Contribution in an anthology

Appeared in: Choreographies of 21st Century Wars

Editor list: Morris, Gay; Giersdorf, Jens Richard

Publication year: 2016

Pages: 315-332

ISBN: 978-0-19-020166-1

eISBN: 978-0-19-020169-2

DOI Link: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190201661.003.0016

Abstract: 

In the wake of the invasion of Iraq in 2003 by the United States and its allies, Three Atmospheric Studies by William Forsythe questions our relationship to war in light of the flood of war images and twenty-four-hour media coverage. Taking its cue from a structural analogy between a press photo and a painting from the early 16th century, the three-act ballet engages in a complex process of medial translations that shatter any safe ground from which to judge the events depicted. The text analyzes how these transformations into dance and movement, language and theater, and thus into different genres and their modes of listening and seeing are accomplished. What the piece ultimately proposes is the different nature of theater images, which, unlike media images, do not play off their truth value, but are images that solicit language and discourse as active engagements with war and its representations.

Harvard Citation style: Siegmund, G. (2016) After Cranach: War, Representation, and the Body in William Forsythe’s Three Atmospheric Studies, in Morris, G. and Giersdorf, J. (eds.) Choreographies of 21st Century Wars. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, pp. 315-332. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190201661.003.0016

APA Citation style: Siegmund, G. (2016). After Cranach: War, Representation, and the Body in William Forsythe’s Three Atmospheric Studies. In Morris, G., & Giersdorf, J. (Eds.), Choreographies of 21st Century Wars (pp. 315-332). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190201661.003.0016