Dr. Angenette Spalink To Discuss New Book ‘Choreographing Dirt’ At Friday Launch Event
Dr. Angenette Spalink, assistant professor in Performance Studies, will discuss her new book “Choreographing Dirt: Movement, Performance, and Ecology in the Anthropocene” Friday at 3 p.m. in the Liberal Arts and Arts and Humanities Building, Room 255.
The discussion is presented by the Visual, Material and Performance Cultures in the Texas A&M School of Performance, Visualization and Fine Arts. Spalink’s presentation will be in a question-and-answer format, led by Dr. Katie Schaag, multimedia artist and assistant professor of theatre and performance at Spelman College.
“I am excited to get to talk about my research, which is something we don’t always get to do very often,” Spalink said. “I plan to talk about dirt and performance, and hopefully engage the audience in an embodied activity that allows them to experience the movement of dirt.”
Spalink’s book focuses on performances that implement dirt and examines how the choreography of dirt makes biological and cultural meaning. It features case studies including dramatic literature, modern dance and dance-theatre.
The initial research for Spalink’s book came from her doctoral dissertation, which she completed at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. She looked at specific performances that utilize dirt in different ways, and how it revealed how people think about nature and culture.
“I researched one production where performers were dancing in these big bins filled with dirt,” Spalink said. “When you are bringing dirt into a space, it is getting up into the lights, the fixtures, and people might be breathing it in. And there is this initial impulse to say, ‘No, that is nature. We don’t bring nature into a culturally constructed space like a theater.’”
The book takes the idea of dirt in new spaces further, she said. It expands on a scientific understanding of dirt, which is “soil that has been removed from its original, ecological environment,” Spalink said.
“Moving soil changes it biologically. Removed from its original ecological context, it becomes dirt,” she said. “When you take the dirt into a theatrical space, it becomes a performer. I thought about it choreographically — how does this movement make geographical, biological and cultural meaning? And what does it mean to bring dirt into a theatrical space with human performers?”
Spalink analyzed productions including Pina Bausch’s “The Rite of Spring,” which was staged in 1975. Bausch used peat moss onstage among dancers who wore almost transparent dresses, Spalink said. As the dancers would sweat, the peat moss stuck to them and the dirt became more visible. This contrasts formal classical ballet productions, which emphasize clean aesthetics and movement that appears effortless, she said.
“This production with peat moss shows that movement takes effort,” Spalink said. “The dancers are sweating and peat is sticking to their bodies. In my book, I look at the movement of the peat and how it rendered the dancers’ bodies visible in a particular way.”
Spalink also researched ecological impacts, including how peat moss absorbs carbon, which prevents it from going into the atmosphere. Because carbon in the atmosphere contributes to climate change, Spalink said she studied peat bogs, where peat is accumulated.
“When peat is harvested for industrial use, all of that carbon is released back into the atmosphere,” she said. “I looked at the ecological ramifications of this in my book. For peat to be used onstage in production, it had to be taken from somewhere. I started thinking about the ecological implications of taking peat and treating it as an object that is boxed up and used onstage.”
Spalink said she hopes her book helps people to think about how they move through the world, and to become more aware of the invisible things they interact with every day, she said.
“We as humans are not autonomous units — we are made of a ton of different things,” she said. “I hope people think about their own composition of themselves differently and how that is meshed with the world around them.
“Does it give a different perspective? Does it make you think about how you are interacting with things? Does it make you think about things as more than an object that you can take — this flower or this thing of dirt? Overall, what would it mean to have a more reciprocal or consensual relationship with dirt?”
