Anna Pakes's recent book aims to clarify the nuanced metaphysics implicit to dance making, performance, preservation, and disappearance using case studies of early ballet, action ballet, modern dance, and postmodern dance. It advances existing work by analytic dance philosophers such as Noël Carroll, David Davies, and Graham McFee, as well as Frédéric Pouillaude’s Unworking Choreography: The Notion of the Work in Dance (2017) which Pakes previously translated from French to English. It is divided into five parts, with the first historicizing dance ontology by examining historical understandings of choreographic authorship and dance autonomy. Pakes shows that ballet, modern, postmodern, and contemporary dance artists operate on conceptions of work identity whether notating or documenting movement with photographs, videos, or films; ensuring movement technique is orally transmitted from one generation to the next; or when litigating copyright disputes.
The second part, “Creation,” includes two chapters, “Works, Actions, and Structures” and “Are Dance Works Real?” that focus on the kind of thing a dance work is. Pakes observes that “ontology” has often been used in dance studies to refer to things that are essential to the art form, for example, liveness or a self-reflective mode of corporeality (3). Her interest, however, centers on something even more fundamental: whether dance works are events, abstract objects, collections of actions, social constructions, or fictions. A point often made in this context is that a particular work can be performed on different occasions and, indeed, by different casts in different places on the same evening. Like codified dance technique that is incorporated into and manifested by different bodies, the work is the thing that the particular instances have in common. Several theoretical accounts that seek to explain the relationship are considered (e.g., those which emphasize artistic indication, authorial intent, or norm-types) as well as the broader metaphysical commitments they entail. Pakes argues for a realist ontology, which holds that dance works are collections of action-types organized into patterns, given a theatrical context, and presented to audiences. Among other things, action-types include the movements of codified techniques, idiosyncratic movement vocabularies, or pedestrian movement.
The third part focuses on repeatability, discussing dances associated with a particular person to the extent that a different version of the work is brought into being when it is danced by other people. Exploration of the shared bodily habitus that is produced when individuals immerse themselves in a dance community sits alongside consideration of cases in which a choreographer explicitly determines the identity conditions of their work. Pakes interrogates the strengths and weaknesses of notation systems, and the relationship the notational endeavor has to music scoring. The chapter on Swan Lake (“Drowning in Swan Lakes”) shows that, though analytic philosophers have often taken the ballet to be a well-defined dance, when historically contextualized, it becomes clear that it has regularly been revised in terms of its choreography and dramatic narrative. Among other things, this reiterates the point that analytic dance philosophy needs to be grounded in the details of dance history.
The fourth part examines the persistence of dance works through time. Pakes interrogates relevant scholarship in the philosophy of music, the unique role embodied transmission plays in dance, and the fact that the dancer's somatic memory is essential for sharing how it felt to dance a particular work. She also observes that choreographers take different stances on the nature of the work-concept, with some carefully detailing choreographic phrases, movement qualities, or choreomusical relationships, and others focusing more broadly on realizing artistic aims. One chapter addresses the role film plays in restaging dances and how screendance becomes a choreographic medium in its own right.
The final part of the book considers the tendency of dances to disappear as they are forgotten or actively suppressed. It also examines efforts by contemporary choreographers to recuperate loss through reconstruction and asks to what extent reconstructions pertain to original works. Among other things, it is argued that the notion of historical fiction can be helpful in understanding the desire to recreate and relive the past.
I conclude with two related observations. Pakes notes that, for an array of reasons, a particular production might not do justice to a work (the dancers, for instance, could have a terrible night, or technical mishaps could undermine the show). At the same time, even when masterfully executed, the viewer may not fully comprehend the work, for they may be enchanted by the physical beauty of a particular dancer, bowled over by theatrical spectacle, or shocked and distracted by loud, abrasive musical accompaniment. Then there are works with dense choreography that require multiple viewings to be fully grasped. In these kinds of cases, the facts of the work (e.g., its organized action-types) are present, but aesthetic and artistic factors keep the viewer from fully comprehending them, and consequently, claims about the work's identity cannot justifiably be made. Of course, it is enough that the identity of the work is in theory accessible, but I mention the viewer's epistemic situation to highlight that, because the book focuses primarily on the identity of works, it does not consider the audience's role in dance ontology. Indeed, the choreographer and performer(s) are essential for creating and maintaining the work, but an audience need not be present, which may seem counterintuitive to those working in process ontology or those who otherwise hold nonrealist views about work identity.
A related issue concerns theatrical “aboutness,” which comes to the fore in part 3 during the discussion of Swan Lake which, as a story ballet, is defined by its dramatic representation. The notion of “action-structure” is introduced to account for the fact that divorcing Swan Lake's choreography from the narrative would radically alter the work (190). At the same time, all human movement is contextual and therefore readily elicits associations. Selecting and arranging actions entails signification, which is enhanced dramaturgically such that the work gains aboutness (even if, in medium specific fashion, it is self-reflexively about dance performance). Pakes briefly discusses Rosemary Butcher's Hidden Voices (2004), a spare durational solo for a woman which features repetitious weight shifts and an eerie soundscore by Cathy Lane but does not consider that repetitive movement, among other things, fruitfully raises questions about the performer's will and locus of control (119–120). Butcher capitalizes on this (to astounding effect) by both investigating subtle variations of the action-types and surrounding the dancer (Elena Giannotti) in a strong down spot and the sound of quietly whispering female voices. The piece presents an artificially restricted mode of embodiment that can arguably be interpreted as having feminist import.
Pakes introduces topics by discussing particular dance works, but as metaphysics is foregrounded, the artistic significance of those works is backgrounded. Hidden Voices' movements are generalized to action-types which are then considered in terms of their persistence over different performances and film versions of the piece. Pakes acknowledges that dance works are not purely reducible to action-types and that choreographers themselves may not be concerned about clearly defining steps and choreographic patterns, but because she is committed to an objective structuralist ontology, the signifying power of movement and the relationship between action-types and action-structures are not discussed. This may be because, while categories of actions and choreographic patterns are objective, signification opens the door to hermeneutics. In any case, the concern is that things that are arguably essential for the identity of a dance are bracketed as formal properties are emphasized.
As with any theoretical approach, paring down helps focus on specific aspects of dance and, at the same time, renders the subject matter more amenable to the methodology. Because dance is so wonderfully diverse, comprehensive understanding necessitates that work be advanced from multiple theoretical perspectives. Pakes clearly shows that analytic philosophy is an important contributor to discussions about dance identity and, inspired by her insights, readers will likely find themselves reconsidering those by other individuals working in the field.
