Understanding Dance

Graham McFee

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2003
• ISBN:
  9781134899463
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Theatre

Understanding Dance is a comprehensive introduction to the aestethetics of dance, and will be an essential text for all those interested in dance as an object of study.
Focusing on the work of a number of major choreographers, companies and critics Graham McFee explores the nature of our understanding of Dance by considering the practice of understanding dance-works themselves. He concludes with a validation of the place of dance in society and in education. Troughout he provides detailed insights into the nature and appreciation of art as well as a general grouding in philosophy.

PART I

Groundwork

1

Basic Concepts for Aesthetics

As stated in the introduction, the topic of this book is the aesthetics of dance, and particularly our understanding of the idea of understanding dance. But it is not exclusively about dance. First, throughout the work examples from the other arts are used to make clearer how certain points apply to dance: that is to say, parallels with the other arts offer clarity. But second, general philosophical points are presupposed. In this chapter I shall provide some argument and some elucidation of three such points, as follows:

` the demand for ‘definiteness’—in particular, for a definition of, for example, ‘dance’—is to be rejected. It is neither helpful nor possible,

` judgements of art—in our case, of dance—are not bound to be subjective judgements. That is to say, it is a mistake to regard such judgements as necessarily subjective. A proper understanding of objectivity makes it plain that, in any interesting sense, such aesthetic judgements can be perfectly objective, at least if they are ‘done’ properly.

` there is an important distinction to be drawn between the judgements that we make about works of art—what might be called ‘artistic judgement and appreciation’—and the other aesthetic judgements that we make, for example those of natural beauty, graceful movement, elegance in man-made devices and so on. This distinction between what has been called artistic judgement and (merely) aesthetic judgement (Best, 1978a, pp. 113–16; Best, 1985, pp. 153–8) is fundamental because our interest in understanding dance lies in understanding dance viewed as art: that is, in the making of artistic judgements of dance.

Anyone who is happy to accept these three points or, better, who is familiar with the philosophical arguments which support them, can pursue the dance interest by turning to Chapters 2. For the rest, my aim lies in giving at least some reason for believing each of these three claims.

Definition and ‘definiteness’

Faced with questions about the nature of dance and about the nature of our understanding of dance, many writers—especially students—often begin their efforts by attempting to define key terms. So they search set texts for accounts of what dance is, or what understanding is. Again, a typical response to the question ‘What is the difference between dance and gymnastics?’ would have one group of people trying to say what dance was/is, another trying to sort out gymnastics in the same way— the thought being that putting together these accounts would answer the question. Both of these procedures are based on two assumptions: first, that definitions of such terms are possible; second, that these definitions are helpful—that having a definition of a term shows that you understand that term and, more importantly, that not having the definition implies that you do not understand. I shall urge that both of these assumptions are unjustified.

In the sections below I shall explain three points against the need for and possibility of definitions, and produce an argument for them. First, though, it is useful to say something about what a definition is, for the word ‘definition’ is used in English in a number of different ways. What I shall mean here by a definition of a particular term is an explanation which has ‘exact fit’ on that term. Moreover, it must be something fairly brief. So one might say that a definition is a concise yet comprehensive characterization of a term, having an exact fit on that term. To explain with a simple example, consider the term ‘triangle’. A triangle is (i) a plane figure, (ii) with three straight sides, and (iii) completely bounded by those sides. This explanation, in terms of conditions i, ii and iii, has an exact fit on the notion ‘triangle’. We can see this by noting two things. First, anything which fulfils these three conditions is bound to be a triangle. We might say that these three conditions combined are sufficient to guarantee that any figure which satisfies them will be a triangle. And no more conditions are necessary. Suppose we add a fourth condition: (iv) has three sides of equal length. Now, anything which satisfies all four conditions will be an equilateral triangle. So adding the fourth condition means our explanation no longer has exact fit on ‘triangle’—for some triangles will then be excluded—for example, right-angle triangles. Second, any figure which fails to fulfil any one of the conditions (i), (ii) and (iii) is not a triangle. For example, a figure which satisfied (i) and (iii) but not (ii) might be a square or a rectangle or a pentagon. Or, a figure which satisfied (i) and (ii) but not (iii) might be some sort of open box shape, for example. So we might say that each of the three conditions individually was necessary. This discussion of a simple example illustrates what I mean by exact fit. A definition of a term will be an explanation with exact fit.

At this point, it might be objected that when, say, students offer definitions at the beginnings of essays, they are not looking for definitions such as these. They are looking for something less than exact fit. My reply is that by their own lights they should be searching for an exact fit definition. That is to say, in both the cases described initially they are looking for an explanation which covers all cases, not just some. If all that was wanted were some helpful hints as to what dance was, these might be got without drawing any contrast with, say, gymnastics. And notice, too, that if we mean our definitions to have exact fit, then they can be right (if they have exact fit) or wrong (if they don't). By contrast, if the intention were only to give a helpful hint, then it can only be judged on whether or not it actually is helpful. The point is that such helpfulness could not be determined independently of what was then done with the ‘definition’. The so-called definition would not provide a neutral starting point for the essay, but would be judged in terms of what followed. This seems the exact opposite of what the writers or students in question desired. So I conclude that it is reasonable to expect definitions to have exact fit.

Definitions are not required for understanding

The first point is that we can understand terms perfectly well without being able to define those terms. For example, we understand time—we are able to tell the time, to recognize when we are on time for lectures and when we are not, and perhaps to explain the International Date Line— but we cannot define ‘time’. This example makes plain that one can understand something quite well without being able to define it: and that means that one can know or understand things without (always) being able to say what one knows. The fact that one knows or understands is really quite plain in one's behaviour. Nor is time an isolated example here. Most of the words we use in everyday life we do not, as a matter of fact, need to define in order to understand them. It seems clear, then, that definitions are not required for understanding.

Definitions do not really aid understanding

The second point to be recognized here is that a definition itself must be understood. Suppose, to take a simple example, I don't know what bachelors are. Now, if I am not to just take your word for it, I have to check up on whatever you tell me. For you might be mistaken and tell me that bachelors are married men. To know that you are wrong, I must know what bachelors are. And that means know it before getting a definition.

One must understand what is being defined in order that one judge for oneself the accuracy of a definition. Moreover, the definition itself must be understood—I must know what the words ‘unmarried’, ‘married’ mean, if I am to understand what is being said when you claim that a bachelor is an unmarried man. But if I know that much about marriage, then I know what a bachelor is. At best, I just don't know the word ‘bachelor’.

This example explains the illusion that definitions are helpful. For sometimes all one lacks is a particular word, and then going to a dictionary, for example, may supply the word into that ‘gap’. But notice two things: first, dictionaries do not in general offer definitions, for they do not offer exact fit explanations. Rather, they give a kind of helpful hint. Second, the dictionary explanation of a particular word fits into the matrix of what one already understands, so it is really no major contribution to one's understanding.

The points raised in this section and the previous one support the two claims that (a) one can understand terms perfectly well without being able to define them, and (b) that having a definition is not in general an aid to understanding. Notice that the argument has worked through examples. Against those who would claim that a definition is required for understanding, I offered an example of understanding without definition. Against those who urge that definitions aid understanding, I presented two examples where the central elements of understanding were there prior to the definition and, indeed, were required in order to make sense of the definitions.

To approach the final point I will adopt a different style of argument. One cannot demonstrate the impossibility of defining non-technical terms of sufficient complexity to be interesting. Rather, I shall offer the challenge, by asserting that it is impossible. To make good that challenge, I shall offer reasons why such definitions are not possible, after explaining what I intend to exclude. First, the point of restricting the claim to non-technical terms is obvious: technical terms, like ‘triangle’, can be defined. Second, the restriction to ‘sufficient complexity to be interesting’ is there to put aside terms like ‘bachelor’. Perhaps they can be defined, but the ones that puzzle us—dance, understanding, knowledge, education, skill—are certainly not straightforward in this way. That is what makes them topics for discussion and debate.

Definition (of interesting terms) is impossible

To make good my challenge, consider ways in which a so-called definition of a non-technical term might go wrong. Let us take a simplified example: that of someone claiming to define art in terms of beauty (the Oxford English Dictionary might be seen as doing this). Now, to show that this definition is false, we need only produce a counterexample: an example of a work of art which is not beautiful. And that will show that the definition is false, because it will show that it lacks exact fit on the notion of art. There are plenty of examples in the canon of works which cannot reasonably be doubted to be art: Goya's painting Saturn Eating His Children, for example, or Shakespeare's play Titus Andronicus. These are art, but not beautiful. And even one such example will show that the putative definition is wrong. So here we see how anything offered as a definition will be susceptible to counter-examples. Notice too that the counter-example does indeed establish that the claim— for example, the Oxford English Dictionary's claim—is false, for the dictionary could be seen as saying that all examples of art were beautiful, and the counter-example as showing that this was not so. This is important, in so far as objectors might claim that all that was being urged was that some cases were like this. But of course, to be urging that would no longer involve offering an exact fit definition.

Someone who still liked the idea of seeing art as somehow connected to beauty might take one of two lines. First, and sensibly, he might give up the definition and content himself with saying that most art (or even some art) is beautiful. Or, second, he might insist on the definition, and say instead that by the word ‘beauty’ in this context was not meant what is usually meant by that term. So far, so good. But now he must explain what is meant by ‘beauty’. And the worry here is that he will explain it as a special art-type beauty: that is, he will explain art in terms of a special sort of beauty, and the special sort of beauty in terms of art. This is no sort of explanation at all. He has made his definition depend on the sort of things it is supposed to explain. So the definition is empty, or vacuous. Thus, this second route, the one which preserves the definition, is seen to be foolhardy.

These, then, are the two ways in which definitions can go wrong. They can be shown to be false by counter-examples, or they can be found to be empty, because they are explained ‘in a circle’, as it were. My claim, then, is that all the so-called definitions of interesting terms will go wrong in one or other of these ways, and hence not be definitions at all, because they will lack exact fit. One might think of the first sort of going wrong—via counter-examples—as a case where the definition has an exact fit on something, but not on the term it was supposed to define. And then the second sort of going wrong— vacuousness—would be where the definition is too ‘baggy’ to have an exact fit on anything.

I have argued that definitions are not necessary for understanding, and that they do not really aid understanding. Moreover, I have offered a challenge by claiming that all definitions of non-technical terms would go wrong either by being shown false via counter-examples, or by being vacuous because explained in a circular fashion. I have not proved that this is so, but I have given some reason for thinking that it is so.

Contrasts and examples do contribute to understanding

If the points urged above were accepted, does this mean that clarification of key ideas is pointless? Clearly any such clarification should not proceed through the offering of definitions, but does that mean it should not proceed at all? Since the answer to this is no, we must look for some other means of making clarifications.

One procedure is to give clear examples—examples of what one does mean, or of what one is talking about, and also examples of what one is not talking about. In this way, one utilizes the sort of knowledge and understanding that the reader brings to the piece of writing or discussion: in fact, the sorts of things needed to assess any attempted definition. The second method, building on the first, is to clarify what the term at issue is to be compared or contrasted with. Consider, for example, the term ‘real’ (see Austin, 1970: pp. 86–9). One might have thought of defining ‘real’, but clearly the word ‘real’ amounts to different things in different contexts. For example, the real colour of a shirt might be contrasted with the colour after it was dyed, or the colour it looks under ultraviolet light; a real duck might be contrasted with a decoy duck, or with Donald Duck. (So that if I said I was not interested in real ducks, you would not know if my concern was dummies, or cartoons —or geese!) The point here is that one explains words and ideas with such contrasts and comparisons.

To apply, if asked the difference between dance and gymnastics, a good idea might be to think of specific differences in a particular context. That is to say, not to consider the question ‘What is dance?’ and ‘What is gymnastics?’, but instead to look at the question ‘When is gymnastics contrasted with dance?’. And this might also direct one's attention to, for example, the context of one's discussion. What are we asking the question for? We will see, particularly in Chapters 2, that this is a crucial idea.

To conclude, then, I have argued against the need for definitions, and against the possibility of giving them.

The objectivity of appreciation

This is the second general philosophical point noted initially in this chapter: that judgements of dance are not bound to be subjective judgements. So one might expect this section to be about subjectivity. However, I have chosen to draw attention to the correlative notion, objectivity, to emphasize the commitment throughout this work to the idea of judgements, appraisals, evaluations and the like made within the domain of art as being objective judgements; and that this is so even though the judgements are made, not on the basis of some measurement (as they really never can be), but on the basis of observations by some informed person.

The problem before us—that concerning the objectivity of aesthetic judgement—appears in many forms and in many places. It arises whenever aesthetic judgements are made. And one reason here is that the possibility of aesthetic value (of a non-monetary sort) is often associated (for reasons we will come to) with the possibility of aesthetic judgements being objective. However, the problem is perhaps most easily seen in questions concerned with aesthetic education (for example Best, 1987). All art-critical judgements raise the question of objectivity/ subjectivity. But those concerned with aesthetic education, and especially the assessment of success with respect to aesthetic education, bring the question into the open, since the value dimension is explicit there. There are two apparently contradictory tensions. The first is the need for objective assessment. In some sense, anything in education requires an objective assessment: a need to discern or assess that the pupil has understood, learned. Without some such procedure the claims of educators must seem wayward. Moreover, as we shall see, if objective assessment is, in principle, impossible, there is reason to believe that the notion of learning can g...