Jacques Maritain writes in his work Art & Scholasticism that “art is before all intellectual and its activity consists in impressing an idea upon a matter” (8). Even if it is the case that an artist’s intention is to communicate that there is no significance to the world, that intention still exists; in other words, art cannot help but have meaning. (Otherwise, why create?)

With this in mind, I’ve been asking myself what is communicated with Merce’s movement. I’m still really interested in the prioritization of space and time in the dancer’s body and movement, and this is what I find really delightful while working on his choreography. Later on, Maritain also argues that “manual dexterity” is something extrinsic to art. But not with dance! Isn’t it the very opposite? That the dexterity of the artist is the very thing intrinsic to movement? I don’t think he had dance in mind, but this seems significant.

Another aspect of his work that I’ve really begun to appreciate is that it’s not “stripped.” (Out of the choreography we’ve learned so far, I love Pond Way – especially its layers, and the texture that comes with all of those layers. Also, I love Love LOVE the partnering bit we recently learned.) Often, I think I am under the impression that to understand what something is, you should take away its non-essential parts. But this is misleading. Does taking away a dog’s leg (a non-essential part of the dog) make it more of a dog? No. It just makes it a three-legged dog. In fact, you might argue that this reduction takes away from its “dog-ness,” because the animal is now less capable of performing the actions that dogs are generally good at doing, like running after and catching balls.