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Jean Erdman and the Dance of Mythology: The Imagination in the Body with Teddy Hamstra, Ph.D., Begins
Three Week Class Taught Online Via Zoom
DATE TBD
7pm-8:30 pm Eastern
$150 Paid Patreon Members / $175 General Admission
PLEASE NOTE: All classes will also be recorded and archived for students who cannot make that time.
Jean Erdman (1916-2020) lived to the rather mythic age of 104, which is appropriate for an artist who sought to encapsulate the magic and mystery of mythology in her choreography and modern dance works. This course will trace the evolution of mythic inspiration across her career, from her early tutelage under the titan of modern dance Martha Graham, through her marriage to, and creative partnership with, the renowned mythologist Joseph Campbell, and finally through her late career pieces which were infused with literature, art history, anthropology, and much more. Approaching Erdman as a scholar of mythology and mysticism, I am drawn to the ways that her movement practices sought to locate storytelling and abstract thoughts within the body and its expression in choreography. We will explore the role of the mythological archetypes of Medusa, Hamadryad, Ophelia, and various touchstones from Arthurian romances, in her early work, in conjunction with her participation in a postwar New York arts scene alongside luminaries like Graham, John Cage, Isamu Noguchi, and Maya Deren. An entire class will be devoted to examining in-depth what many believe to be her masterwork, "The Coach with the Six Insides" from the early 1960s which "adapted" James Joyce's famously unreadable final novel "Finnegan's Wake." What Erdman achieved with "The Coach" is remarkable in and of itself, essentially translating the playful, musical, babbling prose of Joyce into embodied gestures and choreography, but more specifically, the piece is a mythic journey through the underworld and the realms of death via the medium of dance. As such, I believe it to be one of the great understudied artworks, of any kind, of the twentieth century, and hopefully this session will leave you contemplating that as well. Later works by Erdman explored lunar and solstice mythologies, adapting literary sources such as W.B. Yeats and William Blake in the process, allowing us to consider further the manner in which she was not merely a multimedia artist but in many ways a "cross-media" artist who seamlessly blends the musical into the realm of dance along the visual arts and literature. Utilizing extensive archival findings from my time at the New York Public Library Performing Arts Center, this course will offer a unique window into Jean Erdman, the woman who made mythology dance.
Three Week Class Taught Online Via Zoom
DATE TBD
7pm-8:30 pm Eastern
$150 Paid Patreon Members / $175 General Admission
PLEASE NOTE: All classes will also be recorded and archived for students who cannot make that time.
Jean Erdman (1916-2020) lived to the rather mythic age of 104, which is appropriate for an artist who sought to encapsulate the magic and mystery of mythology in her choreography and modern dance works. This course will trace the evolution of mythic inspiration across her career, from her early tutelage under the titan of modern dance Martha Graham, through her marriage to, and creative partnership with, the renowned mythologist Joseph Campbell, and finally through her late career pieces which were infused with literature, art history, anthropology, and much more. Approaching Erdman as a scholar of mythology and mysticism, I am drawn to the ways that her movement practices sought to locate storytelling and abstract thoughts within the body and its expression in choreography. We will explore the role of the mythological archetypes of Medusa, Hamadryad, Ophelia, and various touchstones from Arthurian romances, in her early work, in conjunction with her participation in a postwar New York arts scene alongside luminaries like Graham, John Cage, Isamu Noguchi, and Maya Deren. An entire class will be devoted to examining in-depth what many believe to be her masterwork, "The Coach with the Six Insides" from the early 1960s which "adapted" James Joyce's famously unreadable final novel "Finnegan's Wake." What Erdman achieved with "The Coach" is remarkable in and of itself, essentially translating the playful, musical, babbling prose of Joyce into embodied gestures and choreography, but more specifically, the piece is a mythic journey through the underworld and the realms of death via the medium of dance. As such, I believe it to be one of the great understudied artworks, of any kind, of the twentieth century, and hopefully this session will leave you contemplating that as well. Later works by Erdman explored lunar and solstice mythologies, adapting literary sources such as W.B. Yeats and William Blake in the process, allowing us to consider further the manner in which she was not merely a multimedia artist but in many ways a "cross-media" artist who seamlessly blends the musical into the realm of dance along the visual arts and literature. Utilizing extensive archival findings from my time at the New York Public Library Performing Arts Center, this course will offer a unique window into Jean Erdman, the woman who made mythology dance.