Issue #16
Spring 1998
Fame

I conceived of this project as a way to sort out my own, often conflicting, feelings about the kind and degree of recognition I want as a dance maker and performer, and the dissatisfaction we all have at times with the nature of the presence or the lack of presence that dance and performance have in the larger world. I also wanted to examine more closely how the whole seemingly mysterious apparatus of fame operates. Beyond questions of quality of work, or who deserves it, how and why are some creators "thrust into the limelight" as the cliche goes, and others not? Luck? Timing? Hard work? Media savvy? So I was pleased Movement Research took up my suggestion to build an issue of the journal around "Fame," and even more pleased when Anya Pryor asked me to co-edit the issue with her.
Fame to me is all tangled up with the idea of presence, or at least about perceived presence. I am someone who shuttles back and forth between two contrary perceptions of my own presence within the loosely-grouped constellation of individuals, groups and institutions we call the downtown dance community. On a good day, I feel known, engaged, present in the community, and by extension in the larger world of dance. On a bad day I feel invisible, alienated, isolated, in ways that have just as much to do with autobiography, personal patterns and history as they do with "objective" events such as how much my name gets in the papers, how many friends I have or how much financial support I receive. And actually the terms "good day" and "bad day" mislead: aspects of both positions are useful and stimulating in terms of keeping the work going.
The topic of fame has tentacles that reach out to a host of other issues relevant to our lives as performers, such as how we define our own success in the marginalized fields of experimental dance and performance. And how can dance and performance itself find its presence, its audience, in or against the larger world? What role do critics play in the larger public's knowledge of dance/performance and in the shaping of individual careers?
Editorial team
Contributing Editor
Linda Austin - Anya Pryor
Design
Jana DeWitt - Andrew Fearnside
Contributor
Mary Overlie - Keith Hennessy - Lucy Sexton - Mike Taylor - Deborah Jowitt - Deborah Slater - Doris Green - Daniel Nagrin - Joanne Nerenberg - Joanne Nerenberg - Trajal Harrell - Ananya Chatterjea - Frank Moore - Kate Mattingly - Ann Farmer - Barbara Barg - Yvonne Rainer - Linda Austin - Anya Pryor
Articles
Editor’s Note
Why is the Movement Research Performance Journal doing an issue on FAME anyway? Isn't FAME, with its associations of commerciality and mass media celebrity, stunningly irrelevant for an alternative publication...
On Fame
Somehow this topic makes me churn inside. That is not to say I haven't spent a great deal of time thinking on the issues and dealing with them in my...
Keith Hennessy On Fame: Letter to MR Journal
I can't seem to get to writing on Fame. Funny, I can't seem to get to being Famous either. The biggest reason I want Fame is for the money; and...
A Defense of Fame: Home Shopping, Downtown Dance, and the Importance of the Oscars
Julian Schnabel is a famous fuck, we can all agree on that, right? Perhaps, but I'll never forget reading an interview with him in his late 80's when, on being...
Excerpts from The Dancenoise Phenomenon-- faux documentary video
Richard Foreman (playwright/director): I speak from a rather unique point of view, unique concerning someone who's been so profoundly influenced by their work, in that I've never actually seen one...
The F Word
When I began to write criticism for The Village Voice in November of 1967, I was a young dancer with — according to Clive Barnes — a modest, yet competent...
Do The Work
In 1976 I was in graduate school at San Francisco State University getting a Masters degree in Interdisciplinary Arts. At that time the program was considered so weird the degree...
Displaced Traditions
Words such as the chosen, fame and critics are not relevant to African dance. Criticism of African dance, particularly by those who are not part of the way of life...
The Application
Grants: The giving of grants is implicitly an act of criticism: so-and-so gets a $25,000 grant. So-and-so receives $2,500. There is no escaping the assumption that one of these is...
The Gag Rule
Ambition is always loaded. Sleazy connotations, naive young hope, and American tenacity come packed in. Shaped to match are junk bondsmen, Audrey Hepburn characters, and myths of the self-made man....
Huck Hirsch ‘As if He Were In The Movie’ Fame
I've been working on a dance piece involving some music from the soundtrack of the movie Fame. Although I tried to write about something else for this issue, in the...
Some Thoughts on “Unable to Remember Roop Kanwar”
I want to dedicate this space to a woman who, exactly ten years ago, was accorded international recognition. This recognition, or fame, came at the moment of her death in...
What Price Fame
I don't know why artists think fame is all that hard to get, or something worthy of seeking. Why, it's as easy as falling off a log, as easy as...
They’ve Got It
If fame is mass appeal, try to top a dance troupe that performs for crowds of 19,706 at least 41 times a year. They’re the Knicks City Dancers: “the most...
Profile: Dan Wagoner
"The very word-fame makes me cringe," says Dan Wagoner with a soft chuckle; his friendly, open face cupped in his hands. At age sixty-five, Wagoner is a well-known and respected...
He Thinks Who The Hell He Is
CP: Could you tell us what your superpowers are Mr. Zuccolo? GZ: I can fly. And I have power blasts out my hands. When did you first realize you had...
Famous People
Famous people are always dying. You rarely hear of any being born though. Do their progenitors send glow worms down through haloed thighs? Is a lengthier episiotomy required? What things...
Fame is Fleeting: But Humiliation Lasts Forever
Maureen Ellenhorn is a choreographer and improvisor who has been creating solo work for the past three years. She is a 1996-97 Movement Research Artist-in-Resident and is currently working in...
Zimmers
Zimmer #1 It's not who you know, it's who knows you. Make sure they spell your name right. Zimmer #2 People who receive ample monetary rewards for their work, for...
Token Minimalist Dancing Girl Yvonne Rainer talks with Linda Austin & Anya Pryor
AP: One of the things I was interested in was relationships with critics. I wondered if you felt a particular connection with any of them, if what they wrote ever...