eJournals Forum Modernes Theater 23/1

Forum Modernes Theater
0930-5874
2196-3517
Narr Verlag Tübingen
Es handelt sich um einen Open-Access-Artikel der unter den Bedingungen der Lizenz CC by 4.0 veröffentlicht wurde.http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
2008
231 Balme

An Audience with the Other

2008
Mary Kate Connolly
Fig. 1: Raimund Hoghe: Swan Lake, 4 Acts. Foto: Rosa Frank An Audience with the Other: The Reciprocal Gaze of Raimund Hoghe’s Theatre Mary Kate Connolly (London) The house lights fade, strains of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake begin to fill the space. Familiar to the ear, yet altered in some way - the music sounds scratchy, distant, an old gramophone record perhaps - the majesty of the music faded with repeated playing through the passing of the years. It is a recording that evokes a bygone time, an eroded glamour steeped in memories. In the shadows of the dimly lit stage, a man stoops to light a tea light, placing it in the centre of a miniature stage model. The glow fills the box-like miniature at the back of the stage; it is difficult to see from the audience seats, faint, indiscernible and dreamlike. As the man stands, his silhouette becomes visible in the gloom - he is small in stature and clad in black. His outline is unusual, broken, and as he turns a hump is barely visible beneath the back of his shirt. His name is Raimund Hoghe. The site of confrontation between performer and spectator is an unusual space. One, perhaps, of observation and contemplation, occasionally one of objectification and occasionally one of exchange. There can exist an uneven power play between performer and spectator. Does the power and agency rest with the performer who dazzles with display, transporting the viewers where he wills and thus distinguishing his identity as being above the mass of spectators? Or indeed is the performer objectified by the powerful eyes of so many viewers - onlookers imbued with a predilection to love or loathe what they see, and thus to dictate the worth and merit of a performance? The notion of gaze is fruitful in this context. The audience members look where they please, focusing on whatever aspect of the performance they wish and forming associations and opinions of their choosing. Does the performer look back? Is it possible to return a steady gaze from the stage? In this judgemental and fleeting environment, how much influence can a performer really be expected to exert over how he is viewed? And what of these questions when applied to a ‘marginal’ body - a body which does not comply with societal or performance norms? An individual who could be deemed as Other, an individual whose physicality ensures he lives life under the gaze of spectators…in the street, at the beach and on the bus. What of this performer’s agency when his imperfections are held amid the glare of spotlights on an unadorned stage? Could there be, ironically in that space of scrutiny, a kind of power exchange and reciprocity between performer and spectator? In the case of Raimund Hoghe’s theatre, do the trump cards actually remain with the crooked figure who inhabits the stage? Hoghe, a performance artist and choreographer with severe curvature of the spine, Forum Modernes Theater, Bd. 23/ 1 (2008), 61-70. Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen 62 Mary Connolly draws on many sources for inspiration. These find expression in the artistic collages which he creates in his performances, through the layering of imagery, music, movement and spoken word. He creates images of melancholy beauty from subtle choreography, a dramatic employment of stillness, and a unique use of mundane objects, stark lighting, evocative popular and well known music, and the spoken word. His choreography contains a multiplicity of themes, and an ability to convey these multiplicities without labouring any one idea, thus producing a heavily layered spectacle. Questions of agency, the power of gaze and a performer’s representation of the body prove worthy of investigation in any performance environment - the mechanics and exchanges between those on stage in the light and those in the darkened audience seats - the visible and the invisible. This article aims to explore what happens to these facets of performance when a marginal body is put on stage, and how a performer might choose to negotiate this delicate interplay. Raimund Hoghe’s work provides a complex and interesting subject in this investigation, due both to the elements of Hoghe’s physicality and his chosen modes of representation, and also the situation of his work within the sometimes exclusive canon of dance performance. “Theatre”, says Hoghe is a place “where people come to gawk”. 1 In Hoghe’s performance, the audience is invited to look, to consider, and be made aware of the many ruptures and reflective questions which a body such as Hoghe’s evokes in a theatre setting. He also states that, with the advent of technology, we will soon be able to “choose” our bodies, and that in this environment the importance of confrontation with his body is heightened. 2 Not only does Hoghe’s physicality serve as a reminder of bodily discrimination in the past, but it provides an immediate confrontation which forces viewers to consider their feelings and attitudes towards difference and imperfection. Hoghe suggests that audiences today cannot identify with his body because it does not conform to contemporary ideals of beauty. 3 Gerald Siegmund disagrees, asserting that Hoghe’s body “enables us to experience reality through proportions that do not comply with the norm”. 4 Perhaps, as the idolization of perfection and beauty progresses in society, the value of different bodies will increase as a result of their difference. Bodies such as these will attest to the imperfections and flaws which everybody shares, and thus, prove a release from the quest for an unattainable physical reality. It is necessary at this point to clarify that the concept of Other grew out of colonial and post-colonial discourse and theory, as developed by writers and academics such as Edward Said, Homi Bhabha and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak in the wake of the postwar dissolution of colonial empires. 5 Conceptualising the way in which the West viewed those whom they colonised, in terms of Subject (The West) and Object (the subaltern colonised), theorists sought to expose the power/ knowledge relations and discourses inherent in colonisation, developing the terms Self and Other. This notion of Other has since been extended to explore other manifestations of subaltern due to gender, sexuality, ethnicity and identity. Hoghe could be viewed as Other due to his physicality and his homosexuality. In the realm of his performance both elements find expression, but it is his physical appearance which usually first confronts the spectator from the stage, and is clearly of much relevance given the import which displaying the imperfections of his spine and torso carries in his performance. Hoghe’s curvature of the spine is significant onstage, not necessarily because it imposes limits on artistic possibility, but due rather to the clear signal of difference which it presents, and therefore the sense of Other which is attached to such a body. An Audience with the Other 63 Whilst initially spectators might situate themselves comfortably as Self, at a detached vantage point on one side of the dividing line between stage and audience, to view the Other across the seemingly impassable divide - a curious and at times uncomfortable interchange can be felt amid the confrontation with Hoghe’s world. The lines between Self and Other, once so clearly marked and keenly felt, become fluid, blurred and eerily selfreflective. Reflection of Self in Other In a theatre environment, where dancing bodies can be subject to audience gaze and possible objectification by virtue of the public display inherent in performance, a body such as Hoghe’s can surprisingly produce an uncomfortable level of self-reflection in the spectator. Discussing the myth of the perfect body, Roberta Galler suggests that “just as society creates an ideal of beauty which is oppressive…it creates an ideal model of the physically perfect person who is not beset with weakness…or pain”. A non-normative body onstage undermines such an impossible notion of beauty and reminds us “how tenuous that…myth of the perfect body really is”. 6 Such self-reflection can be both disruptive and liberating. Confrontation with ‘imperfection’ as constructed by societal values can force one to confront one’s own “limitation and lack of perfection, towards oppressive myths, standards, and social conditions which affect us all”. 7 Acknowledging the ‘perfect’ body as indeed being essentially mythical and unattainable could however prove a liberation from the reigning ideologies of beauty and the quest for bodily perfection, rather than a reinforcement of the sense of failure produced by unachievable goals. When considering Hoghe’s work under the umbrella of dance rather than performance or live art per se, it is worthwhile examining the heightened significance of the excluded body inhabiting the often exclusive dance stage. The preferential mindset often prevalent in the dance world towards bodies which are lean, strong and rigorously trained has been explored in numerous contexts. 8 Such a mindset is frequently associated with classical ballet, which interestingly finds referential aspects in Hoghe’s works such as Swan Lake, 4 Acts. “In ballet”, ventured Adrian Stokes in 1935, “the human passions are expressed by the gradual uncontorted curves and straight lines of the extended body”. 9 Hoghe chooses at times to present images of classical ballet as a representation of ideal beauty and perfection in his works while also manipulating balletic imagery to produce a sense of rupture of certain cultural norms. An example of this rupture can be found in the juxtaposition of Hoghe’s body alongside the aging but highly classically trained body of dancer Ornella Balestra. The invasion of Hoghe’s non-conformist but at times hauntingly beautiful bodily alignment, obviously influenced by the curvature of his spine, and the outlines which his crooked form makes in his choreography, on a stage awash with the score of Swan Lake, thus do much to subvert the classically biased equation of able, upright bodies with aesthetic value. Hence a re-evaluation of some of the prevailing assumptions regarding dance becomes necessary in light of Hoghe’s choosing to place his body on stage, creating ‘choreographies’ and in some cases being classified as a dancer. Exploring issues of dance and disability in her book Choreographing Difference, Ann Cooper Albright asserts that when a “disabled dancer enters the stage, he or she stakes claim to a radical space, an unruly location where disparate assumptions collide”. 10 This space is radicalised in the case of Hoghe’s performance due to the replacement of Self, i.e. an instantly recognisable body as one which complies with the expected values and aesthetics of a dancing 64 Mary Connolly body, with Other; a body which does not comply. In this scenario should Hoghe be viewed as one who has ‘overcome’ a physical disability or difference to become a dancer, or rather does Hoghe on his contextual stage undermine performance preconceptions to challenge the very notion of what indeed constitutes a dancer? Hoghe’s body on stage in itself invites audiences to confront issues of Other, examine perceptions of beauty, and perhaps find solace or even an inability to identify with this different individual and his physical presence. Merely the unapologetic presence of difference conveys an invitation to regard the reflection of Self in the image of Other and places an onus on the audience to ponder, but only if they wish to. An Empathetic Audience with the Other In the stark landscape of Hoghe’s stage layout, a certain frankness is to be found. An appearance of intimacy, and the overriding sense that a private and marginal body has been made public, abound. There is a palpable sense in Hoghe’s spectacle that not only is the audience tentatively examining a strange body onstage, but that Hoghe too is confronting his own physicality and its potential and implications amid a performance environment. Thus the audience watches Hoghe as he tests and judges his body, and in doing so the audience is invited to share empathetically, if not physically, in the experience. In the early stages of Meinwärts, Hoghe appears at the back of the stage, his naked frame lit from above. A jump propels him into the air where he snatches hold of a trapeze bar hung low in the gloom, and begins to swing slowly from it. The strange contours of his back are illuminated, ever changing as they swing in and out of shadow. Exhaustion prevailing, Hoghe drops to the floor for a brief rest before repeating the action once more. This sequence is repeated continuously until he can bear to hang on for only a moment before dropping from the bar. In this simple, contemplative sequence, a double confrontation can be observed: that of Hoghe, exploring and testing the limits of his physicality, and the audience watching him in this physical struggle, confronted with his naked body and invited to look, and to contemplate. In this way, Hoghe’s body, especially when his back is displayed to the audience, can be seen to take on a further reflective quality. The viewers are prompted to consider not only their personal reactions evoked by the immediacy of the flesh in performance, but also to engage more widely with notions of Other and difference. In addition to the opportunity to view Hoghe’s body from the outside, the spectator is sometimes allowed a fleeting insight into Hoghe’s bodily experience from the inside. Due to the curvature of his spine for example, certain movements or prolonged positions may be uncomfortable for him to perform. At times he finds ways of transmitting this discomfort to the audience through his sustained pace of performance. Rather than trying to hide discomfort, Hoghe allows the audience to witness his physical difficulty, and thus experience the reality of a non-normative body. This can be seen in the Meinwärts trapeze sequence, Hoghe swinging from the bar until physical exhaustion renders him incapable of doing so. In Swan Lake, 4 Acts, both his careful assuming of the ‘Swan’ pose in arching forwards to raise his arms behind him while kneeling, and the long duration for which he holds the position, prompt the audience to become aware of their own bodies and the discomfort they feel in remaining still for such a long period. The identification between performer and spectator during these sequences is revelatory and unusual, as in many forms of dance such as classical ballet, performers strive not to convey the physical pain and exhaustion they may be suffering. In An Audience with the Other 65 Fig. 2: Raimund Hoghe: Lettere Amorose. Foto: Luca Giacomo Schulte Hoghe’s case, the brief insight into his physicality which this allows from his standpoint may be an uncomfortable one for the viewer to experience. ‘Sizing Up’ and a Subtle Manipulation of Gaze In addition to the marginal or Othered body capturing the dance stage, there is also the consideration of how and where such a body ‘fits’ onstage both physically and metaphorically. There exists in Hoghe’s choreography, a preoccupation with the measuring and taking account of his body in its environment. Hoghe often explores the dimensions of his body in relation to its proximity to objects within the performance space. In Meinwärts, he lies on the floor, placing an object beneath the nape of his neck, marking the point of contact between his body and the floor. He repeats this action each time he repositions himself on the floor. In Lettere Amorose, outstretching his arms, Hoghe “turns himself along the back wall of the stage thus measuring its distance according to the form and dimension of his body”. 11 Alongside these assessments of body in relation to space, Hoghe performs gestures which measure and draw attention to the dimensions within his body, for example the distances between limbs or between the contours of his misshapen spine. In Lettere Amorose, the curvature of Hoghe’s spine is marked by a red line drawn down his back. In Meinwärts he uses a red stick to highlight the crookedness of his back, drawing the stick methodically over its contours. Another Dream sees Hoghe execute a series of repeated gestures, stretching out his thumb and forefinger to create a fixed length of space between them, and then routinely placing thumb and forefinger on his arms, neck and torso, assessing in a way the dimensions of his body. This sequence is performed to the saccharine lyrics of the Mamas and Papas’ song, Dream a Little Dream of Me, a revealing juxtaposition given the disparity between the vision of idyllic love conveyed in the lyrics of the song, and the reality and limitations of Hoghe’s physical differences. This measuring of his body within the space is an interesting exploration of how Hoghe’s body ‘fits’ onstage, and what space it occupies, perhaps both physically and metaphorically. Imbued in this ‘sizing up’ of sorts is a potential to manipulate and guide the audience’s gaze in a particular fashion. Far from being trapped under the watchful eyes of many, on Hoghe’s stage a subtle guidance of how the audience looks, and why, is at work. The concept of ‘manipulation of the gaze’ as developed by Laura Mulvey (1975), has been explored in light of various concerns, such as the gaze of an audience with regard to the objectification of performers, and questions of agency and power relations between spectator and performer. 12 In The Male Dancer, Ramsay Burt alludes to a “roundtable discussion on movement and gender” with artists Johanna Boyce and Bill T. Jones. Boyce is quoted as saying that she imagined “that being on display is a fearful thing for a man because it is a situation in which he doesn’t have total control or empowerment [over the spectators]”. 13 Whilst this may be true for some male dancers, the same does not seem to apply to 66 Mary Connolly Fig. 3: Raimund Hoghe: Lettere Amorose. Foto: Rosa Frank Hoghe, an individual who by virtue of his unusual body is looked at, both on stage and in the street during his daily life. Burt suggests that perhaps Hoghe has found in his work “a way of projecting a presence that allows him to take control of the way we in the audience look at him looking back at us”. 14 This notion of control would seem crucial in Hoghe’s performance, and is something which he has mentioned in discussion. Whilst he cannot control the way in which people scrutinise him “at the swimming pool” for example, onstage he can carefully manipulate the audience’s gaze in a particular way. 15 Thus for instance when he disrobes on stage, the audience can view only his naked back - he always covers the front of his body when turned to face the theatre stalls. This manipulation of audience gaze is evident in Meinwärts when Hoghe takes a modelled cast of the contours of his back, and straps it onto the front of his torso. Slowly and tentatively, he lights a cigarette lighter and over the course of a song, passes the lighter over the cast, illuminating the curves and hollows made by the unusual landscapes of his back. This meditative approach is significant as it forces the audience to dwell on the image for a considerable amount of time. Doubly effective however is the sense that the audience is watching Hoghe as he looks at his curved back, something that without the aid of a mirror he would not normally be able to do. In this sense he appears to be exploring and coming to terms with his body along with the audience, through a careful manipulation of imagery. This evoking of a ‘double-gaze’ is also afforded in the passages of his work in which Hoghe measures his body and explores the relation and place it occupies within his surrounding performance space. Watching a sequence from Lettere Amorose in which Hoghe tests the dimensional limits of his body and assesses its measurements through the use of thumb and forefinger, the viewer as well as Hoghe is urged to consider not only the physical realities of a non-normative body, but the physical and metaphorical space which it occupies onstage. Hoghe has a keen interest in Japanese theatre, and draws much inspiration both from the use of light and shadow in Japanese performance, and Japanese attitudes towards the body in performance. “In Japan”, Hoghe emphasises, it is “the language of the body [as opposed to exposure of the face that is important]”. 16 Utilisation of light and shade are tools used in Hoghe’s choreography, not only to create striking imagery, but to control the audience gaze upon his body. The Japanese writer Junichirô Tanizaki, whom Hoghe cites as a source of his inspiration 17 wrote of the potential to “find beauty not in…[a]… thing itself, but in the patterns of shadows, in the light and the darkness, that one thing against another creates”. 18 Often a combination of these principles can be observed in the way Hoghe uses light to illuminate certain parts of his body and obscure his face. In a sequence from Dialogue with Charlotte, Hoghe, lit from above and with his back to the audience, inches towards the back of the stage. This slow sequence allows much examination of his back, and the outline of his body held in the light. His face, however, is obscured and in this way a separa- An Audience with the Other 67 tion or disembodiment is apparent as Hoghe’s torso seems in a way detached from his face and remote from his personality. This contrived appraisal of his body in such a particular fashion might afford insight into the way in which a different body such as Hoghe’s might be viewed in everyday life. This sense of bodily separation is reversed in Meinwärts when Hoghe illuminates his face but not his body, with the red glow of a torch. Within the overall darkness of the stage, this provides a dramatic image, heightened by the distortion produced by the red light. The eerie effect of this is to demonise Hoghe’s face in some way. Perhaps once again such specific guiding of audience gaze may be an attempt to convey the ways in which Hoghe has been at times viewed, perceived and accordingly Othered. By drawing the audience’s gaze in and directing it through subtle manipulations, Hoghe influences not only the way his body in particular is viewed, but furthermore the issues surrounding bodies which are considered ‘abnormal’. In this small way, Hoghe exerts control in a performance environment, a coveted control that he is not afforded in everyday life. Ironically in this at times judgemental environment of display, Hoghe’s agency as an individual and as a performer is secured. Further Bodily Implications and Representations It is perhaps fair to say that merely placing an excluded or different body onstage could be construed as simply an exercise, lacking in any huge artistic merit. After all, there are further bodily implications to be considered with regard to representation, and to present one facet alone might serve only to perpetuate a sense of difference and fail to present a body as a whole entity. In the case of Hoghe’s choreography, he chooses specific modes of representation to explore the other facets of his presence onstage in addition to the imperfections of his spine - the implications for example of a male body onstage, a homosexual body onstage, a body viewed differently when framed by other bodies of different gender and age. All of these elements find a performative voice within Hoghe’s theatre, and in turn prompt the audience to view the marginal body anew and as a whole. As a male performer, negotiation of various modes of representation concerning masculinity and sexuality is unavoidable. The development of male dancing in the fields of classical ballet and modern dance has however been constrained, according to Burt, by “conventions” and cultural modes. This has resulted, he continues, in: …first, the range of male dancing being largely limited to the expression of male dominance…over female bodies, and second, in a tough, hard vocabulary of macho movements and gestures… 19 Clearly, Hoghe’s body does not comply with these stereotypes - together with his diminutive stature and curvature of the spine, he is a man of middle years and is homosexual. The ways in which Hoghe negotiates these elements are subtle yet evocative. With a specific movement vocabulary, the framing of his body alongside athletic male and balletically trained female bodies, and a thought-provoking use of spoken word, Hoghe gently subverts such gender and bodily stereotyping. The result is a quirky performative voice which avoids cliché. Male and female gender roles and relationships are explored in Hoghe’s collaboration with Charlotte Engelkes, Dialogue with Charlotte (1998). Gender roles become blurred in this piece, revealing, according to Helmut Ploebst, “Hoghe’s irony”. 20 A striking image sees Hoghe lying across Engelkes’ lap, performing awkward swimming motions as the “mighty Aphrodite…looks into the dis- 68 Mary Connolly Fig. 4: Raimund Hoghe: Swan Lake, 4 Acts. Foto: Rosa Frank tance indifferently”. 21 Such witty subversion serves to create a “more complex portrayal of difficult human relations”. 22 Furthermore this scenario in its deployment of varying aspects of Hoghe’s physical makeup, allows his body to be viewed as a whole as distinct from merely possessing a physical difference. Hoghe is not alone as an artist who places the excluded body centre stage and produces offbeat representations of body and gender. It is in the subversion of power relationships between genders and refusal to adhere to stereotypical gender relations that a link can be traced from Hoghe’s work to that of Pina Bausch’s with whom Hoghe worked for some years. 23 Bausch can be considered (alongside artists such as Fergus Early), as a choreographer who in works such as Bluebeard (1977), and Kontakthof (1978) broke boundaries with regard to the presentation of gender. Alongside her subversion of traditional gender stereotyping, Bausch is also credited with allowing the ‘marginal’ body appear in the spotlight. 24 Discussing the politics of Bausch’s Tanztheater, Ana Sanchez-Colberg suggests that Tanztheater Wuppertal created the possibility for a “discourse other than patriarchy” to inhabit the dance stage. 25 The framing of a body when viewed beside another and perhaps contrasting one can prove provocative. Critics such as Sanjoy Roy have commented on the “drama” created in works such as Sacre - The Rite of Spring through the combination of “middle-aged hunchbacked” Hoghe and “tall, young” Lorenzo de Brabandere, a previously untrained individual who performs alongside him. 26 Despite such physical differences, both men often perform the same simple tasks together in performances, adopting a neutral and unengaged gaze. This has the effect of creating a sense of equality or acceptance of one another’s difference. Hoghe’s more intense presence at times however results in the spectator viewing De Brabandere as if through Hoghe’s eyes. Describing this aspect in regard to Sacre - The Rite of Spring, Burt asserts that while he saw “nothing queer or homoerotic in the piece”, De Brabandere “seemed beautiful because he was framed by the power of the older man’s presence”. 27 This framing can also be considered within historical bodily conceptions of ‘classical’ and ‘grotesque’. Using these terms within the connotations of their historical contexts, Cooper Albright examines the effects of disabled bodies: “within an artform [dance] that has made an icon of the statuesque…body”. She suggests that the integration of able and disabled bodies provides a “wonderful opportunity to investigate the cultural dialogue between the classical and the grotesque body”. 28 Certainly the juxtaposition of Hoghe and De Brabandere is a thoughtprovoking one, not only regarding physicality, but perhaps in relation to the multifaceted ways in which men can relate to one another in both a heterosexual and homosexual way, and the boundaries and power burdens of which these relationships are comprised. Both the presence and indeed the prevailing absence of the Othered body on our stages are significant. A dissection of Raimund Hoghe’s theatre provides some answers to the question of what happens when the marginal body captures a performance space and the disruption of cultural norms and performance preconceptions which this might effect. It seems that most certainly the space An Audience with the Other 69 between spectator and performer can be one of exchange and influence rather than objectification and reinforcement of division. Perhaps the potential for this is made ever more rich when a performing body fails to comply with preconceived societal and performance ‘norms.’ In a sense though, the mere fact that Hoghe’s presence onstage alone appears a radical gesture is cause for consideration. Whilst Hoghe is certainly not alone in his placing of the marginal body onstage, the presence of his body seems to highlight the absence and invisibility of so many others. 29 The spectator in confrontation with the Other must muse not only on his/ her personal attitudes to difference, but more vitally why a performance such as Hoghe’s should be both confrontational and deemed radical? How far, in this technologically advanced era which applauds the quest for bodily perfection, have attitudes of acceptance truly progressed? As a lover of dance, what fascinates me is that Hoghe’s appearance on stage emphasises not the marginal and exclusionary nature of dance, but a seemingly natural myriad of possibilities for inclusion and diversity. His spectacle captivates, provokes and suggests without perpetuation of division. In his 1997 documentary Der Buckel, Hoghe recounts how his childhood aspirations to be a ballet dancer were considered “absurd”. 30 The striking performative voice of Other issuing now from the stage, proves however an eloquent defiance of cultural norms and more importantly demonstrates the value of difference. For Raimund Hoghe it would seem that the potentially unruly space of theatre is in fact one under his control, one of equality and one of agency. The occupants in the auditorium provide little threat to a man for whom everyday life is a display, surrounded by uninvited onlookers. When the spectator is invited to an audience with the Other however, the gaze from the stage is reciprocal, reflective and unflinching. Notes 1 Raimund Hoghe, cited in Edith Boxberger [online, n.p.] “Der Körper widersteht” in Frankfurter Allgemeine, (2001) available from http: / / www.sarma.be/ text.asp? id=319 [date accessed: 27.04.07, translated on request]. 2 Raimund Hoghe, (2007) ‘Panel Discussion’ which took place at a ‘Writing on Performance Conference’ at the Laban Centre London, in March 2007 involving the artist, which the author attended. 3 Ibid. 4 Gerald Siegmund, [online, n.p.] “A View of The Stars Through A Pair of Red Binoculars: Raimund Hoghe’s solo ‘Another Dream’”, in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, (2001) available from http: / / kulturserver-nrw.de/ home/ rhoghe/ en/ en_fernglas.html [date accessed: 27.04.07]. 5 Edward Said, Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient, London 2003 [1978, 1988]. Orientalism is considered a pivotal text within post-colonial studies. Works which have followed Orientalism have drawn on a variety of theoretical fields such as psychoanalysis, deconstructionism and feminism by writers such as Homi Bhabha, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Chandra Mohanty and Aijaz Ahmad. A comprehensive selection of essays and book excerpts by key writers within the field can be found in Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory: A Reader, (eds.) Laura Chrisman, Patrick Williams, London and New York 1993. 6 Roberta Galler, “The Myth of the Perfect Body,” in: Carol Vance (ed.), Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality, Boston 1984, p. 167. 7 Ibid, p. 166. 8 In Making An Entrance - Theory and Practice for Disabled and Non-Disabled Dancers, Adam Benjamin (co-founder of CandoCo Dance Company), charts the progression of exclusivity within dance from its Dionysian roots, through Louis XIV’s reign in France to Fascist regimes and ethnic cleansing in twentieth century Europe, up to the present day. Adam Benjamin, Making an Entrance: Theory and Practice for Disabled and Non-Disabled Dancers, London 2002. Based on her studies of the choreographer 70 Mary Connolly Frederick Ashton and the dancers he worked with in the Royal Ballet, Geraldine Morris suggests that “the practice of allotting roles according to bodily appearance was, and still is, evident”. Geraldine Morris, “Dance Partnerships: Ashton and his Dancers”, in: The Journal of the Society for Dance Research, vol. 19 (2001), no. 1, Summer, p. 12. 9 Adrian Stokes, [1935] “Tonight the Ballet”, in: Marshall Cohen and Roger Copeland, (eds.) What is Dance? , Oxford et al. 1983, p. 244. 10 Ann Cooper Albright, Choreographing Difference: The Body and Identity in Contemporary Dance, Middletown, CT 1997, p. 58. 11 Gerald Siegmund, [online, n.p.] “Raimund Hoghe and the Art of Ritual Substitution”, from a Lecture at Kaaitheater, 26.01.04, available from http: / / kulturserver-nrw.de/ home/ rhoghe/ en/ en_lecture.html [date accessed: 27.04.07]. 12 Laura Mulvey, “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”, in: Visual and Other Pleasures, Bloomington 1989 [1975], pp. 6-18. 13 Ramsay Burt, The Male Dancer, London and New York 1995, p. 51. 14 Ramsay Burt, [online, n.p.] “Another Dream, Raimund Hoghe at the ICA, London Mime Festival” in Critical Dance (2005), available from http: / / www.balletdance.com/ forum/ viewtopic. php? t=4256&highlight= raimund+ hoghe [date accessed 20.04.07]. 15 Raimund Hoghe, (2007) ‘Panel Discussion’ which took place at a ‘Writing on Performance Conference’ at the Laban Centre London, in March 2007 involving the artist, which the author attended. 16 Raimund Hoghe, speaking in a 2002 recording of his 2000/ 01 production, Lecture Performance: Throwing the body into the fight [VHS] Courtesy of the LiveArt UK archive. 17 Ibid. 18 Junichirô Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows, New York and London 2001 [1977, 1991], p. 46. 19 Ramsay Burt, The Male Dancer, p. 8. 20 Helmut Ploebst, No Wind No Word: New Choreography in the Society of the Spectacle, Munich 2001, p. 114. 21 Ibid. 22 Ibid, p. 113. 23 In 1979 Hoghe wrote a piece on Pina Bausch, for the periodical Theater Heute, entitled Meinwärts - Ein Zweig, eine Mauer [Minewards - A Twig, A Wall], (see: Ploebst, No Wind No Word 2001). An artistic collaboration developed between Hoghe and Bausch following this initial contact. From 1980 to 1990, Hoghe worked as dramaturge for Bausch’s Tanztheater Wuppertal. 24 Ana Sanchez-Colberg, “‘You put your left foot in, then you shake it all about…’: Excursions and Incursions into Feminism and Bausch’s Tanztheater”, in: Helen Thomas (ed), Dance, Gender and Culture, London 1993, p. 163. 25 Ibid. 26 Sanjoy Roy, [online, n.p.] “Sacre - The Rite of Spring”, in The Guardian (10/ 04/ 07), available from http: / / arts.guardian.co.uk/ theatre/ dance/ reviews/ story/ 0"2053226,00.html [date accessed: 27.04.07]. 27 Ramsay Burt, [online, n.p.] “Another Dream, Raimund Hoghe at the ICA, London Mime Festival” in Critical Dance (2005), available from http: / / www.balletdance.com/ forum/ viewtopic.php? t=4256&highlight=raimund+ hoghe [date accessed 20.04.07].Whilst Burt does not find anything “queer or homoerotic” in the moment described above from Sacre - The Rite Of Spring, Siegmund suggests that “Gay desire, men desiring other men, has become increasingly prominent in Raimund Hoghe’s recent pieces [including] Sacre - The Rite of Spring”. Gerald Siegmund, “The Mirror and the Empty Stage: Raimund Hoghe’s Staging of Desire”, in Hugo Haeghens, Fernand Haerden, Jeroen Peeters and Eef Proesmans (Eds.) Shadow Bodies. On Philipp Gehmacher and Raimund Hoghe, Limburg 2006, p. 107: Cultural Centre Maasmechelen and authors. 28 Ann Cooper Albright, Choreographing Difference, p. 76. 29 Various dance companies such as Dancing Wheels, Light Motion, Green Candle and CandoCo have sought in their production of works which contain disabled artists to disrupt the exclusionary cultural norms associated with dance. 30 Raimund Hoghe, Der Buckel (Produced for Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR), Germany, 1998) [VHS] Courtesy of the LiveArt UK archive.