Lea Anderson

1. Lea Anderson ‘Flesh and blood’

2. Postmodern pieces can… • Challenge pre-existing codes and conventions to offer something new, • Use previous forms, • Revisit and rework the past to produce a new perspective.

3. How can Anderson’s work be viewed as Postmodern in nature? • Recycles images from art, • Reassembles text and images from popular culture via the use of collage and juxtaposition, • Keeps a ‘working journal’ including images and ideas which she later shares with those working on the project, • Movement is taken from images or observed movement, incorporating eclectic range of styles, • The use of unconventional venues and locations, • Historical and contemporary design of costume.

4. Thinking dancers • “When you’re doing lots of tiny movements that need to be linked or performed in such a way that the dancer looks as though they know why they’re doing everything. Each movement has a reason behind it… I’m constantly looking for things for dancers to be thinking on stage.” Lea Anderson in interview in Flesh and Blood, Cholmondeley’s education pack.

5. Cont’d • The use of unison is an important feature, what could this mean? • The rejection of hierarchy concerning the dancer and prejudice regarding body types. • In sharp contrast Balanchine chose his dancer’s for their physique. He opted for very thin dancers that would show off the lines that he required, in keeping with the ballet technique and his own interpretation/choreography.

7. Creating a powerful visual image • Anderson is well known for the use of gesture and small movements, • The floor becomes a sea of bodies wriggling and undulating creating a very powerful visual image, • The dancers are embodying reptile position.

8. Choreographic Stimulus • Thinking back on ‘How can Anderson’s work be viewed as Postmodern in nature?’ the following term can be considered: • RECYCLING • 20th Century graphic designer Escher 1943 design ‘Reptiles’: • 2 Dimensional • Portrayal of lizards from an overhead perspective • 15th Century Dutch artist Hieronymus Bosch: • Monsters • Devils • Lowly Creatures

10. Cont’d • Carl Dreyer’s film ‘Joan of Arc’: • Use of heads, eyes and fingers connected to the religious theme, • Other religious gestures work on the use of levels such as kneeling and vertical and horizontal movement, • Vertical could be related to angelic features with the use of the shimmering costumes.

12. Interpretation‘Flesh and Blood’ • Non-linear, • Non-narrative • Fragmented images developed from various reference points, • Eclectic movement derived from contemporary dance, • Pedestrian gesture and religious ritual, • Does not have a single, closed interpretation, • Meanings are open layered, • Plethora of fleeting images, audience able to identify a number of recurring themes.

13. Central areas of interpretation:interconnecting strands of meaning • Religious Imagery: • “Hands criss-cross the body in a code of blessing, one or two fingers trace a preordained route over the chest and face and are then raised in prayer or mysterious testimonial. Heads rotate and torsos sway in mobile compliance with some unspecified spiritual instruction – eyes close and then open to reveal pupils fixed in an upward gaze as if looking towards life after death and it’s reward” (Constanti, 1990) • “While the upright movement has associations with heavenly aspirations and virtuousness, the floor work is symbolic of lowliness, death and being cast down to hell” (SherrilDodds)

14. Cont’d • Visual Imagery • “Expert mix of contradictions. Gestures of fervent piety and penance become riffs of edgy, mechanistic dance” (SherrilDodds)

15. Post-Modern approaches to the performing arts since 1960:‘Flesh and Blood’ • To what extent are the techniques of recycling, manipulation and fragmentation used effectively by Lea Anderson in ‘Flesh and Blood’?