It is always difficult to describe, or to define movement, and where definitions are blurred, and descriptions difficult to give, there is a tendency to generalise. Therefore when a piece of theatre is heavily movement based, it is usually called “Physical Theatre”, regardless of its content, style or purpose. This is because there is no universal understanding of what is not Physical Theatre. Is not all movement physical? As actor Simon Callow described in a Guardian Theatre Blog, “The dimension of imaginative fantasy in acting, so stressed by the Great Russian teacher Michael Chekhov, has been sidelined into what is absurdly called "physical theatre" - as if theatre could ever be anything but”. Therefore, if all theatre can be described as “Physical”, one should consider Physical Theatre as a spectrum, ranging from the actor’s natural gesture at one end, to contemporary dance and Ballet at the other. In other words, a continuum ranging from work that is text-dependant to work that is movement-dependant in the way it communicates to the audience. If we can assume that all theatre must fit onto this proposed Physical Theatre Spectrum, we must find a place for Dance-drama and Tanztheater upon it. In acknowledging that the two will be placed separately on the Spectrum, we are already assuming that they are two different genres and are not synonymous. There are undoubtedly points of overlap, due to the fact that they are both dealing with a combination of dance and drama/theatre, so in some ways they could be “interchangeable”, but there are points of differentiation, which will be discussed and used to help find their places on the aforementioned Physical Theatre Spectrum. Although Dance-drama and Tanztheater are more distinct than Physical Theatre, in that both are clear about their dance content, one cannot say that they are “synonymous”.
If we are agreeing with Callow, that any movement on stage is physical, and therefore all theatre could be described as “Physical Theatre”, we must also consider the opposing view that “Physical Theatre” is a new form of theatre, which is innovative and challenging. Simon Murray and John Keefe discuss both approaches and state that the latter is a “seductive” perspective, which “claims… innovative – physical – theatre forms and genres” (4) while Callow’s view is a “comfortable and safe position” where, “the turn of the head…has no choice but to be physical” (4). Yet why do these two approaches have to be in opposition? If we accept that both are valid, and both exist, then we can link them by exploring the substance that both distances, and joins them: the “stuff” in-between. Arguably all genres of theatre should fit onto this spectrum, from Circus to Chekhov, and from Shakespeare to Melodrama, but here we shall only discuss the placement of Dance-drama and Tanztheater. Despite the difficulty in describing movement, and the complex nature of defining terms which are often subjective, there are some key features which define, and separate, Dance-drama from Tanztheater. The most obvious defining feature between the ends of the spectrum, and the types of Dance theatre being discussed, is the use of text. At one end of the Physical Theatre Spectrum we have text-dependant theatre, for example works by Henrik Ibsen, or Anton Chekhov, and at the other end we have movement-dependant theatre, such as Ballet. Therefore, to distinguish Dance-drama from Tanztheater, and to find their places on the Spectrum, what we really need to ask is: how far does the style require communication through the body, and to what extent does it rely upon the written text? In Dymphna Callery’s description of Physical Theatre, “the somatic impulse is privileged over the cerebral in the making process. This is true whether the product is an original devised piece or an interpretation of a scripted text” (4). This view would be accepting of the Physical Theatre Spectrum, as she acknowledges that movement and text go together, instinctively. The physical gesture can be found naturally in a text, or it can be established as an organic movement found through choreography or devising. Both Dance-drama and Tanztheater use text, although to differing degrees and for differing purposes.
There is therefore, a possibility to distinguish between Dance-drama and Tanztheater in their use of text, but only that a Dance-drama will always use it, and Tanztheater may, or may not. The combination of the words ‘Dance’ and ‘Drama’, immediately suggest the need for more than just one or the other. For example, Israeli choreographer Jasmin Vardimon combines high physicality and dance choreography with text, so her work can certainly be categorised as Dance-drama, rather than contemporary dance. A play by Samuel Beckett, on the other hand, no matter how detailed his direction for movement may be, will not be a Dance-drama because it has no element of dance choreography. This distinction is less clear when compared to Tanztheater, which may also incorporate both movement and speech. When speech is used, however, it is always secondary to the choreography in Tanztheater. As Johann Kresnik describes in an interview in European Dance Theatre Tanztheater, “[Tanztheater] uses people but without language, but also it could have language”. He also explains that the image should be what communicates, and any words are simply there to add to this imagery.
The extent to which we believe Dance-drama is text-dependant is put into question, however, by texts which offer choreography, but do not require spoken words. If Dance-drama is defined by its use of text, when no text is spoken, how should it be distinguished from Contemporary Dance? Peter Handke’s play, The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other, uses no spoken language, and instead deals only with stage directions, outlining many entrances and exits and movements across the stage space, “It begins when someone runs across, quickly. Then another, from another direction, the same way. Then two pass each other, the same way, each followed by a third and a fourth, diagonally” (83). Although Handke’s play is a text-based piece, when it was produced at the National Theatre in 2008, it was described as “a play without words”. Does its lack of the spoken word mean it is something other than a Dance-drama, if we are distinguishing it thus? Arguably, it should not, as it is still movement which is dependant on written text. It is somewhat ambiguous in its descriptions, leaving space for interpretation and experiment, meaning that no two performances will ever be the same; for example he writes, “Then several nondescript persons populate the square for a few moments, on their way from one activity to the next” (92). This kind of work raises incredibly interesting ideas about voyeurism and self-reflexivity, but without the scripted text, it is difficult to conclude whether it should be classed as Dance-drama. Perhaps, when defining Dance-drama, we should be more specific in stating that it must follow a scripted structure, but less specific about whether this script is a written score, a spoken script, or a structure given to accompany movement.
Dance-drama and Tanztheater are very similar in the way they integrate text with movement to enhance their work, yet they can be distinguished by the fact that Dance-drama will depend on the text to carry some of the narrative/message while Tanztheater could manage without it. In this way, Dance-drama should be placed in the centre of the Physical Theatre Spectrum as it is both text-dependant and movement-dependant, and one will not succeed without the other.
As with most types of theatre, the most efficient way of determining style is by looking at the required audience response. If the aim is to communicate predominantly through gesture, or form, then they are closer to the Ballet end of the Physical Theatre Spectrum. As previously established, this is the aim of Tanztheater, yet choreographers such as Pina Bausch, Reinhild Hoffmann and Susanne Linke encouraged the term “Tanztheater” in order to distinguish their styles as something different to Ballet (European Dance Theatre Tanztheater). This is because Tanztheater wanted to make a social or political comment, and as such, the German choreographers believed their dance style was more substantial than the commonly discussed Western styles. Indeed, as Susan Allene Manning describes in her article An American Perspective on Tanztheater, “… new German choreographers… consider subject matter far more important than the formal display of movement values” (57). Dance-drama, on the other hand, is more likely to follow some form of narrative structure, given the inevitable characterisation which occurs through speech. As soon as an audience has an idea of character, they begin to build relationships for them and will attempt to imagine a narrative, even if it is not given to them through the work.
Pina Bausch is undoubtedly the most influential choreographer in Tanztheater, and her work is world-renowned for being thought provoking and innovative. It is the subtlety in her choreography that makes her socio-political comment so clear in performance, although somehow she leaves room for people to see, and to take, different things from her work. Similarly, in Dance-drama, the audience will seek the narrative, no matter how clear or how vague it is. Portuguese choreographer Rui Horta uses a fascinating combination of movement and text, which often seem in juxtaposition, to confuse his audience and distort his meaning. In his piece Talk Show he used an enigmatic mix of spoken language and physicalised movement, which mostly seemed quite separate, but at times interacted with each other. It seemed as though he were trying to confuse the audience, to force them to think critically about what they had seen. It seems that, although Tanztheater can be identified as aiming to make either a social or political comment, it is similarly ambiguous in the way that it portrays this message. This lack of a clear distinction may suggest that the two genres should be placed close together on the Physical Theatre Spectrum, but if one considers the way in which the continuum is defined, it is how far they depend on movement or text to achieve their required audience response, and this is something yet to be identified.Again, it appears that Dance-drama and Tanztheater are more similar than dissimilar in their approach to reaching their required audience response, because there are inevitable elements of overlap. In European Dance Theatre Tanztheater, Johann Kresnik describes a concern that, “The German Tanztheater is in current crisis. Themes are too fixed in their content. It doesn’t tell a cohesive story or make a political, or socially critical comment”. Here he shows his expectations for Tanztheater to make both a socio-political comment and to carry a narrative story. This does not necessarily mean that Tanztheater will fulfil both of Kresnik’s expectations, or that it needs to. Tanztheater undoubtedly has a more focused intention on making a political statement, while Dance-drama has a broader field for comment, which allows a freedom of interpretation from its audience. That is not to say, however, that there is no room for interpretation in Tanztheater, or that Dance-drama cannot be political. As previously established, when it is difficult to define or describe something, the tendency is to generalize. Therefore when summarising the intentions of a number of theatre companies under the title of Dance-drama or Tanztheater, we must allow some generalisation to take place.
Both Tanztheater and Dance-drama will use costume to differing degrees and for different purposes in their work. This is not a particularly successful way to distinguish between the two genres, but it may help place them on the Physical Theatre Spectrum. One might expect the costume for a Dance-drama to be dancewear, as in Rui Horta’s Talk Show or disguised dancewear as in Jasmin Vardimon’s Lullaby, where her cast wore Doctor’s scrubs or Nurse’s uniforms, which were made of flexible fabric allowing them to move without the constriction of normal clothing. As there is always a dance element in Dance-drama, it is reasonable to expect the costume to be dancewear, but this is not always the case. Caryl Churchill’s play Hotel requires painstakingly accurate choreography to allow fifteen characters to simultaneously negotiate their way around one Hotel room, as though they were in eight separate, but identical, rooms. Their costumes, however, would be expected to be naturalistic and would not require any adjustments to accommodate dance-like movements, as the style is much more gestural than the extreme physicality of Vardimon’s work. As a whole, Tanztheater is more like Churchill’s work in its use of costume, as it aims for reality, to reflect the everyday and to move away from the extravagant ballet costumes and ballet slippers (European Dance Theatre Tanztheater). German choreographers Susanne Linke, Reinhild Hoffmann and Pina Bausch wanted to distance themselves from the traditional decorative costumes of dance, and establish their own, quite ordinary, style of costume, where their stylization of everyday gestures could be enhanced by the use of naturalistic dress (Susan Allene Manning and Melissa Benson). Although costume is an artistic decision, the limitations placed upon it by characterization in Dance-drama, means that it is text-dependant and therefore should remain central on the Physical Theatre Spectrum. Tanztheater, on the other hand, has freedom to experiment with costume as it sees fit, and can use it to enhance the political message if necessary, or to accommodate extreme physical movement. This liberty to decide strengthens its position closer to the movement-dependant end of the Spectrum.
Perhaps the most obvious defining factor for Dance-drama and Tanztheater is whether they use actors or dancers in their work. It is generally agreed between scholars that Physical Theatre should be accessible to all bodies, and not limited to highly trained dancers (Simon Murray and John Keefe). This fits into the concept of the Physical Theatre Spectrum as it suggests that there should be an extreme form of physicality at one end, such as Ballet, which uses a difficult vocabulary of dance movements, and a form with a far less physical demand at the other end, such as a an actor performing the simple gesture of shaking his head. If we can accept that at one end of the spectrum movement can only be performed by highly trained Ballet dancers, then how can we measure the physical difficulty across the spectrum until it becomes generic and can be performed by absolutely anyone? It could be argued that the centre of the spectrum should be the “neutral” body, which Dymphna Callery proposes we can reach if you “distort your own muscular structure… to assemble new ones, to physically create or interpret characters different from yourself” (20). Yet this is more applicable to actor training, and finding character, than to dance and choreography.
It seems that as both Dance-drama and Tanztheater expect an element of dance, one might assume that they would require dancers to perform them. This is certainly true in a number of companies, however both genres have exceptions and therefore contest this assumption. Pina Bausch, for example, in her piece Kontakthof, simply called for “Ladies and Gentlemen over 65”, while Caryl Churchill’s Dance-drama, Hotel, required singers, but not dancers. In European Dance Theatre Tanztheater, it is commented that Pina Bausch wanted her work to be about giving the body a form, not necessarily an aesthetic form, but this should not mean it is not dance. Perhaps we should be challenging the definition of dance, in order to understand how Dance-drama and Tanztheater differ. It would appear that the two are very similar in their generous acceptance of different forms of dance into their genre, and also, therefore, their acceptance of different dance abilities.
Ultimately, it seems that although Dance-drama and Tanztheater are, in many ways very similar, they will be placed separately on the Physical Theatre Spectrum, because there are distinct ways to distinguish them. For example, a Dance-drama will always be text-dependant, whether it begins with a text, like Churchill or Handke, or whether text is developed through a devising process, such as Vardimon and Horta. Tanztheater, on the other hand, may use text as a secondary mode of communication, and sometimes not at all. Similarly, while Dance-drama will inevitably make some form of comment, its main objective is form, while Tanztheater’s chief concern is its socio-political comment. The most difficult point for distinction, however, is how far they try to communicate through movement. It seems that both within Dance-drama, and within Tanztheater, they have their own spectrums where their companies place heavier emphasis on dance, or text. Therefore, their placement on the Physical Theatre Spectrum will inevitably overlap, as companies explore the extremities of the (already difficult to define) genres. It is logical that Dance-drama should be the centre of the Physical Theatre Spectrum, given its reliance on both movement and text, and in this way, its range of companies and their practices can stretch further towards either the text-dependant or movement-dependant ends of the spectrum, whilst maintaining a central position. Tanztheater, on the other hand, ought to be placed in between Dance-drama at the centre and Ballet at the end, so that certain companies, or choreographers, or pieces, can overlap with Dance-drama, while others can remain more dependant upon dance, and can be closer to contemporary dance and Ballet. Of course, this model is merely a suggestion as to how we might define, and understand the complex relationship between “Physical Theatres” (Simon Murray and John Keefe). It is by no means definitive, and as Movement evolves in contemporary theatre, alternative solutions should be encouraged to accommodate the new trends and styles.
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Talk Show. Chor. Rui Horta. The Place, London. 7 Oct. 2010. Performance.
