4Postmodernism in Dance (1960–1970)

This chapter deals with a period of intense changes in world politics. The 1960s were characterised by radical demands for reform in both society and the arts. Dance art moved into the postmodern era, here represented by various North American dance makers and phenomena and Japanese butoh. These new approaches sought to distance themselves from the dominant foundations of ballet and modern dance. Instead, dance was treated as a contemporary art form, a cultural language that could be consciously explored, deconstructed and reconstructed. Both a kinaesthetic exploration of movement principles and an interdisciplinary of arts were explored, dance makers employing different media and materials as components of choreographic performances. New York’s white dance avant-garde emphasised experimentation and representational critique, seeking to break away from both the movement’s mimetic relationship to reality and its connection to the body of the choreographic auteur. Choreography and dance performance could manifest as writing, as concept and task structures, on stage, in shared space, or spatially and site-specifically in public spaces. Meanwhile, new developments in Black dance drew on a strong sense of community, interdisciplinarity of arts, Afrodiasporic research and socio-political awareness. Japan’s first postmodern dance form was butoh, mixing styles, eras and cultures. Butoh was a creative fusion of both national tradition and international modern art that later gained international prominence on a range of European and American stages. In contrast, the different strategies and aims of white and Black dance led to parallel paths and a lack of convergence, a history of segregation that has only been critically examined by dance theorists and makers in the 2010s.