make best sense of our practice in particular areas of the performing arts.
It remains an open question to what extent these conditions are met in spe-
cific dance traditions. There is certainly the appearance of an active tradition
of dance works upon which choreographers are able to draw. But the ephem-
eral nature of much dance performance calls into question whether it always
makes sense, here, to think of enduring and reperformable works that inform
the creative activity of successive generations. Where we lack a firm sense of
what a given historical “work” of dance prescribes, it may be better to see later
productions as using elements from earlier productions as ingredients in some-
what the way that Hamilton urges us to see theatrical productions.
5 The Novel as Performable Work?
Thus far, in this and the previous chapter, we have been exploring the
applicability of the classical paradigm to artistic performances in what are