Unworking Choreography

There is no archive or museum of human movement, no place where choreographies can be collected and conserved in pristine form. The central consequence of this is the incapacity of philosophy and aesthetics to think of dance as a positive and empirical art. In the eyes of philosophers, dance refers to a space other than art, considered both more frivolous and more fundamental than the artwork without ever quite attaining the status of a work. Unworking Choreography develops this idea and postulates an unworking as evidenced by a conspicuous absence of references to actual choreographic works within philosophical accounts of dance; the late development and partial dominance of the notion of the work in dance in contrast to other art forms such as painting, music, and theatre; the difficulties in identifying dance works given a lack of scores and an apparent resistance within the art form to the possibility of notation; and the questioning of ends of dance in contemporary practice and the relativisation of the very idea that dance artistic or choreographic processes aim at work production.

Frédéric Pouillaude is Lecturer in Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art at the University of Paris-Sorbonne and Junior Member of the Institut Universitaire de France. This book was originally published in French as Le Désoeuvrement Chorégraphique. Étude sur la Notion d'Oeuvre en Danse (Vrin, 2009).

Preface to the English edition
Translator's Preface
Introduction and acknowledgements
PART 1: PHILOSOPHY OF DANCE AND THE ABSENTING OF WORKS
Chapter 1: On Transcendental Absenting Chapter 2: A Time with No Outside (Valéry and Jouissance) Chapter 3: A Space with No Place (Straus and Ecstasy) Chapter 4: The Absence of the Work: Presence, Expenditure, Auto-affection
PART 2: THE WORK (1): THE STAGE AND SIGNIFICATION
Chapter 1: Mallarmé: Deciphering the Stage Chapter 2: Spectacle, Ritual, Divertissement (Genesis and Structure of the Choreographic Stage, I) Chapter 3: Presence, Ideality, Signification (Genesis and Structure of the Choreographic Stage, II) Chapter 4: Artaud: Presence and Ritual
PART 3: THE WORK (2): IMMANENCE AND IDEALITY
Chapter 1: Writing That Says Nothing Chapter 2: Identity: Two Regimes Chapter 3: Oral Identities: Passing Dance on, Making Versions Chapter 4: The Supporting Trace: Images and Scores
PART 4: A TECHNIQUE WITH NO OBJECT
Chapter 1: What is a Dance Technique? Chapter 2: Technique or Language: An Analogical Impasse Chapter 3: Lack of Tools as Loss of Memory Chapter 4: Intending the Unintentional, Repeating the Unrepeatable
Conclusion (1): Reflect and Repeat
Section 1: Stage and Contemporaneity Section 2: The Reflexive Labour of Performance Section 3: The Memorial Labour of the Work
Conclusion (2): Gesture and Trace
Appendix of illustrations
Bibliography and References