patternsthatconnect

Piet Mondrian suggested that humanity seeks rest within motion, or “repose through movement”[1] and he found an example of it in dance, referring possibly to the foxtrot, he said “each movement is immediately neutralized by a countermovement which signifies the search for equilibrium”[2].

Taking part in the ISTD dance medallist competition (ballroom, latin and sequence) at Castleford Civic Centre on 11 March, I thought that my own foxtrot seemed to have too much repose and not enough movement! Maybe I was feeling too relaxed after looking at the Henry Moore reclining figure on the way into the centre.

The reclining figure figures a lot in Henry Moore’s oeuvre, and he donated this one in 1980 to Castleford, the town where he was born, the Civic Centre having been officially opened a decade earlier on 24 March 1970.

The Civic Centre, a fine example of modernist architecture, designed by Derek Goad, is an optimistic looking building if ever I saw one, even now when it seems to reflect an optimism about the future that is a situated in the modernist period, when perhaps we believed more honestly in “a steady advance from the poor environment of the past to the more pleasant and brighter surroundings of the future”[3]. One of the features of the building is its facing in precast concrete panels manufactured from a limestone aggregate chosen for its weathering properties: “it has been found to get naturally lighter in colour with exposure to the atmosphere so counteracting the darkening process caused by the atmosphere itself”[4]. Apart from the darkening beneath the windows this hope, this countermovement does seem to have been realised.

I find it a hopeful place also by association, because of the activity (medallist competition dancing) for which I have been here a few times now. I go in filled with hope anyway! Sometimes I come out feeling even better than when I went in, other times less so. I first started to become interested in the building when I looked across the dancefloor/theatre and saw the wall sculpture, comissioned for the opening in 1970, silent, static, yet visually rhythmic (movement through repose perhaps). The dynamic rhythms of the dancefloor seem to be echoed in the sculptural forms.

The artist is Diana Dean, who was working with abstract geometric form in both painting and sculpture at the time, and the work, made in stainless steel, is entitled Symmetry in Opposition. I could wonder to what extent the title also echoes that idea of equilibrium found in the Mondrian quote above. Dean explained to me that at first the two projected squares were facing inwards with two corners touching, and then this changed to the outward projection which is why she called it Symmetry in Opposition.

Here are some photo’s of what it looked like in 1970.

I wonder if I also find Mondrian’s notion of the neutralisation of opposites in the contrast between the stasis of the final form Vs the activity of its making.

Dean moved to Canada in 1975, where she focused on painting and moved away from abstraction, the geometry hidden, as it were, within the structure, supporting the figuration. When I contacted her recently she replied saying “I felt it was quite synchronistic to receive your email this week as I had just begun a portrait painting with geometric patterning appearing in the carpet and all perspective lines in the room going to the left eye of the sitter. Maybe I am moving towards a new form of geometric abstraction again”[5].

A psychological reading might suggest that we are witnessing a “return of the repressed”.

(Thanks to Diana Dean and Derek Goad for supplying information and pictures for this blog post)

Broadway Boogie Woogie, by Piet Mondrian is a clear reference to music and dance. Mondrian was a keen ballroom dancer, and some of his works are named after dances, for example Fox-Trot B, and Fox-Trot-Lozenge-Composition-with-Three-Black-Lines.

I read in one place at least the implication that he was a good dancer, for example that he practised dance steps in his studio and was known as ‘The Dancing Madonna’ in Holland. Then in another place:

He went shopping for painter’s smocks with Naum Gabo’s wife Miriam and danced with Peggy Guggenheim and Virginia Pevsner in the London jazz clubs. His love of jazz and dancing was well known, but Miriam recalled that he “was a terrible dancer… Virginia hated it and I hated it, we had to take turns dancing with him”.

In an article entitled Dancing with Mondrian By Annette Chauncy, published by The International Journal of the Arts in Society, she suggests that the paintings were possibly inspired by the dances, especially the Foxtrot, the Quickstep and the Tango.

I also found this little film clip entitled Mondrian and Dance at the San Fransisco Museum of Modern Art, suggesting that the paintings ‘dance’ more than perhaps we thought.

I noticed that someone found my blog site by searching on “old-time dances like the Veleta etc”. I have posted before about old-time (or classical) sequence dancing because it has become a ‘private passion’ and it is difficult not to find patterns that connect one area of interest to another. I have connected sequence dancing to my abstract paintings, for example entitling one series of sketches “the Square Tango” because of the square format, the “16 bar” repeat pattern and the staccato rhythm.

Another connection I have made, that is no doubt entirely spurious and frivolous, but I just cannot help making it, is between the dance categories of classical, modern and latin and the art categories of traditional, modern and post-modern.  I am sure that they do not actually correspond.

Anyway, if you were searching for old-time dances like the Veleta (what a dance, by the way) because you wanted to learn how to do them, I can think of no better aid than The Classical Sequence Companion, by the ISTD Sequence Faculty, an excellent DVD that I have constantly in my DVD player. It is a brilliant guide through the world of classical sequence dancing and a step by step analysis of 17 ISTD syllabus dances including The Veleta, wonderfully danced by my own teachers Robert and Louise Aldred.

It also includes Classical Waltz, Boston Two Step, Fylde Waltz, Midnight Tango, Lilac Waltz, Saunter Revé, Gainsborough Glide, Premier Two Step, Royal Empress Tango, Empress Mazurka, Wedgewood Blue Gavotte, Kensington Two Step, La Mascotte, Tango Magenta, Britannia Saunter and Rialto Two Step.

A few months ago I posted a slideshow entitled Square Tango and I said it had little to do with the old-time sequence dance from where I took the name.

I recently noticed that I have had a few search engine referrals for ‘”how to do the square tango” and I started to empathise with the people visiting my site and being disappointed to find a slideshow that is hardly related to the subject of their search at all.

So I looked for “how to do the square tango” myself and found that there are a few sites that give the steps and a few posts on YouTube. However, on viewing them you would be little the wiser on how to do it. You might know a little more about what to do, assuming (wrongly perhaps) that the demonstrations are anything like correct.

If the content is the steps of the dance, and the process is how to execute those steps, then content is a little easier to establish than process. There is a script, with some comments on process, in the book Learning the Essential Sequence Dances by T A Whitworth. But surely the best way to learn how to is to get some lessons, and that must be especially the case for the searcher looking for “how to do the turn in the Square Tango”.

Doesn’t the content/process distinction correspond to the declarative/procedural knowledge distinction? Declarative knowledge is knowing that whilst procedural knowledge is knowing how to. The internet, e-learning, reading, etc, help a lot when declarative knowledge is what we seek, but add very little when our goal is procedural knowledge. For that we need a combination of lessons and practical experience.

Acclaimed Cuban dancer Carlos Acosta will be performing in his new show, “Premieres Plus,” this month in the United Kingdom. He is scheduled for July 24 and 25, 2011, at The Lowry, located at Pier 8, Salford Quays in Manchester, England. He will also perform on August 17-20, at the Birmingham Hippodrome Theatre Trust Ltd, on Hurst Street in Birmingham. Description: Carlos Acosta is the world’s favorite dancer and “Premieres” is his most personal … Read More

via Repeating Islands

I like the quote from Carlos Acosta on this blog:

Dance in its many forms is interconnected, and ultimately no matter the pain and frustration, it is nothing but a joyful celebration, a wonderful tool to express emotion.

The many forms of dance are connected, as are the arts, as are the arts and science: “everything is connected in life…”

I like the connectedness in the statement that pain and frustration can also be “nothing but a joyful celebration”

Along with my wife Dawn, I am a keen ballroom, latin and sequence dancer (well, we’re learning at least).

It’s the sequence dancing I like the best. I find the 16 bar structures beautiful even before you add any content (the eight or twelve bar sequences are also beautiful: I am enjoying the Latchford Schottishe, a twelve bar sequence a lot just now).

It’s not that that’s what some of the paintings are about specifically. More that life can’t not get into the subject matter, especially when ‘life’ is a already structured into a series, sequence or system.

I had no idea when I was first working on this series that the central motif would repeat in a 16 ‘bar’ sequence.

Berkeley Square 1

We were learning a sequence foxtrot at the time and practising to the tune A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square.