Ronnie Ancona (Hunter College and CUNY Graduate Center)
Translation is a kind of reception or perhaps reception is a kind of translation. The boundaries between the two are porous and there are competing definitions and approaches to these “twin” activities (see, e.g., Lianeri, 2019). Jacobson’s phrase “intersemiotic translation,” cited in the CFP for this panel, foregrounds the fluidity or changeability of the medium, recognizing that translation can occur from one system of meaning or language, verbal or visual, to another. This paper will discuss the visual translation of Greek myth in the mid-twentieth century modern dance of Martha Graham in terms of both the performance art of dance and the visual art of the sculpture/sets/props designed for these dances by Isamu Noguchi (Tracy, 2001; Eilber, 2004; Zong, 2019).
Graham and Noguchi had a long collaboration and the Greek myth-based dance pieces that emerged reflect the creative input of both individuals. While work has been done on Martha Graham’s Greek myth-based dances (see, e.g., Yaari, 2003; Bannerman, 2010; Zajko, 2010), the contribution of Noguchi’s objects has been understudied. This paper attempts to fill that gap. In doing so, it will address a translation into the visual of Greek myth that is cognizant of how Noguchi’s objects can function somewhat like actors, to borrow Mueller’s phrase applied to Greek tragedy (Mueller 2016).
While verbal language does not completely disappear in Martha Graham’s Greek myth-based modern dance (dancers’ roles have names and program notes tell stories – and both can change over time), meaning is largely co-created by the movement of the body and by sets/props/costumes, which occupy a liminal space between the stationary and the dynamic. The affective quality of this kind of “intersemiotic translation” is produced through literally “embodying” stories through movement and through the “objects” that situate, reflect, and spur on that movement (Mueller and Telò, 2018).
To explain and illustrate this dual visual translation, I will discuss the role of Noguchi’s “objects” in two dance pieces, “Cave of the Heart” (see Ancona, 2020), and “Night Journey” in shaping and responding to the movement of the dancer’s bodies. Included among the objects I will discuss in detail are Noguchi’s “Spider Dress” in “Cave” and his “Bed” in “Night Journey.” These objects are transformative for the versions of the myths of Medea (in “Cave”) and Jocasta (in “NJ”) that emerge. I hope to show how choreographer and sculptor/set designer, working in tandem, created new meanings for Greek myth without the use of words.
(The paper will include video and still images to illustrate the “visual translation.”)