Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Sculpting Sasha

Why is Sasha Waltz the way she is? 


 Legacies? Influences? Let's discover the molding of Sasha Waltz:

  According to Apollinaire Scherr, "Sasha Waltz’s influences are like her city used to be: divided. On one side is 1930s German expressionism, which also shaped Pina Bausch. On the other is the 'just the facts, ma’am' structuralism of such Americans as Trisha Brown and Yvonne Rainer."  

As mentioned in my last blog entry: Sasha began her dance training in Amsterdam in 1983.  She later moved to New York City to further her training and begin her choreographic journey.  She was very influenced by architecture and visual arts. Large architectural environments and challenges seem to be the center of a lot of her pieces.  Her piece Dido and Aeneas (2005) has a giant fish tank as its center piece. See below:



Körper (2000)showcases her use of architectural interests with the space in which the piece is performed: a large concrete room- large enough for a giant black board wall to be placed right in the middle.   Körper is a trilogy about the human body: her props used on the human body are very large and structured pieces that seem to make the dance look tiny and almost puppet like in terms of their proportion to the props.  These props look like they could be placed in the abstract section of an art museum or even a sculpture garden.  Her movement is also very reflective of her architectural influence.  Very rigid and structured movements done in synchronized groups imitate columns and rows.  See below in the trailer for  Körper.



In Continu (2009), Waltz moves away from a large architectural center piece and creates a work, in a space no less large, and the movement no less structured.  According to reviewer, Judith Mackrell, of London's The Guardian, "the spectacle [of Continu] is stripped back to the bare essentials of movement, space and music. Yet at its best it is no less vivid with imagery and drama." Mackrell goes on to say that a ballet section of the piece is influenced by Trisha Brown's minimalist style.  See the trailer below:


In all of Sasha's 18 pieces, the visual spectacle of the location, props, costumes and number of dancers is present amongst all.  Visit The Sasha Waltz and Guests website to explore what she is doing currently! http://www.sashawaltz.de/index.php?lg=en&main=Company&site=03:00:00



Works Cited:

Mackrell, Judith. Sasha Waltz & Guests: Continu – review. 
        http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2012/oct/01/sasha-waltz-guests-continu-review

Scherr, Apollinaire. Sasha Waltz and Guests, Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York.
       http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/d0f1fdf0-ec1c-11df-9e11-00144feab49a.html#axzz2M3RzvWIO




4 comments:

  1. I found Waltz's work to be extremely interesting. Her movement is very dynamic and intense. Her use of costumes, props, and architectual structures only made her pieces more intruiging to watch. I found myself wanting to know even more about her childhood and the things that influenced her growing up in 1960's Germany. You should try to find out more about that. Otherwise, I really enjoyed the videos of her work. Your blog is clear, concise, and very detailed.

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    1. I also wanted to find out more about Sasha's childhood. The information I found about her life outside of dance was very minimal and there were not really specifics about her younger life aside from her parents vocation. I wonder if she keeps her past vague for a reason? Makes me even more curious though :)

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  2. Sasha's work to me comes off as raw, grotesque, and pretty de-humanizing. I really hope her dancers are being paid well because some what she is asking of them seems demeaning and sometimes extremely dangerous. The dance underwater in particular is very beautiful, but seems unsafe. She is definitely pushing the boundaries, yet I am unsure if it is out of pure artistic vision, or if she is searching merely for shock value from her audience. How would do you see it? Is she a true innovative visionary or is she looking for ways to be scandalous?

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    1. Those are great questions Shelby. I'm intrigued by her choreography, but would I want to be doing some of her work: no way. Her dancers, I'm sure, were aware of the situations that she was going to be putting them in and I'm also sure they could always leave the company if they disagreed with the type of material that Sasha comes up with. I think that a lot of "visionary" artists are looking for ways to be scandalous and push the boundaries which are the ways they stand out and are thus labeled as such. In Sasha's case, I think she is innovative, she likes to push things to the limit, similar to Pina and Trischa- always trying to go a little further and thus more extreme and bizarre.

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