"Minimalist" Dance, Social Critique: Revisiting Yvonne Rainer and Steve Paxton's 1963 Word Words. Issue 3 (21st December 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Morse, Meredith
• Is Part Of: Dance research journal. Volume 50:Issue 3(2018)
• Page Start: 55
• Page End: 70
• Publication Date: 2018-12-21
• Subjects: gender, -- kinging, -- female impersonation, -- male impersonation, -- minimalist dance, -- Yvonne Rainer, -- Steve Paxton, -- Judson Dance Theater, -- Trio A, -- Word Words; Dance -- Periodicals; 793.3
• DOI: 10.1017/S0149767718000360
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0149-7677

Abstract

Abstract : In this essay, I reexamine Yvonne Rainer and Steve Paxton's 1963 dance Word Words, arguing that this apparently "minimalist" work in fact deployed "underground" strategies, those of female (and male) impersonation. Camp performance, an approach that Rainer soon disavowed, allowed Word Words to explore gender in ways that were not possible by the time Rainer developed Trio A . Word Words did not simply "overwrite" Rainer's (female) gender, as has been suggested alongside similar discussions of Trio A and gender, but destabilized the gender system's binaries: a deeply radical move, even in the context of other Judson performances using camp.