The Image and Light of the Archetype

Abstract

The use of photography in books about dance at the turn of the twentieth century. Case studies and areas of interconnection. Dossier edited by Samantha Marenzi

Taking into account the recent intense development of studies about the relationship between photography and theatre, this Dossier examines the use of photographic images in books published in the early decades of the twentieth century. It gives particular attention to the volumes dedicated to dance and to the art of movement from which certain case studies are derived. The contribution by Arnaud Rykner, one of the most important scholars on the subject of theatre photography in France, provides an important technical premise on processes that, as from the last decades of the nineteenth century, enable the typographic reproduction of photographs, thereby allowing the mechanical image to penetrate periodicals, magazines and books, in particular, theatre books. From the photographs bearing the faces of actors on the covers of periodicals, to the illustration of dramas that show the visual dimension of the mise-en-scene, theatre photography experiments with a range of possible uses in the media and multiplies the forms of photographic reproduction.

A report edited by Samantha Marenzi and Simona Silvestri focuses on the same chronological period, but examines books situated at the limits of art, science and performative culture, where photography constitutes one of the principal instruments of observation and stimulation of movement and expression. Within the framework of a brief overview of this type of book, and the photographic experiments converging therein, the authors analyse La Danse Grecque Antique d’après les monuments figurés, by Maurice Emmanuel, where photography is used to compare the dance of the past with that of the present, as well as L’Art et L’Hypnose by Emile Magnin, where Madeleine G., renowned for her sleep-induced dances, appears in a visual repertoire situated at the limits between clinical documentation and stage photography. The articles that follow provide three in-depth studies on case studies that are closely connected in different ways. They emerge from a research context that for years, has been investigating the relations between visual and performing arts and experimenting with pertinent methods of investigation involving scholars of different levels of experience. The first, by Simona Silvestri, examines the use of visual apparata in the volumes that Emile Jaques-Dalcroze dedicates at various times to the theoretical disposition of his method of rhythmic gymnastics. Taken largely by Frédéric Boissonnas, from Geneva, the photographs show the development of the method over the years, and in the documentation provide instances of archeological photography, which the Swiss photographer specialised in. They also provide examples of montage, the strategies of which determine the selection criteria and the disposition of the photographs in the exhibitions and books.

Samantha Marenzi’s article concerns two books which contributed greatly to the definition of modern dance in the first decades of the twentieth century, establishing the formulae for its transmission through texts, and especially, by means of images. Der moderne Tanz, by Hans Brandenburg, published in Germany in 1913, (and later in two different editions dated 1917 and 1921) and The Book of the Dance by Arnold Genthe, published in New York in 1916. A book by a writer, and another by a photographer, veritable maps of the connections between choreographic culture and visual culture and migrations of pictures and experiences between the United States and Europe. Raimondo Guarino’s contribution examines a series of books as a necessary field of study to understand the relationship between Körperkultur and the dance workshops in the Weimar culture. After having noted in other locations the philosophical and ideological trends drawn into the area of expressive gymnastics, Guarino analyses a few surveys focusing on the photographic illustration of books that have condensed and enriched arguments and testimonies on the new pedagogy, the formation of an expressive body, the experimentation on techniques and the arts of movement.